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To: WestCoastGal
You probably already captured this for the Nascar withdrawal thread,, but.. Pingaroo :-)
2 posted on 01/07/2006 11:43:53 AM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Monthly Donor spoken Here. Go to ... https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: NormsRevenge
Yes it's there twice. LOL

However, I would like to say on this thread that the history of Nascar really suggests that Daytona Beach should have the HOF.




Founded more than 50 years ago, NASCAR has become one of the hottest spectator sports in the world. In the years following World War II, stock car racing began to grow. Stock car racing was experiencing the greatest popularity it had ever seen. Tracks all over the country were drawing more drivers to race in front of bigger crowds. But there was very little organization and no consistency in the rules between tracks. From track to track, rules were different. Some tracks were just makeshift facilities, built to produce one big show at a county fair or something similar to capitalize on the crowds flocking to the events. Other tracks were more suited to handle the cars, but not the crowds. Some could manage both, but did little to adhere to rules set by neighboring tracks.

In December of 1947, Bill France Sr., of Daytona Beach, Fla., organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel in town to discuss the matters facing stock car racing. France had come to Florida from Washington, D.C., years earlier and operated a local service station as well as promote events on the city's famed beach course that he often raced in himself. From that simple meeting, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was born. Few knew when the meeting adjourned if the organization would be successful. In fact there were skeptics who believed it never would work. Not even France, who believed a sanctioning body was exactly what the sport of stock car racing needed, could have envisioned what NASCAR has become today.

Things came together quickly. The first NASCAR-sanctioned race was held on Daytona's beach course Feb. 15, 1948, just two months after the organizational meeting. Red Byron, a stock car legend from Atlanta, won the event in his Ford Modified. Six days later on Feb. 21, 1948, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was incorporated. It was 1949, however, when what is now the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, the premier racing division in America, was born. The first event featured a $5,000 purse and was held on a two-mile circular course in southern Florida followed by a 150 mile race at the three-quarter-mile Charlotte Speedway in which Jim Roper of Great Bend, Kan., was the winner. A tremendous crowd attended the event to see automobiles with the appearance of a street car race door-to-door. The new racing series was off and running. And it was an immediate success. Eight events in all were held in 1949.

LINK

3 posted on 01/07/2006 11:54:02 AM PST by WestCoastGal (A jolly type known for a red suit and a red sleigh.!!!!! My designated driver)
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