70 Fun Facts About NASCAR

In what year was NASCAR founded?

The organizing meetings ran through December 1947 and the paperwork was signed on February 21, 1948, a week after the first sanctioned race on the Daytona beach course.

The December 1947 meetings that formed NASCAR were held in the Ebony Bar of which Daytona Beach hotel?

The talks took place in the Ebony Bar on the hotel's rooftop, and the Streamline still operates on Atlantic Avenue today.

Who founded NASCAR?

"Big Bill" was a Washington, D.C. mechanic who moved his family to Daytona in the 1930s and went on to build both Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.

Who won the very first race of NASCAR's top division on June 19, 1949?

Glenn Dunaway crossed the line first but was disqualified for illegal rear springs, handing the win to Roper, who had driven his Lincoln to the race from Kansas.

What was NASCAR's top division called in its first season, 1949?

The name meant exactly that: showroom cars with almost no modifications allowed, which is why the first winner was disqualified over his springs.

From 1971 to 2003, NASCAR's top series carried the name of which cigarette brand?

The R. J. Reynolds deal came just as tobacco advertising was banned from American television, so sponsoring a series was a way to keep the brand on screen.

Which drinks brand was the Cup Series title sponsor from 2017 to 2019?

It was the last title sponsor of the top series; since 2020 it has simply been the NASCAR Cup Series with a group of 'premier partners' instead.

Beginning in 2026, NASCAR's second-tier national series took the name of which sponsor?

The series had been the Busch Series, the Nationwide Series and, from 2015 to 2025, the Xfinity Series.

Who won the inaugural championship of NASCAR's pickup-truck series in 1995?

The trucks were called the SuperTruck Series for that first season only, and their first race was run at Phoenix on February 5, 1995.

Where is the NASCAR Hall of Fame, opened in 2010?

It sits in uptown Charlotte, a short drive from the race shops of most Cup teams, and its inaugural class was inducted the day after the 2010 All-Star Race.

Which NASCAR pioneer, credited with discovering drafting at the 1960 Daytona 500, got a Reagan pardon for moonshining?

He had spent a year in an Ohio federal prison for running a still; the pardon came in December 1986, two decades after he retired from driving.

Who became the first Black driver to win at NASCAR's top level, at Jacksonville in December 1963?

Officials initially flagged another driver as winner and only awarded him the victory hours later; he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015.

Greased Lightning, the biopic of NASCAR's first Black race winner, starred which comedian?

The film played loose with the facts, but its subject was a Danville, Virginia, mechanic who ran his own team on a shoestring for more than a decade.

Who was named winner of the inaugural 1959 Daytona 500, three days after the photo finish?

Beauchamp was sent to victory lane as the unofficial winner, and the reversal came only after photographs and newsreel footage were studied.

How many laps does it take to complete the Daytona 500?

The 2.5-mile tri-oval makes the math simple, and since 1982 the race has opened the Cup season rather than sitting mid-schedule.

The Daytona 500 winner receives a trophy named after which General Motors design chief?

The trophy has been handed out since 1997 and depicts the Firebird I concept car, an Earl design that also served as the 1959 race's pace car.

The 1979 Daytona 500 was the first 500-mile race broadcast live flag-to-flag. On which network?

A huge snowstorm had trapped much of the East Coast indoors that Sunday, so millions of first-time viewers watched the brawl unfold live.

The 1988 Daytona 500 produced the race's first father-son one-two finish. Which family?

It was also the first Daytona 500 run with restrictor plates, and the father beat his son by about a car length.

Which driver got his first Cup win, in his 463rd start, at the 2001 Daytona 500?

It remains the longest wait for a first win in series history, and the celebration was cut short by the news that his car owner had been killed on the final lap.

Who won the 2011 Daytona 500 the day after his 20th birthday, becoming the race's youngest winner?

It was his only Cup win in 187 career starts, and it gave the Wood Brothers their first victory in a decade.

Who won the 2022 Daytona 500, the first points race for the Next Gen car?

The win came in just his eighth Cup start, driving the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske, whose owner Roger Penske was celebrating his 85th birthday that weekend.

How many Cup Series races did 'the King', Richard Petty, win in his career?

Nobody else has reached 110; the total includes seven Daytona 500s and seven championships, and his final start was the 1992 season finale at Atlanta.

In 1967, Richard Petty set a record by winning how many consecutive races?

He won 27 of the 48 races he entered that season, both still records for a single year.

In Pixar's Cars, Richard Petty voices Strip 'The King' Weathers. What model of car is the character?

It is the winged Plymouth Petty actually raced in 1970, painted in his signature Petty Blue.

Dale Earnhardt's black Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing carried which number?

The number and the GM Goodwrench black paint became so linked to him that fans still hold up three fingers on lap three of the Daytona 500.

Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500 in 1998. On which attempt?

Crew members from every team lined pit road to shake his hand on the way to victory lane; he had lost the race in every way imaginable, including a flat tire on the last lap in 1990.

Which safety gear, which Dale Earnhardt had refused to wear, did NASCAR mandate in October 2001?

The head-and-neck restraint had been available for years, but most drivers found it uncomfortable until Earnhardt's death made it non-negotiable.

Dale Earnhardt was born in which North Carolina town?

The mill town's minor-league ballpark later became home to the Kannapolis Intimidators, named in his honor.

Who took over Dale Earnhardt's seat and won at Atlanta three weeks later by 0.006 seconds?

The car was renumbered from 3 to 29 and repainted white; he went on to win the 2014 championship and retire with 60 Cup wins.

Jeff Gordon's rainbow-liveried DuPont Chevrolet carried which number?

Gordon was born in California, raised in Indiana and signed by Hendrick in 1992; his 93 wins are third all-time.

Jeff Gordon won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis a record how many times?

The first came in the inaugural 1994 race, a hometown win for a driver raised in Pittsboro, Indiana.

Which home-improvement chain sponsored Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 throughout his championship run?

Home Depot backed a rival Joe Gibbs car in the same era, giving the sport a decade-long hardware-store feud on the track.

Jimmie Johnson's record run of five straight championships ended in which year?

The streak began in 2006, and no other driver has won more than three in a row.

Who was the first driver to win three consecutive Cup championships, in 1976, 1977 and 1978?

All three came in Junior Johnson's cars, and he later added back-to-back Daytona 500 wins in 1983 and 1984.

Nicknamed 'the Silver Fox', which driver sits second on the all-time wins list with 105?

He rarely ran full seasons, so his 105 wins came from just 574 starts, and his 1976 Daytona 500 win came after he and Petty crashed within sight of the line.

Which 1992 champion celebrated wins with a clockwise 'Polish victory lap'?

He drove the wrong way round so fans could see the driver's side, and he took the title as an owner-driver by 10 points before dying in a plane crash the next April.

Whose 1987 airborne crash into the Talladega catch fence prompted the introduction of restrictor plates?

The car cut a tire at more than 200 mph and tore out a section of fencing near spectators; plates stayed on the cars at Daytona and Talladega until 2019.

Bill Elliott won NASCAR's Most Popular Driver award a record how many times?

'Awesome Bill from Dawsonville' won it every year from 1984 to 1988 and again through most of the 1990s; his son Chase later inherited the streak.

Which three-time champion opened Fox race broadcasts with 'Boogity, boogity, boogity'?

Nicknamed 'Jaws' in his driving days for his mouth as much as his aggression, he won titles in 1981, 1982 and 1985 and voices Darrell Cartrip in Cars.

Who is the only driver to have won championships in both IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series?

'Smoke' took the 1997 Indy Racing League title and Cup crowns in 2002, 2005 and 2011, the last as an owner-driver on a tiebreaker.

Who holds the record for most wins across NASCAR's three national series combined?

More than a hundred of those wins came in the second-tier series alone, a total no one else is close to.

Kyle Larson was suspended in 2020 after using a racial slur during what kind of event?

The comment went out on a live stream during the pandemic shutdown; Chip Ganassi Racing fired him, and he returned with Hendrick in 2021 and won the title.

Which driver, nicknamed 'Sliced Bread', became the youngest Cup race winner at 19 in 2009?

The nickname, as in 'greatest thing since', was hung on him as a teenager; he has since won three championships with Team Penske.

Which driver, raised on a watermelon farm, smashes a watermelon after NASCAR wins?

He worked the family farm until he was thirteen, and in 2025 he won the Coca-Cola 600 for Trackhouse Racing from last on the grid.

The 2022 Martinsville "Hail Melon" wall-ride was inspired by a game the driver played on which console as a kid?

He rode the wall through turns 3 and 4 flat out, passed five cars, and made the Championship 4; NASCAR banned the move the following season.

23XI Racing combines Michael Jordan's 23 with the car number of which co-owner?

Hamlin has driven the No. 11 for Joe Gibbs Racing his entire Cup career, so the name reads 23 and XI, the Roman numeral for eleven.

In 2013, who became the first woman to win the pole position for the Daytona 500?

She finished eighth in the race, still the best result by a woman in the event, five years after becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar race in Japan.

Which manufacturer joined the Cup Series in 2007, the first new brand since 1971?

Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota are now the only three makes on the grid; Dodge left after winning the 2012 championship with Brad Keselowski.

The playoff format originally called 'the Chase' debuted in which season?

It reset the points for the top ten with ten races left; eliminations arrived in 2014 and the word 'playoffs' in 2017.

From 2002 to 2019 the Cup Series season finale was held at which track?

The 2020 schedule shake-up moved the Florida race to March and handed the championship weekend to Phoenix.

The Next Gen car introduced in 2022 replaced five lug nuts per wheel with how many?

The 18-inch aluminum wheels use a single center-locking nut, which cut pit stops down and put an end to the loose-lug-nut penalties of the previous era.

After the 2019 Daytona 500, restrictor plates were retired in favor of what device?

The spacer does the same job of choking airflow to the engine but was already in use at every other track, so it simplified the rulebook.

How many crew members may go over the wall to service a car during a Cup pit stop?

Two tire changers, two tire carriers and a jackman is the usual mix, with the fueler counted among the five since the Next Gen era began.

In NASCAR, a solid black flag shown to a driver means what?

Ignore it long enough and the black flag with a white cross follows, meaning the car is no longer being scored.

Which race is the longest on the NASCAR Cup schedule?

It starts in daylight on Memorial Day weekend and finishes under the lights, and it began life in 1960 as the World 600.

Which track is the longest oval on the Cup schedule at 2.66 miles?

Its turns are banked at 33 degrees, steeper even than Daytona, which is why it produced the fastest lap in NASCAR history.

What average speed did Bill Elliott's all-time record qualifying lap at Talladega in 1987 reach?

The record is effectively frozen: restrictor plates arrived the very next season and top speeds have been capped ever since.

The inaugural 1969 race at Talladega saw most of the star drivers do what?

Tires were shredding at the new track's speeds, so the drivers' association walked out and NASCAR filled the field with Grand American cars and unknowns.

Which track markets itself as 'The Last Great Colosseum'?

The concrete half-mile in Tennessee is ringed by grandstands that once held 162,000 people, and it hosted a college football game with a record crowd in 2016.

Winners at Martinsville Speedway have received what unusual trophy since 1964?

Fred Lorenzen took home the first one, made by a local clock company; Richard Petty has won 15 of them, the most of anyone.

Darlington Raceway's egg shape is said to be the result of preserving what?

The landowner did not want to lose his fishing hole, so builder Harold Brasington tightened turns 1 and 2, giving 'The Lady in Black' its lopsided layout.

Who won the first Southern 500 at Darlington in 1950?

He won NASCAR's first 500-mile race by nursing hard truck tires while faster cars shredded theirs, in a Plymouth part-owned by NASCAR's founder.

Which New York road course returned to the NASCAR Cup Series schedule in 1986?

'The Glen' hosted the United States Grand Prix for twenty straight years before losing it over an unpaid $800,000 debt to the teams; Cup cars came back in 1986.

Which team, the oldest still active in NASCAR, ran Jim Clark's pit stops at the 1965 Indianapolis 500?

Ford flew the Virginia crew to Indianapolis for their pit-stop speed; the family team has fielded the No. 21 since 1950 and gave David Pearson most of his wins.

Hendrick Motorsports' first Cup win, at Martinsville in 1984, came with which driver?

The team was still called All-Star Racing that year; it now holds the record for Cup wins with more than 300 and 15 championships.

Tom Cruise's Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder was patterned after which real driver?

The surname was a nod to journeyman Dick Trickle, while Robert Duvall's crew chief was modeled on Harry Hyde, who had run Richmond's cars.

In Talladega Nights, Sacha Baron Cohen's Jean Girard is a rival from which racing series?

Sebastian Vettel later quoted the film's 'Shake and Bake' line over the radio at the real United States Grand Prix.

The first NASCAR race held outside the United States, in July 1952, took place in which Canadian province?

Buddy Shuman won the 200-lap race on a half-mile dirt track at Stamford Park.

In which year did Bill France Sr. first establish races at Daytona Beach?

He hoped racers would race for him because other organizers tended to fleece winners of their payouts.

How many points-paying races make up a NASCAR Cup Series season?

The pre-season Clash and the mid-season All-Star race are run in addition to the points events.