-After Daytona, many new tracks came up including speedways outside Atlanta and Charlotte
-In 1969, France opened the 2.66-mile Alabama International Motor Speedway (now known as Talladega Superspeedway), the largest and fastest motorsports oval in the world.
-New tracks also sprang up in Brooklyn, Mich., (70 miles southwest of Detroit), Dover, Del., (between Philadelphia and Baltimore) and Pocono, Pa., two hours from Manhattan
-The decade of the 1970s brought further change, including one at the top when Bill France Sr., passed the torch of leadership of NASCAR to his son Bill Jr. on Jan. 10,1972
-Corporate sponsorship of the series by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company through its Winston brand began in 1971 and NASCAR's premier division was then known as the Winston Cup Series
-Lee Petty's son Richard, who soon would be referred to as "The King" of stock-car racing, Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough, Ned Jarrett, David Pearson and Bobby Allison led NASCAR racing through an era that featured a schedule of more than 60 races a year on tracks from Florida to California to Maine. (1960s)
Late 1970s and 1980s
-Television exposure grew as well. The 1979 Daytona 500 became the first 500-mile race in history to be telecast live in its entirety. In 1981, NASCAR moved it's annual awards ceremony to New York City from Daytona Beach for the first time
-By the mid 1980s, Fortune 500 companies not only were involved in sponsoring NASCAR, but individual races and teams as well.
Drivers such as Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott and others were rising to challenge Petty and Allison and Yarborough and displaying the colors of detergents and coffees and cereals on the hoods of their cars while doing it
-1982 - NASCAR consolidated the Late Model Sportsman Division into a new series
-Since rising costs had made weekly racing for the Late Model stock cars difficult, the idea behind the creation of the series was to build big races, and to bring all of the regional-stars of the series together for all of the races.
-Anheuser-Busch Inc. of St. Louis became the sponsor of the new Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series.
-In 1984, the Busch brand took over the sponsorship in what would become the Busch Series -- now called the Nationwide Series
1990s
-NASCAR began its meteoric rise by expansion in 1993 to New Hampshire Motor Speedway -- 70 miles north of Boston -- and in 1994, to the capital of open-wheel racing, Indianapolis
-In May 1994, NASCAR introduced a new series, the Craftsman Truck Series, involving full-sized, full-bodied pickup trucks
-After several exhibition events, the first point event in the new series was held in February 1995
-At the same time, NASCAR's at-track attendance was growing monumentally
-The NASCAR Lifestyle was becoming a national phenomenon with cover stories in Forbes and Sports Illustrated
-To help feed the tremendous growth, NASCAR launched its official Web site in 1995 (www.nascar.com) and in 1997, NASCAR branched out again adding races in top 10 markets like Los Angeles, Dallas/Ft. Worth and added a second date in New Hampshire
-The 1998 season marked the celebration of NASCAR's 50th Anniversary with an unprecedented integrated marketing campaign to celebrate NASCAR's past, present and future
-NASCAR's top division expanded once again to Las Vegas while the Busch Series expanded to Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado, and the Truck Series included new races at St. Louis, Memphis and Pikes Peak
Beginning | Terms, part 1 | Drafting Example | Terms, part 2 | Restrictor Plate | History, part 1 | History, part 2
History, part 3 | History, part 4 | History, part 5 | End of Presentation