Buick's roots in American racing extend to the earliest days of organized automobile competition. The brand won the first race ever held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and driver Phil Shafer drove a Buick to victory in the 1933 Elgin Trophy, considered the first officially organized stock car race in the United States. For many years, Buick served as a substitute for Chevrolet in various forms of automobile racing as General Motors rotated brand involvement across its divisions.
The golden age of Buick in NASCAR arrived in the early through late 1980s when General Motors entered the Regal, particularly in its Grand National trim, in the NASCAR Cup Series alongside the Oldsmobile Cutlass. The Regal's body was part of the same GM B-body family used by several GM divisions for NASCAR competition — alongside the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, Chevrolet Monte Carlo, and Pontiac Grand Prix — but the Regal proved to be one of the most successful of those platforms on the racetrack.
In the 1981 through 1985 seasons, the Buick Regal scored more than 35 victories in the NASCAR Cup Series, establishing it as one of the dominant platforms of the period. The car's success reflected both the strength of the platform and the investment Buick's management was making in performance: GM general manager Lloyd Reuss, appointed in 1980, actively pushed Buick into turbocharging, racing, and performance production cars during his tenure.
In 1982, the Regal was the official pace car of the Indianapolis 500, and the high-performance Grand National package was first offered on the Regal that year, helping Buick return to third place in US sales. For the 1986 model year, a LeSabre Grand National model was specifically built to qualify the coupe body style for NASCAR competition, with fewer than 120 units produced, all finished in black.
General Motors historically cycled its NASCAR manufacturer identity across its brand lineup. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, GM replaced Buick in many racing roles with Oldsmobile, which became the primary GM brand in NASCAR Cup competition through the early 1990s before being succeeded by Pontiac. When Oldsmobile was discontinued in 2004 and Pontiac in 2009, Chevrolet consolidated GM's NASCAR manufacturer program. Buick was also a significant powerplant in the IndyCar Series and the IMSA GTP class for several years alongside its NASCAR activity.
The Buick Regal's record of more than 35 victories in a five-season window during the early to mid-1980s makes it one of the more successful body platforms in that era of NASCAR competition. The Grand National nameplate — used on Buick's most performance-oriented Regal variants — bridged the NASCAR racing program with the street-car lineup in a manner that gave Buick clear performance credibility in the market. The 1987 Buick Grand National turbocharged coupe became one of the era's iconic American performance cars, and its NASCAR association was part of the brand identity that made the road car significant.