Since 1949 NASCAR has had a long and rich history. From the early vision of Bill France Sr. NASCAR has grown to the biggest motorsport series in North America. You can't truly appreciate NASCAR as it is today without knowing something about the its history.

In December 1947, Bill France Sr., of Daytona Beach, Fla., organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel across the street from the Atlantic Ocean to discuss the problems facing stock-car racing. France had come to Florida from Washington, D.C., years earlier. He operated a local service station and also promoted races on the city's famed beach-road courses, often racing himself. He was a man of strong will -- and ambition. By the time that meeting at the Streamline Hotel was complete, 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 Cup Series, the premier racing division in America, was born. Jim Roper of Great Bend, Kan., was the winner of the first ever NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) event, held at the Charlotte (N.C.) Fairgrounds on June 19, 1949. 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.

Plans immediately were made for ways to bring bigger, faster races to bigger, hungrier crowds and less than a year later (1950), the country's first asphalt superspeedway, Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, opened its doors for the new division.  Bill France Sr., began construction of a 2.5-mile, high-banked superspeedway four miles off the beach in Daytona Beach.  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.  

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.  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.  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.

In 2003, NASCAR made two major announcements to help the dawn of the new era become even clearer. NASCAR announced in June that Nextel would become the new series sponsor in 2004, replacing R.J. Reynolds' Winston brand after 33 years. Three months later, in September, Brian Z. France was named NASCAR's CEO and Chairman of the Board replacing his father, Bill France Jr.

A steady parade of changes has followed. The Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup was announced at the start of 2004, ushering in a new format by which to determine the champion of NASCAR's premier series. In 2006, Toyota announced a move into all three of NASCAR's national series. In 2007 it was announced that the premier series' name would be changed to the Sprint Cup Series. In addition, 2007 also saw the announcement that Nationwide Insurance would replace Anheuser Busch as main sponsor of NASCAR's No. 2 series. And, there was the phasing-in of NASCAR's safety-oriented new car.

https://www.nascar.com/news/features/history