The ‘biggies’ in NASCAR’s evolution

This article is written assuming that most of my readers are interested in racing history, in particular the historical items dating back to what many of us would call “the good old days.” It’s also incomplete, depending on you to finish it.

When Big Bill France drew up the rules for his Strictly Stock Division, there were far fewer of them than there are today, but what rules there were created something far different from what takes to the track in Cup Series races these days.

(A note about the cover photo: Thanks to the wonders of brass, Big Bill and Ann France haven’t changed much over the years. The same can’t be said about the racing series Big Bill founded. The photo is from DaytonaBeach.com.)

What I’m going to do here is list my own choices of the biggest changes since 1949 and then give you an opportunity to add to (or criticize) my list. Here we go.

THE CARS – NASCAR has its own timeline here, and it goes like this:

1948-66 – Stock (actually, it should be ’49, the beginning of Strictly Stock/GN/Cup).

1967-80 – Purpose-built racing chassis (credited to Holman & Moody).

1981-91 – Wheelbase reduced to reflect downsizing of American Sedans.

1992-2006 – Highly modified bodies, developed through wind-tunnel testing.

2007-12 – Common body & chassis for all cars. (NASCAR also calls this a “new era of safety.”

2013-present (the NASCAR piece was published online in 2021 and has not been updated) – Common chassis but manufacturer-unique body panels. NASCAR has the nerve to say this “design puts the ‘stock’ back in stock car racing.” * (A note from the editor, below.)

2022-present (my update) – Gen 7 car. I guess NASCAR would say this continued the move toward more “stock” cars, but probably wouldn’t add that it was mostly intended to improve the quality of racing over its flawed predecessor.

That’s all very interesting, but I think I’d simplify it as follows:

1948-66 – Stock-ish. Modifications were introduced almost from the beginning, and this period includes several points where new changes were allowed, but it does pretty much cover when you could get a car out of a junkyard and convert it into a NASCAR Grand National racer.

1967-91 – Stock-looking purpose-built race cars. I’m not completely sold on this as an “era,” but I’ll allow for a break point where the cars officially stopped looking anything like stock cars, and ’91 is as good a marker as any. Other changes came on a year-to-year basis.

1991-2006 – NASCAR’s era of the “race” car versus the “stock” car. Still, the cars themselves came from the manufacturers and the major specialty builders/suppliers.

2007-present – The era of racing in “NASCAR” cars that have had varying amounts of input from the manufacturers (almost none in 2007, a fair amount today, but still nothing like 1967-2006). The sub-era of one supplier for most parts fits in this period, too.

NUMBER OF RACES – This one’s easy:

1949-71 – The era of “however many you can squeeze in.” Includes the years when Big Bill would schedule an East Coast race and a West Coast race the same day, and the years the next season’s schedule began in November of the previous year.

1972-present – The Winston Cup era and thereafter, with the smaller races whacked off the schedule and nearly all of what remained scheduled on Sunday or Saturday.

POINTS – This one’s kind of messy, but see if my timeline makes sense:

1949-67 – Points based (using a variety of systems) on how much money a race paid. This system resulted in teams cherry-picking the richest races and still finishing well up in points: in 1965, Marvin Panch drove 20 races out of 52 total and finished fifth in points, with 400 more than sixth-place Bob Derrington, who ran 51 races.

1967-73 – Points based on the length of a race. Intended in part to deal with the above situation, and it worked from a points standpoint, but it didn’t stop top teams from only running the biggest races.

1974 – Anarchy (somebody from the current NASCAR management traveled back in time and designed this one). In an effort to get everybody to run all the events (remember, we’re now in the Winston Cup era, so the 200-lappers on half-mile tracks are gone, but the problem remained), points were awarded based on purse, but they then were multiplied by the number of races a driver had run (and then divided by 1,000, for no particular reason).

1975-2003 – The Bob Latford system, supposedly written out by its creator on a cocktail napkin. Designed to reward running all the races (and also rewarded consistency). Same number of points awarded for every race. Some bonus points eventually got thrown in.

2004-16 – The Latford system meets the Chase/Playoffs. Same point system, but it only serves to set up the Chase/Playoffs, which have a different system for the drivers making that final-10-races championship round. Over the last couple of years, the number of points awarded was reduced, but this didn’t change the theory behind the system.

2017-present – Stage Racing rears its ugly head, and larger numbers of points are awarded for performance other than at the finish. Also known as Anarchy II.

Within all of that is embedded the huge change that was the Chase/Playoffs, so, if you want, so you can divide this section into:

1949-2016 – One points system.

2017-present – One “regular season” points system and a second system for the Chase/Playoffs.

RULES – I’ve noted before that my mid-‘60s NASCAR rule book (pocket-sized) has only eight pages of rules specifically applied to GN/Cup. At some point, maybe around that 1991 time when “stock cars converted for racing” became “race cars that look a little like stock cars,” there was a fundamental change in rules and their interpretation. The old way was, “It’s legal unless we say it’s illegal.” The new way became, “It’s illegal unless we say it’s legal.” That required more rules. And more rules. And more rules.

ELIMINATION OF DIRT TRACKS – The North Carolina State Fairgrounds track in Raleigh ran the last dirt track race in 1970. You can categorize the recent three-year fling at Bristol as you wish. As someone who watches racing almost exclusively on dirt these days, I regret this, although I realize that what the Cup car has become is in no way a dirt track race car.

MULTI-CAR TEAMS – When the first Strictly Stock race was run at Charlotte on June 19, 1949, there were four two-car teams in the field, and the R.B. McIntosh entries included winner Jim Roper (after Glenn Dunaway’s disqualification), but three-quarters of the field was single-car teams. Twenty-five years later, at Atlanta in 1964, there were seven two-car teams and one three-car operation, but more than half the entries were single-car. Fast forward another 25 years to Pocono in June 1999 and there are six 2-car teams, two three-car teams, a four-car team (Jack Roush), and 20 1-car teams, still nearly half the field. This past June at Loudon, there were three four-car teams, two three-car teams, eight two-car teams, and two single-car teams. That’s a single-car team drop from 20-25 in 1949, ’64, and ’99 to two today.

CHARTERS (AND PROVISIONALS) – This, of course, is closely tied to the multi-car teams above. It all started when Richard Petty couldn’t reliably qualify for races in 1989, and TV ratings dropped when he wasn’t in the field. The “Past Champion’s Provisional” starting position was added. Later more provisionals joined it, ostensibly so prominent sponsors wouldn’t be shut out of TV exposure and quit the sport. Then the world turned upside-down in 2016 when teams were awarded “charters,” NASCAR’s equivalent of a franchise. ALL chartered cars were guaranteed a starting spot in every race, regardless of how pathetic they ran, although NASCAR reserved the right to pull a charter if “pathetic” reached a certain point. The owners now want the right to be as pathetic as they please and still keep their charters (or sell them at a handsome profit). A 40-car starting field now has four positions that are earned by outqualifying somebody (if there are enough people out there willing to fight city hall and race without a charter).

Let’s break down this last one into eras:

1949-90 – You get into a race if you’re fast enough.

1991-2015 – You get in if you’re fast enough or important enough.

2016-present – There are a couple of cheap seats available in the back for those who can’t show their membership card.

To Summarize – Here are my NASCAR changes:

CARS – From stock cars to race cars.

RACES – From as many as possible to one per weekend for about three-quarters of the year.

POINTS – From a purse-based system to a two-part, every-race-is-equal system.

TRACKS – From dirt and pavement to only pavement (more-or-less).

TEAMS – From predominantly single-car to almost exclusively multi-car.

ACCESS – From “Here’s what it costs to enter a race,” to “May I see your membership card?”

What have I missed, other than the number of people working for NASCAR with vice president in their titles? I’ll follow up after we’ve had some input.

Frank’s Loose Lug Nuts – I’m writing this on the day after a visit to one of my favorite tracks, the quarter-mile dirt Path Valley Speedway, at the base of a mountain outside Spring Run, Pa. The PA Sprint Series IMCA/RaceSaver (economy) sprint cars were there, along with limited late models, two classes of micro-sprints, and 4-cylinder thunder cars.

In some ways, I think the thunders put on the best show, with nice multi-car battles up front and a kind of surprise winner, after some others took each other out of contention. There was even a disqualification.

Some of the cars looked really nice, others, less so. The entire 24-car field probably cost less than a single Cup car, but they were entertaining, even more so to the regular fans who had favorites and villains in the field.

Even had the weather cooperated in Michigan, I think this would have been the better race.

Frank Buhrman

* Editor’s note: Not exactly what your daily driver looks like underneath. Picture from Coery Lajoie’s flip at MIS this weekend!!