A Brief History of NASCAR

Stock Car racing originally developed from bootlegging back during the times of the Prohibition Act. Moonshiners would tweak their cars for speed, handling, and cargo space so as to evade the authorities easier. However, many drivers also grew fond of speeding down rural roads and paths, so they continued tweaking their cars even after the Act was lifted.

As the cars grew even faster in the late 1930s and early 1940s, races started being held for profit and entertainment (not to mention pride). On March 8th, 1936, drivers from all over gathered at Daytona Beach for a race that would determine the best drivers with the quickest cars. Only ten of the original 27 cars finished the race, and driver Bill France was one of them. In 1947 he formed the National Championship Stock Car Series (NCSSC) and held a competition of 40 racing events at different tracks around the United States. Often the races drew large crowds that exceeded the seating, and France offered $1,000 and a trophy to the championship winner at the end of the season, along with $3,000 in prize money.

NASCAR as it's know today began mainly in the 1970s with sturcture changes and sponsorship from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), which found NASCAR to be a substantial market for advertising since tobacco companies had been pulled from TV advertising. Because of this, the Grand National Series was renamed the Winston Cup Series, and the name Grand National became the name of the next level down's series (which would also find a sponsor in Busch Beer, making it known as the NASCAR Busch Series). In 1972, races were shortened from 48 to 31, and in 1979 the Daytona 500 was broadcast on CBS and became the first televised stock car race in the nation.

Since then, NASCAR has changed to different sponsors for each of its classes. The Winston Cup Series, the premier division of NASCAR, became known as the Nextel Cup Series in 2004 and then the Sprint Cup Series in 2008 after a merger between Sprint and Nextel. The NASCAR Busch series was renamed the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2008 after the Busch sponsorship expired in 2007, and the Craftsman Truck Series, a series featuring stock trucks rather than stock cars, was renamed the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2009.

Since its founding, NASCAR has stayed close to its Southern roots, beginnning each season with the Daytona 500 in February and ending at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Novemeber. Today, NASCAR is the second-most watched professional sport behind the National Football League (NFL) and holds races for all its series in 39 states, Canada, and Mexico. With 17 of the nation's top 20 most watched sports ventures, it is also the number one spectator sport currently in the country.