The series began in 1973 when a group of drivers started racing on a road course in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, owned by former NASCAR Cup team owner Bill Ellis. After Ellis chose not to continue, the drivers formed the Baby Grand National Racing Association, Inc. (BGNRA) and appointed Charlie Triplett as president. The name reflected the visual resemblance of the compact cars to the Grand National cars of the era, which competed in what would later become the NASCAR Cup Series, as teams often replicated paint schemes and numbers from Grand National competitors.
The series earned the informal slogan "The Poor Man's Way to Race," reflecting its accessible cost structure. A touring series of four-cylinder compact sedans, it attracted large fields — it was not uncommon for forty drivers to enter a single event. NASCAR began formally sanctioning the series in 1975, and it expanded to tracks beyond North Wilkesboro Speedway that same year.
Over its existence the series carried numerous identities:
1973–1974: Baby Grand National Racing Association
1975–1979: Baby Grand Series
1980–1982: NASCAR International Sedan Series
1983–1984: Darlington Dash Series
1985–1989: Charlotte/Daytona Dash Series
1990–1991: NASCAR Dash Series
1992–2003: NASCAR Goody's Dash Series
2004: IPOWER Dash Series
2005–2011: ISCARS Dash Touring Series
In 1980, five-time champion Dean Combs drove a Nissan Silvia, becoming the first NASCAR driver to compete regularly in a foreign-made car under the modern sanctioning era. The series served as an early testing ground for manufacturers later active at higher NASCAR levels, most notably Toyota, whose involvement in the Dash Series — highlighted by Robert Huffman's 2003 championship — preceded Toyota's entry into the NASCAR Truck Series in 2004 and Cup Series in 2007.
NASCAR significantly altered the series' economics in the early 1980s by mandating the use of the Iron Duke motor manufactured by Pontiac. The switch drove motor costs from approximately $800 to $22,000, drastically reducing the field size from the original forty-plus entries to ten or twelve teams. NASCAR transitioned the series to V6 engines in 1998, though teams were permitted to continue running four-cylinder engines, and most elected to use the V6.
The series was a proving ground for young talent. Future NASCAR drivers including Geoff Bodine, Danny Bagwell, and others gained experience competing against established veterans in the series. Michael Waltrip won the 1983 championship early in his career. Geoff Bodine, the 1986 Daytona 500 champion, returned to the ISCARS circuit in 2008 to compete in the final four events of the season.
A fatal accident in 1994 saw a car careen into Lake Lloyd at Daytona International Speedway. Two drivers, Joe Young in 1987 and Joe Booher in 1993, died in Daytona Dash Series races during NASCAR's sanctioning period.
After the 2003 season, NASCAR transferred sanctioning of the Goody's Dash Series to IPOWER (International Participants Of Winning Edge Racing). The transition began with tragedy: on February 8, 2004, the first IPOWER Dash race at Daytona ended when safety worker Roy Weaver was struck and killed by a car driven by Ray Paprota while Weaver was picking up debris from an earlier incident. Flags at Daytona flew at half-mast for the remainder of Speedweeks.
In 2005, Weaver's widow and three children competed on The Amazing Race: Family Edition, a CBS reality competition show, finishing third place. The family's appearance drew attention to the circumstances of Weaver's death.
Struggling without television coverage and unable to secure sponsorship, the series initially cancelled its 2005 season before former Dash Series chaplain and NASCAR Media Coordinator Randy Claypoole revived it as the International Sport Compact Auto Racing Series (ISCARS). ISCARS held over 100 events between 2005 and the final race at Hickory Motor Speedway in October 2011. In its final years, the cars ran a rear wing configuration distinct from the Cup Series' Car of Tomorrow wing used between 2007 and mid-2010.
Dean Combs dominated the early era of the series, winning five championships between 1975 and 1981. Robert Huffman claimed four consecutive titles from 1998 to 2001 and added a fifth in 2003. Danny Bagwell won four ISCARS-era championships between 2007 and 2011. Other champions included Michael Waltrip (1983), Hut Stricklin (1986), Rodney Orr (1993), and Cam Strader (2001).
The NASCAR Goody's Dash Series filled a unique role in the sport's ecosystem for three decades, providing an affordable on-ramp to NASCAR competition and serving as a development series for drivers who went on to Cup-level careers. Its compact car format, relatively low costs (at least in its early years), and large competitor fields made it accessible to a broad range of participants. The ISCARS era that followed kept the spirit of the series alive for nearly another decade before the final race in 2011 ended a lineage stretching back nearly forty years.