In 1949, NASCAR introduced the Strictly Stock division, after sanctioning Modified and Roadster division races in 1948. Eight races were run that first season on seven dirt ovals and the Daytona Beach beach/street course. The first NASCAR Strictly Stock race was held at Charlotte Speedway on June 19, 1949; Jim Roper was declared the winner after Glenn Dunaway was disqualified for having altered the rear springs on his car, and Red Byron was the first series champion. The division was renamed Grand National for the 1950 season, reflecting NASCAR's intent to make the sport more professional and prestigious, and retained that name until 1971. The 1949 season is regarded in NASCAR's record books as the first season of Grand National/Cup history. Martinsville Speedway is the only track on the 1949 schedule that remains on the current schedule.
The Grand National schedule was not fixed at one race per weekend; some years included over sixty events, occasionally two or three on the same weekend and even two races on the same day in different states. Most early races were held on dirt-surfaced short ovals or dirt fairgrounds ovals; of the first 221 Grand National races, 198 were run on dirt tracks. Darlington Raceway, opened in 1950, was the first completely paved track on the circuit over one mile long. When Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959, the schedule still had more dirt races than paved ones. The last Grand National race on a dirt track (until 2021) was held on September 30, 1970, at the half-mile State Fairgrounds Speedway in Raleigh, North Carolina, won by Richard Petty in a Plymouth.
Between 1971 and 2003, NASCAR's premier series was sponsored by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company cigarette brand Winston and known as the Winston Cup Series. The 1971 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banned television advertising of cigarettes, prompting tobacco companies to fund sporting events as a way to spend advertising dollars and circumvent the ban. The reduction in schedule from 48 to 31 races per year, alongside RJR's involvement, established 1972 as the beginning of NASCAR's "modern era." Bill France Sr. turned over control of NASCAR to his oldest son, Bill France Jr.; in 1974, France Jr. asked series publicist Bob Latford to design a points system awarding equal points for all races regardless of length or prize money. That system, which ensured top drivers had to compete in every race to win the title, remained unchanged from 1975 until the Chase for the Championship was instituted in 2004.
R. J. Reynolds notified NASCAR during the 2002 season that it would end its title sponsorship after 2003. NASCAR negotiated a contract with Nextel, and in 2004 the series became the Nextel Cup Series. The 2006 merger between Sprint and Nextel resulted in the Sprint Cup Series name from 2008. Sprint's sponsorship ended after 2016, and on December 1, 2016, NASCAR announced an agreement with Monster Energy; the series ran as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series from 2017. Beginning with the 2020 season, NASCAR moved to a tiered sponsorship model and the series became known simply as the NASCAR Cup Series, with sponsors designated Premier Partners. The Monster Energy era trophy design was retained and renamed the Bill France Cup.
The championship is determined by a points system, with points awarded according to finish placement in the race and its stages. After the first 26 races (the regular season), drivers are seeded based on their points standings and compete in the final ten races in a playoff originally called the Chase. The Chase was introduced for the 2004 season, influenced by the system used in the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series, initially featuring the ten highest-scoring drivers, later expanded to twelve in 2007 and to a 12-to-16-driver grid in 2014.
Under the 2014 format, the Chase was divided into rounds, with the lowest-scoring grid drivers eliminated after each, and any grid driver winning a race in the first three rounds automatically advancing. By 2016 the rounds were a Round of 16 (drivers reset to 2,000 points plus three bonus points per regular-season win), a Round of 12 (3,000 points), a Round of 8 (4,000 points), and a final Championship 4 (5,000 points), with the highest finisher in the final race winning the title. In 2017, stage racing was introduced: races were broken into stages, with the top-ten finishers in each of the first two stages awarded bonus championship points and the stage winner receiving an additional playoff point.
Cup Series cars adhere to a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive design, with a roll cage serving as a space-frame chassis covered by a composite carbon-fiber body. Since 2012 they have used EFI V8 engines (after 62 years of carburetion) with pushrod valvetrains, limited to 358 cubic inches of displacement, producing well over 850 horsepower at the series' core 1.5-to-2.0-mile tri-ovals. Traction control and anti-lock brakes are prohibited.
When the series was formed under the Strictly Stock name, cars were production vehicles with no modifications allowed. Through the generations the cars steadily diverged from street stock: modified chassis arrived in 1965 with mid-size models; the late-1960s "Aero Warriors" such as the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird were effectively legislated out by 1971 displacement limits; the Generation 4 car of 1992 stripped away the last "stock" body panels. NASCAR introduced the cost-control-focused "Car of Tomorrow" in 2007, the Generation 6 car in 2013, and the seventh-generation Next Gen car in 2022, the last introducing center-lock wheels and rear diffusers borrowed from road racing. In 2023, a heavily modified Next Gen Camaro fielded by Hendrick Motorsports entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing 39th out of the 62 cars entered.
In 1979, the Daytona 500 became the first stock car race nationally televised live from flag to flag, on CBS. The leaders on the last lap, Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison, wrecked on the backstretch while battling for the lead, allowing Richard Petty to pass them both for the win; Yarborough, Allison, and Allison's brother Bobby then fought on national television. The drama, coinciding with a major eastern-seaboard snowstorm that delivered a captive audience, sharply increased the sport's broadcast marketability.
The 1990s popularity boom included the first Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994 and a $2.4 billion broadcast agreement with Fox, Turner, and NBC in 1999. Safety-driven rule changes followed major crashes: after Bobby Allison's 1987 Talladega wreck tore a roughly 100-foot hole in the catch fence and injured spectators, NASCAR mandated restrictor plates at Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway; criticism of the Car of Tomorrow's rear wing after Carl Edwards went airborne in the 2009 Aaron's 499 led to its replacement with the original spoiler in 2010.
The NASCAR Cup Series Drivers' Championship is awarded to the most successful Cup Series driver over a season, as determined by the points system. First awarded in 1949 to Red Byron, 32 different drivers have won it. The first multiple champion was Herb Thomas (1951 and 1953), while the record of seven championships is shared by Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson; Johnson holds the record for most consecutive championships, winning five from 2006 to 2010. Every champion so far has originated from the United States. An Owners' Championship, scoring each individual car, and a Manufacturers' Championship are also awarded, the latter considered less prestigious than the Drivers' title. As of 2023, Chevrolet was the most successful manufacturer with 851 race wins and 42 manufacturers championships, ahead of Ford with 728 victories and 17 manufacturers championships.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
Gallery · 4 related images
