Brief History

Stock car racing in the United States has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition - bootleggers typically used fast cars to evade the police and many of the drivers would modify their vehicles for speed and handling.

The cars continued to improve and, by the late 1940s (after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933), races featuring these cars were being run regularly in the rural Southern United States, particularly within the Wilkes County region of North Carolina and also on Daytona Beach, Florida.

Following a series of meetings with other drivers held at the Streamline Hotel in Florida, NASCAR was founded on February 21st, 1948 by Bill France Sr. In 1947, France had decided the racing would not grow without standardised rules, a regular schedule, and an organized championship; and so he decided to form a formal sanctioning organization.

Originally there were three divisions, Modifieds, Roadsters and Strictly Stock.

The first race in the "strictly stock" division was held on June 19th, 1949 at a 3/4 mile dirt track called Charlotte Speedway. Jim Roper won that very first race. This division grew to become the Sprint Cup series that we know today.

The race was to finish in dramatic style - leaders Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison tangled down the backstretch on the final lap, crashing into the outside wall and out of the race.

The cars settled on the infield grass and Donnie Allison and Yarborough began to argue. The confrontation had just settled down when Donnie's brother Bobby Allison, who was one lap down at that point, also stopped and a fight broke out. Richard Petty, who was over half a lap behind before the incident, went on to win.

The story made the front page of The New York Times Sports section. NASCAR had arrived as a national sport, and began to expand from its Southeastern United States base to become a national sport, shedding its moonshine-running roots along the way.