During the Prohibition era of the 1920's and early 30's, the undercover business of whiskey, or "moonshine", running began to boom. More of a problem than secret manufacture of moonshine was the secret transportation of it. The common term for moonshine runners was "bootleggers". Bootleggers were "men who illegally ran whiskey from hidden stills to hundreds of markets across the Southeast. These men were the real Dukes of Hazzard, only there was nothing funny about their business. Driving at high speeds at night, often with the police in pursuit, was dangerous. The penalty for losing the race was jail or loss of livelihood." (1)

As bootlegging boomed, the drivers began to race among themselves to see who had the fastest cars. Bootleggers raced on Sunday afternoons and then used the same car to haul moonshine Sunday night. Inevitably, people came to see the races, and racing moonshine cars became extremely popular in the backroads of the South. Bootlegging continued even after the end of the Prohibition era, because of the huge tax placed on whiskey upon repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933.

In the summer of 1938 a man named William H.G. "Bill" France organized a race on the wide, firm sands of Daytona Beach, Florida. The winner recieved such items as a bottle of rum, a box of cigars, and a case of motor oil (precursors to present-day sponsor involvement in the sport) - NASCAR history had begun. France was a visionary; he realized for stock car racing to grow, an official organization had to exist to list champions, keep statistics, and memorialize records and record-holders.

The outbreak of World War II brought stock car racing to a halt. The drivers went to war and the production of new cars ceased. At the end of the war, some drivers came back and ran occasional, haphazard races at places like the beach at Daytona.

By 1947, Bill France realized it was high time for a national sanctioning body to govern stock car racing. On December 12 of that year he gathered promoters from the Southeast, Northeast, and Midwest to the Ebony Bar atop the Streamline Inn as Daytona. Over the next three days rules were drawn and specifications agreed upon. The name of the organization would by NASCAR- the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.

The winner of that race was Glenn Dunnaway in a '47 Ford. After the race, however, inspectors found an illegal part in the shocks of his car. The car had been used for bootlegging earlier that week, and the illegal shock wedge was used often to increase speed of bootlegging cars. Dunnaway's car owner sued, but the NASCAR lawyer kept repeating the word "bootlegger" over and over in court, and NASCAR won the case. Jim Roper, driving a '49 Lincoln, went down as the winner of the first ever NASCAR race. At the end of the season Red Byron became NASCAR's first ever national champion. [Jim Roper recently waved the green flag at the Texas 500 in April 1998.]

On September 4, 1950, the concept of the "superspeedway" became a reality at Darlington, South Carolina. The first Southern 500 was held that day, on a track larger, wider, and faster than any stock car driver had ever seen before. Johnny Mantz won in a 1950 Plymouth. This event, which is now a Labor Day tradition, helped bring people to the sport which previously had no interest in it. [Darlington is incidentally one of the smaller tracks on the Winston Cup circuit].

Through the 1950's NASCAR began to flourish. Corporate sponsors, such as Pure Oil and Champion Sparkplugs took an active role in the sport. Even the major automobile manufacturers, such as Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler gave "factory backing" to individual drivers-- the drivers would recieve money from a manufacturer to drive its product. A common motto for these automobile manufacturers was "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday". The car companies realized the potential of racing to sell cars. In the 1950's, NASCAR held races in such places as Municipal Stadium [later JFK Stadium] in Philadelphia and Soldier Field in Chicago. [Richard Petty's first race that counts in his 1,185 starts was held clear out of the U.S.- in Toronto, Canada.]

NASCAR faced its first major crisis when all of the automobile manufacturers pulled out of racing in May 1957 following an incident at the Martinsville (Va.) Speedway where five people-including an 8 year old boy- were hurt from flying debris from a crash. Bill France, however, managed to keep the organization functioning by convincing promoters to increase prize monies. Two other factors, perhaps coincidental, served to keep NASCAR alive.

The first was the appearance of NASCAR's first superstar, Glenn "Fireball" Roberts in 1958. Roberts got his nickname from the fierce fastball he threw while playing baseball at Florida State. He won 32 races in his career.

Ironically, what eventually caused Roberts' death was a different type of fireball. During the 1964 World 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett crashed on the back straightaway. Roberts swerved to avoid the cars, flipped, and broke the car's fuel tank open. The car burst into flames, and Jarrett ran to pull him out of the fire.

"Jarrett finally did pull him out, burning his own hands, and once he got him out, he began tearing off Roberts' clothing. Roberts, still conscious, helped. After the rescue squad finished attending to Roberts, the racer was taken to Charlotte Memorial Hospital. He was burned over 80% of his body." (3) Roberts died a little over a month after the crash, on July 2, 1964.

The second factor that helped bring NASCAR through its first lean years was the opening of the Daytona International Speedway in 1959. The track had been a dream of Bill France for many years. France risked almost everything he had on building the track over a plot of swampland four miles away from the ocean. Many people thought France was going to lose it all and thought the track was going to be a failure.

The number 73 Thunderbird driven by Johnny Beauchamp was at first thought to have won. But Photographs showed Lee Petty, in the number 42 Plymouth, actually beat him, and Petty was awarded the trophy. Joe Weatherly, in the Chevy at top, was a lap down.

However, the first Daytona 500 proved his critics all wrong. The race had recieved a great deal of hype in the weeks leading up to it; even Walter Cronkite came to cover it. Any spectator could see every part of the 2.5 mile track (almost twice as long as any other track raced on to that time) from any seat in the grandstand. Nobody had ever seen the speeds and fierce competition that were showcased in the first Daytona 500 in 1959. In fact, after five hundred miles of racing, it took a photo finish and 61 hours to determine that Lee Petty's Oldsmobile beat Johnny Beauchamp's Ford by a fraction of a car length. The photo taken at the finish line is one of the most famous photos in racing history.

All of the automobile manufacturers agreed to return to NASCAR racing between 1962 and 1964. By the mid 60's, NASCAR's rules had changed from a stock car having to be "stock" to a stock car being anything but "stock". The cars became heavily modified, mostly for safety, in everything except body outline.

In 1964, Chrysler returned to racing and brought with it the 426 cubic inch hemispherical engine, or simply the "hemi". This engine was so powerful that Chrysler began to dominate NASCAR racing, so much so that the level of competition came to suffer extremely. Before the 1965 season Bill France outlawed the hemi, and Chrysler pulled out of racing again to protest France's decision. France allowed a modified version of the hemi to return in 1966, and Chrysler re-entered NASCAR again.

The manufacturers once again pulled out of racing in the late 1960's. Many racing historians agree that it was the accomplishments of one man that kept NASCAR strong. That man is know as the "King", Richard Petty.

Richard is the son of Lee Petty, winner of the first Daytona 500 in 1959. He started out in the long-defunct convertible division of NASCAR, and quickly moved up to the Grand National division (which the Strictly Stock division was renamed in 1950). Richard owns much of the records in NASCAR's record book; many will probably never be broken. Some of these include: most wins (200), pole positions (127), races won from the pole (61), races entered (1,185), most wins in a season (27), and most consecutive wins (10 in 1967). Richard ended his career in 1992 with the illustrious "fan appreciation tour". His career spanned 35 years, and he racked up seven NASCAR championships and seven Daytona 500 victories, in 1964, '66, '71, '73, '74, '79, and '81.

Petty became a superstar in the late 1960's, and his heartfelt appreciation for all of his fans (he has willingly signed every autograph presented to him by any fan), as well as his racing exploits carried NASCAR from a time of crisis to a time of prosperity.

In 1970, soon after the Nixon administration signed a bill banning cigarette manufacturers from advertising on television or radio, the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company talked to Bill France to see if the company could put their advertising dollars into sponsoring an elite division of NASCAR racing. France happily agreed, and beginning in the 1971 season, the top division of NASCAR would be known by its present name, the Winston Cup Series. The money pumped into NASCAR by R.J. Reynolds (makers of Winston cigarettes-hence the name) would no longer make squabbles over factory backing an issue in NASCAR. [Junior Johnson, former moonshiner, 1960 Daytona 500 champion, and 6 time Winston Cup champion owner, was instrumental in pulling the RJR deal together.]

The OPEC gas crisis in 1974 spawned another crisis for NASCAR. Gas prices and rationing became huge issues, and many people felt racing wasted precious gas. So NASCAR cut back the number of miles in most races by 10%; therefore the Daytona 500 was only 450 miles that year.

Through the 1970's, despite the '74 gas crisis, racing continued to grow. One race that undoubtedly brought more companies into racing was the 1976 Daytona 500. The final laps of the race were broadcast on ABC.

Before that race, NASCAR inspectors found extra lines of nitrous oxide (an illegal high-tech fuel) in many cars. When the special gasoline was taken away, the cars were much slower. Richard Petty and David Pearson were left with the two fastest cars.

On the last lap of the race, the two drivers were fighting for the lead. Coming out of the fourth turn heading for the checkered flag, the cars collided and went spinning in the infield grass. While the engine in Petty's Dodge died, Pearson managed to keep his Mercury running. Petty stopped about a hundred yards short of the finish line, and Pearson- whose car had stopped spinning farther away- jammed his transmission into gear and won the race at about twenty miles per hour, while Petty was desperately trying to get his car started. [Some of Petty's pit crew ran onto the infield to try to push his car across the line- it was a lost cause.]

However, if any one race is responsible for helping to bring NASCAR to its immense popularity today, it would be the Daytona 500 three years later in 1979. This was the first NASCAR race to be televised flag-to-flag, on CBS. An estimated twenty million people tuned in that day in February 1979.

It had rained in Florida all that week, therefore the infield, pits, and even parts of the track were wet. The favorites to win were the Oldsmobiles of Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison. Very early in the race, those two cars spun on the back straightaway and went two laps down apiece. Both cars had made the laps back by the final laps of the race (which is very difficult to do at Daytona). On the last lap, those two cars had a half-lap lead over Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip, who themselves were fighting for third.

Donnie Allison (1) and Cale Yarborough (11) crash on the last lap of the Daytona 500 which put Richard Petty in the victory lane. Donnie Allison and his brother Bobby ended up in a fight with Cale Yarborough because of the wreck.

On the back straightaway of the last lap, Yarborough attempted to pass Donnie Allison on the inside, and Allison pulled down to block him. The two cars collided and shot into the third turn wall, then spun into the infield grass and stopped. Petty and Waltrip drove past and Petty won the race by a car length.

Bobby Allison (left) stands over Cale Yarborough after a collision between Yarborough and Bobbie's brother Donnie on the last lap of the Daytona 500. Donnie was leading the race until the collision with Yarborough. Richard Petty won the race.

By the time Petty crossed the finish line, Yarborough and Allison had already gotten out of their cars and started fighting. Then Bobby Allison pulled up and entered the fistfight to defend his brother- all of this happening on live national television. It took two or three safety crew members to break up the fight. Meanwhile, Richard Petty, a national hero, ended up winning the race. Many racing historians credit that race and its exciting finish for helping bring NASCAR to where it is today.

Beginning in 1981, NASCAR's rules changed to allow for the "downsized" sedans that were coming out of the Detriot factories. The standard wheelbase for a stock car was reduced to 110 inches, about a foot shorter than what had been run previously. As a result, the race cars became harder to handle- and some controversies erupted. However, another milestone for NASCAR was achieved at the end of the 1981 season. ESPN carried the last race of the Winston Cup season, on November 8. This was to be the start of a great relationship, as ESPN now carries almost half of the Winston Cup series into millions of homes each time they air a race. NASCAR racing provided a built-in audience for ESPN, which the cable network needed in its early years.

The 1980's brought huge growth for NASCAR. Corproate sponsors fully realized the benefits of being involved in racing by sponsoring a team or by sponsoring a race itself.

Richard Petty won his 200th and final race on Independence Day, 1984, at the Pepsi Firecracker 400. The track on which this feat occurred was the track he made famous- the Daytona International Speedway. On lap 158 of the 160 lap race, there was a crash, bringing out the caution. No passing can be done under caution, so in effect the race ended on lap 158. However, drivers can race at full speed until the next time they pass the start-finish line after the yellow flag comes out. Petty's Pontiac and Yarborough's Ford exchanged the lead several times on that lap, and at the line Petty nosed out Yarborough by roughly a foot. In attendance that day was Ronald Reagan, the first sitting president to ever be present at a NASCAR race. [George Bush would be present for Petty's last race at Daytona in 1992- he sat shotgun in the pace car when the race began. Petty started 2nd that day and pulled up beside the pace car for a time.]

Although the 80's brought huge growth to NASCAR, the decade also brought significant changes to the sport. Many legends of the sport retired or became less competitive, and in many cases their sons took over. Names like Dale Earnhardt (son of short track legend Ralph Earnhardt), Davey Allison (son of Bobby Allison), Kyle Petty (son of Richard Petty), and Dale Jarrett (son of Ned Jarrett) replaced the names of their fathers at the forefront of Winston Cup racing.

In 1985, Bill Elliott, part of the famous Elliott racing family form Dawsonville, Georgia, won the Winston Million. The Winston Million is a one million dollar bonus any racer recieves if he wins three out of the four top races on the Winston Cup circuit. Elliott remains to date the only driver ever to win the prize [not anymore- Jeff Gordon won it in 1997]. It was through the exploits of names (and nicknames) of Darrell "Jaws" Waltrip, "Awsome Bill from Dawsonville" "Million Dollar" Bill Elliott, and "The Intimidator" "Ironhead" Dale "The Man in Black" Earnhardt that the sport continued to boom. [The Winston million program was replaced at the end of the '97 season with the "No Bull 5" program.]

Another major change transpired in NASCAR in 1987. Thorughout the 80's, racing speeds at the two fastest tracks on the Winston Cup circuit had become dangerously high. It became a real possibility that if a car got airborne at Daytona or the Alabama International Motor Speedway (since renamed Talladega Superspeedway), it could fly into the stands. Therefore, NASCAR mandated the use of a carburetor, or "restrictor" plate be placed between the carb and intake manifold, thereby reducing the flow of fuel into the engine and slowing the car. By comparison, Bill Elliott's pole speed for the April 1987 Winston 500 (NASCAR's last "unrestricted" race at Daytona or Talladega) was 212.809 miles per hour. For the DieHard 500 in July of that year the pole-winning speed was 203.827 miles per hour. NASCAR, in subsequent years, increased the size of the plate to slow speeds further, so now polw speeds average 193-194 miles per hour at Talladega. Without them the cars are estimated to be capable of average speeds of 230 miles per hour nowadays. [The "icing on the cake", so to speak, to bring restrictor plates around occurred at the 1987 Winston 500 where Bobby Allison blew a tire, became airborne, and literally riped a large piece of fence down on the front straightaway next to the flagman's stand.]

The 1988 Daytona 500 brought to millions of CBS viewers another classic race with a story book ending. On lap 106, Richard Petty was involved in one of the most famous crashes ever, in which his Pontiac rolled along the main grandstand fence, did another barrell roll as he came away from the fence, and was hit hard by Brett Bodine's FOrd. Petty was rushed to a nearby hospital, and although race fans across the country feared the worst, Petty managed to make it back to the track to see the end of the race.

Bobby Allison won that race, and in second place came none other than his son, Davey. As a CBS camera panned on the ecstatic Judy Allison (Bobby's wife and Davey's mother), NASCAR racing became entrenched in the hearts of more fans. A few months later, Bobby Allison recieved serious and permanent injuries after a spectacular crash at the Pocono (Pa.) International Raceway, ending his career.

A tragedy that still affects NASCAR today occurred at the Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway during the season-ending race there in 1990. "Mike Rich, a rear right side tire changer on former Winston Cup champion Bill Elliott's crew, died after the car driven by Ricky Rudd spun in the pits and struck him. During the off season, NASCAR vowed to make pit road safer for crew members. The death of Rich wasn't the first pit road accident, it was only the latest."

NASCAR changed pit road rules several times during the 1991 season, before coming up with the present pit road speed limit syste, and regulations for the "restarts" after caution flags.

"Death is as much a part of racing as tires and gasoline. Drivers accept the fact and move on. Just about every one of them has been involved in a terrible accident that has made them re-evaluate their careers. But with each new fatality, or near miss, the danger seeps back into their consciousness." NASCAR has suffered many losses in the 1990's. Besides the death of Mike Rich, 1990 Rookie of the Year Rob Moroso was killed in drunken driving accident after the '90 season. The first of two on-track fatalities occurred the following season, when fan-favorite J.D. McDuffie was killed instantly when his Pontiac flipped into a guard rail at the Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International road course.

On April 1, 1993, the defending Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash near the Bristol (Tenn.) International Raceway. [Kulwicki was another fan favorite known for his independence, insistance on owning his own team, and the ability to do things his own way and succeed.]

A few months later, 1992 Daytona 500 winner Davey Allison was landing his brand new helicopter on the infield of the Talladega Superspeedway. Allison came within a few feet of touching down, but for some reason his helicopter flew 25 feet up in the air and then crashed hard. Allison came to see fellow racer Neil Bonnett's son practice at the track. It was Bonnett who pulled Allison from the wreckage.

It was Neil Bonnett who would die in the second on-track fatality of the '90's. Bonnett was one of the most successful racers of the '80's, amassing nineteen wins during the decade. During the 1990 Southern 500 at Darlington, Bonnett was involved in a bad crash that forced him to retire from racing. In 1992 Bonnett became a race announcer for CBS and The Nashville Network, and also hosted his own racing show. Bonnett attempted a racing comeback at the 1993 DieHard 500 at Talladega in July. It was the hottest day in which a race was held in many years. On Lap 131 Bonnett's Chevy flipped into the "catch fence" separating the stands from the track. Bonnett was uninjured, and after the crash came up to the CBS booth to announce the rest of the race. Bonnett tried a full time comeback in 1994, but did in a practice accident nine days before the Daytona 500.

Another tragedy befell the Texaco/Havoline racing team (the team Davey Allison was driving for at the time of his death) on the morning of August 20, 1994. Ernie Irvan, hired after Allison's death, crash head-on into the second turn wall at the Michigan International Speedway during practice. Irvan was in a coma for seventeen days, during which the doctors gave him little chance for survival. Irvan survived, however, and is no racing the full Winston Cup schedule for the Texaco/Havoline team. [Not anymore- Irvan was replaced at the end of the 1997 season by Kenny Irwin Jr. and is now driving the Skittles Pontiac for MB2 Motorsports.]

Another man who helped bring NASCAR to its present popularity was Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt has won seven Winston Cup championships, in 1980, '86, '87, '90, '91, '93, and '94. Throughout the 80's and 90's Earnhardt's dirty driving style and his sinister black Chevy has made him both the crowd favorite and crowd nemesis. Any race fan has an opinion on Earnhardt, and often certain stands at racetracks would be divided into sections which either all love or hate Earnhardt.

And then the unthinkable happened. The tragic accident in the closing lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Dale Earnhardt died that day, but his memory will live on.

Earnhardt, a native of Kannapolis, N.C., was Daytona's career victories leader and the winner of the 1998 Daytona 500. According to Dr. Steve Bohannon, emergency medical services director at Daytona International Speedway who responded to the crash, Earnhardt was killed instantly.

"He had what I feel were life-ending type injuries at the time of impact," Dr. Bohannon said. "Really nothing could be done for him."

The announcement was made at 7 p.m. ET by NASCAR President Mike Helton.

"Undoubtedly this is one of the toughest announcements I've personally had to make," said Helton, whose motorsports career covers more than 20 years. "After the accident in Turn 4 at the end of the Daytona 500 we've lost Dale Earnhardt."

Earnhardt's death was the 27th in the history of the track, which opened with the inaugural Speedweeks in 1959. The first fatality was Daytona Beach native Marshall Teague, who died before Speedweeks began while testing an Indy car for a world closed course speed record.

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