Today in sports history

On this date sixty years ago in Daytona Beach, Florida, Bill France Sr. and a few drivers founded the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, known to all as NASCAR.

I've never cared much for auto racing myself, but there's no denying NASCAR has become a major sporting organization in this country. Last week, when the Daytona 500 was on the same day as the NBA All-Star Game, it was the car race that led SportsCenter. Around these parts, there's a bar in Euclid called Nazzbar, and its logo is a modified version of the NASCAR logo. I know a guy who DVRs NASCAR races and keeps them for months. And last night, on a pickup truck in the Chardon area, I saw a bumper sticker that looked from a distance like the NASCAR logo, but said "REDNECK." It told me something about the driver, but these days, not all NASCAR fans would identify themselves thus.

The history of stock car racing is pretty interesting. It has its origins in the Appalachian moonshiners of the Prohibition era, who would modify their cars to make them as fast as possible so they could outrun the cops. These guys continued to operate even after Prohibition was repealed, as moonshine could be bought and sold tax-free. Eventually, they decided to start racing each other on a track, as outracing police cars was apparently no longer a challenge for them. People would pay to see them race, and France, a mechanic by trade who had been running the track in Daytona since 1938, got the idea that a governing body with a regular schedule would help the sport grow.

Last year, more Americans watched NASCAR races on TV than the sporting events of any other league or organization except the National Football League, and its races are broadcast in 150 countries. Seventeen of the top 20 sporting events in terms of attendance in American history are NASCAR races, and its fans purchase more than $3 billion worth of licensed merchandise every year.

I'd say Bill France was onto something.