NASCAR 75: One of a series of 75 stories that helped define the first three quarters of a century of NASCAR, as Autoweek races to the 2023 Daytona 500.
- It took NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. about a decade to move from spectator to race promoter on the highway/beach course to founder of a major sanctioning body.
- France worked for guaranteed purses, introduced safety and rescue innovations, and urged rival groups to adopt uniform officiating.
- His efforts led to December 14, 1947. On that day, three dozen like-minded racers met in the Streamline Hotel on South Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach, Fla., to hear France’s vision.
William Henry Getty France was smitten by the balmy climes, wide beaches, refreshing sunshine, and unhurried lifestyle of Daytona Beach, Fla. It was early 1935 and he and his wife, Anne, and their first-born, Bill, were immediately attracted to the area.
Weary of northern winters, the Frances were headed from Washington to Miami when (according to legend) their car broke down. They lingered in Daytona Beach long enough for France to open a gas station/garage on Main Street, near the beach. A middling gearhead, he became interested and later involved in the area’s famous “speed trials” on the hard-packed sand from Ormond-by-the-Sea southward to Daytona Beach Shores.
The birthplace of NASCAR: The Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida
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In a roundabout way, those speed trials led to the birth of major-league stock car racing in America.
It took France about a decade to move from spectator to race promoter on the highway/beach course to founder of a major sanctioning body. He raced briefly from the mid-1930s until World War II, worked in the defense industry when racing went quiet, and returned to racing after the war. Instead of driving, though, he concentrated on organizing rival owners, mechanics, and drivers under a common set of rules. He worked for guaranteed purses, introduced safety and rescue innovations, and urged rival groups to adopt uniform officiating.
His efforts led to December 14, 1947. On that day, three dozen like-minded racers met in the Streamline Hotel on South Atlantic Avenue to hear France’s vision to unify stock car racing under one banner.
Bill France Sr.
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Two months later, on February 21, 1948, he was in charge as the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was incorporated.
France wanted to run three series that year: Strictly Stock, Modified Stock, and Roadsters. Things changed when the Roadsters never developed and there weren’t enough Strictly Stocks for a meaningful season. To fill the void, the Modifieds ran 58 races and named future Hall of Famer and WW II veteran Red Byron its national champion.
It wasn’t until 18 months later—June 19, 1949—that NASCAR racing as we know it emerged. On that Sunday afternoon near Charlotte, 33 drivers ran the first Strictly Stock race before upwards of 12,000 curious fans. As the first of 2,714 such races over the next 75 years, the 200-lapper on a ¾-mile dirt track stands in tribute to “Big Bill’s” iron-fisted foresight.
Before he helped form NASCAR in 1947, Bill France was appropriately an “expert in body and fender repairs.”
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Keyword: How a Meeting at the Streamline Hotel in 1947 Led to the Birth of NASCAR