The course began on the paved surface of highway A1A at approximately 4511 South Atlantic Avenue in Ponce Inlet, ran south for two miles parallel to the ocean, then descended to the beach at the south turn. From there, drivers returned north for two miles on the sandy beach surface before rejoining the road at the north turn. The original lap length was 3.2 miles; by the late 1940s it had been extended to 4.2 miles. The natural surface of the south and north turns proved problematic from the start — wet sand created nearly impassable conditions in the inaugural 1936 event, contributing to widespread scoring disputes.
Daytona Beach had already gained international fame as a speed venue before the road course era. On March 29, 1927, Major Henry Segrave set a world land speed record on the beach at 203.79 mph in his Sunbeam 1000 hp Mystery. The beach's reputation drew William France Sr. to Daytona in 1935, when he relocated from Washington, D.C. to escape the Great Depression and set up a car repair shop.
In 1936, Daytona Beach officials enlisted local racer Sig Haugdahl to organize a race along the 3.2-mile circuit, offering a $5,000 purse. The event on March 8 drew thousands of fans, but the sandy south turn became impassable and a scoring dispute ended the race after 75 of 78 laps. Milt Marion was eventually declared the winner by the AAA. The city lost approximately $22,000 on the event and never promoted another race there. France finished fifth.
Haugdahl promoted another event in 1937 with the backing of the Daytona Beach Elks Club. It was more successful but still lost money. France then took over operations in 1938, running two events that year. By 1940 he was holding three races annually, winning one himself, and the course was becoming a genuine racing institution.
The Daytona Beach and Road Course became the cradle of the NASCAR organization. France recognized that drivers were routinely cheated by promoters who disappeared with prize money before payouts could be made. On December 14, 1947, France convened talks at the Ebony Bar of the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach. Those discussions concluded with the formal founding of NASCAR on February 21, 1948. The beach and road course hosted the new sanctioning body's first modified division race on February 15, 1948 — Red Byron beat Marshall Teague — and continued as the premier NASCAR venue until Darlington Raceway was completed in 1950.
When the NASCAR Strictly Stock Series (later renamed the Grand National Series) launched in 1949, the Daytona beach course hosted the second race of the inaugural season. Red Byron won in July driving a 1949 Oldsmobile, with 28 cars on the entry list. Byron went on to claim the series' first championship.
In 1950 the race moved to February, establishing what became a permanent Daytona Speed Week tradition. Harold Kite won in a 1949 Lincoln after Red Byron pitted with gearshift trouble on lap 25. The schedule that year also added a 100-mile Modified Stock race the day before the main event.
The 1951 race brought Marshall Teague his first career Grand National victory, driving a Hudson Hornet to beat Tim Flock by over a minute. Teague and the Hudson dominated again in 1952, taking the lead on lap two in a race shortened by an incoming tide. The 1953 event drew a 136-car Modified/Sportsman preliminary — the largest field in NASCAR history to that point.
Tim Flock became the dominant figure of the mid-1950s beach races. He won the 1954 main event (after the apparent winner was disqualified on a technicality), the 1955 event (claiming the win after Fireball Roberts was disqualified for illegal pushrods), and the 1956 race from the pole position in his Carl Kiekhaefer-owned Chrysler 300. The 1956 event also saw Charlie Scott become the first African-American to compete in a NASCAR Grand National race.
Cotton Owens won the 1957 race in the first Grand National victory for Pontiac, recording an average speed over 100 mph for the first time in the event's history. Paul Goldsmith claimed the final race at the course in 1958, driving a Pontiac prepared by Ray Fox after starting from the pole.
By 1953 the rapid urban development of the Daytona Beach coastline was making it increasingly difficult to run races on the beach. Hotels were spreading along the beachfront. France recognized that a purpose-built permanent facility was needed. He negotiated with the city of Daytona Beach for a site near the local airport, arranged financing, and broke ground on the Daytona International Speedway in 1957. The new track was a 2.5-mile tri-oval with steeply banked turns capable of sustaining much higher speeds.
The beach and road course hosted its final NASCAR race in 1958. In 1959, the first Daytona 500 was run at the new superspeedway. Speed Week events on the beach itself continued through 1961 in the form of standing mile and flying mile time trials, but the era of beach racing was over. The restaurant Racing's North Turn now stands at the site of the old south end of the course on A1A.
The Daytona Beach and Road Course holds a unique place in motorsport history as the track where NASCAR was born, both institutionally and in terms of the racing culture that France shaped into the world's dominant stock car series. Its combination of public road and open beach reflected the improvised, frontier spirit of early American racing. Every Daytona 500 run at the modern superspeedway traces its lineage to the sand and pavement of that first beach circuit.