NASCAR introduced its Strictly Stock division in 1949 following a year of sanctioning Modified and Roadster division races. Eight races were run that inaugural season across seven dirt ovals and the Daytona Beach beach/street course. The first race was held at Charlotte Speedway on June 19, 1949; Jim Roper was declared the winner after Glenn Dunaway was disqualified for altered rear springs. Red Byron became the series' first champion. For the 1950 season the division was renamed the Grand National, a title intended to elevate the sport's professional standing.
In the early Grand National years the schedule was large and fluid, with over sixty events in some seasons, many of them run on dirt-surfaced short ovals. Of the first 221 Grand National races, 198 took place on dirt. Darlington Raceway, opened in 1950, was the first fully paved track over a mile in length on the circuit. The shift toward paved superspeedways accelerated through the 1960s as new venues were built and dirt tracks resurfaced. The last dirt-track Grand National race before 2021 was held on September 30, 1970, at the half-mile State Fairgrounds Speedway in Raleigh, North Carolina, won by Richard Petty.
In 1971 the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banned tobacco television advertising in the United States, prompting R. J. Reynolds to redirect advertising expenditure into sports sponsorship. NASCAR's premier series became the Winston Cup Grand National Series, later shortened to the Winston Cup Series in 1986. Bill France Sr. handed control of NASCAR to his son Bill France Jr. at the start of this era. The schedule was reduced from 48 to 31 races, dirt and short-oval events were removed, and in 1974 France Jr. commissioned series publicist Bob Latford to design a points system awarding equal weight to every race regardless of length or prize money. That system remained unchanged until 2004.
From 1982 onward the Daytona 500 became the traditional season opener. In 1985 Winston introduced the Winston Million, a one-million-dollar bonus for any driver winning three of the four most prestigious races; Bill Elliott claimed it that year, and Jeff Gordon claimed it again in 1997. The 1979 Daytona 500 — the first stock car race broadcast live from flag to flag on national television — proved transformative, its finish-line drama and post-race fight between Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers reaching a captive audience snowbound along the eastern seaboard. Television coverage expanded substantially through the 1990s, and in 1994 NASCAR staged the first Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A new broadcast deal signed in 1999 with Fox, Turner, and NBC was valued at 2.4 billion dollars.
R. J. Reynolds terminated its sponsorship at the end of the 2003 season. Nextel replaced Winston as title sponsor in 2004, and the series became the Nextel Cup. The same year, NASCAR introduced the Chase for the Championship: the top ten points-earners after 26 races entered a ten-race playoff with reset points, ensuring the title remained mathematically alive until the final race. The number of Chase qualifiers grew to twelve in 2007. Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005, and the series became the Sprint Cup beginning in 2008. A 2016 restructuring of the Chase format established a knockout bracket of sixteen drivers divided into rounds of sixteen, twelve, and eight, with four championship finalists entering the last race with equalized points, the highest finisher winning the title.
Monster Energy became title sponsor in 2017 and held the role through 2019. That same year stage racing was introduced: races were divided into three stages, with the top-ten finishers in each of the first two stages earning bonus championship points. When Monster's deal expired NASCAR moved to a tiered Premier Partner model beginning in 2020, the series becoming simply the NASCAR Cup Series. Premier Partners have included Busch Beer, Coca-Cola, Xfinity, and Freeway Insurance. The championship trophy was renamed the Bill France Cup.
The NASCAR Cup Series Drivers' Championship has been awarded since 1949. Red Byron won the first title. The record for most championships — seven — is shared by Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson. Johnson also holds the record for most consecutive titles, winning five in a row from 2006 to 2010. Every Cup Series champion to date has originated from the United States.
The series holds approximately half its events in the Southeastern United States but races on a geographically diverse schedule that has included tracks in the Northeast, Midwest, and West. Martinsville Speedway is the only venue from the inaugural 1949 schedule still on the current calendar. The Daytona 500, the series' most prestigious race, attracted around 9.17 million U.S. television viewers in 2019. Exhibition races have previously been held in Japan and Australia, with competitive races staged in Montreal and Mexico City.
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