The 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket V-8 with a displacement of 303 cu in (5.0 L) is widely recognized as the first postwar modern overhead valve (OHV) engine to become available to the public. Until the advent of the Trans-Am Series in 1967, NASCAR homologation cars were the closest thing that the public could buy that was actually very similar to the cars that were winning national races. While automobile engine technology had remained fairly stagnant in World War II, advanced aircraft piston engine development had provided a great deal of available data, and NASCAR was formed just as some of the improved technology was about to become available in production cars.
Street legal stock car drivers#
This is referred to as " homologation." In NASCAR's early years, the cars were so "stock" that it was commonplace for the drivers to drive themselves to the competitions in the car that they were going to run in the race. Additionally, the cars had to be models that had sold more than 500 units to the public.
When NASCAR was first formed by France in 1948 to regulate stock car racing in the U.S, there was a requirement that any car entered be made entirely of parts available to the general public through automobile dealers. saw this problem, he set up a meeting at the Streamline Hotel in order to form an organization that would unify the rules. The main problem racing faced was the lack of a unified set of rules among the different tracks. They would challenge one another and eventually progressed to organized events in the early 1930s. Eventually, runners started getting together with fellow runners and making runs together.
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To do so, they had to upgrade their vehicles-while leaving them looking ordinary, so as not to attract attention. In the 1920s, moonshine runners during the Prohibition era would often have to outrun the authorities.
Street legal stock car driver#
In October 2007 American race car driver Russ Wicks set a speed record for stock cars in a 2007-season Dodge Charger built to NASCAR specifications by achieving a maximum speed of 244.9 mph (394.1 km/h) at Bonneville Speedway. Ĭontemporary NASCAR-spec top-level cars produce maximum power outputs of 860–900 hp from their naturally aspirated V8 engines. Top-level stock cars exceed 200 mph (322 km/h) at speedway tracks and on superspeedway tracks such as Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Top-level races typically range between 200 and 600 miles (322 and 966 km) in length. Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil and the United Kingdom also have forms of stock car racing.
Its NASCAR Cup Series is the premier top-level series of professional stock car racing. It originates from the United States and Canada the world's largest governing body is the American NASCAR. It originally used production-model cars, hence the name "stock car", but is now run using cars specifically built for racing. Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks measuring approximately 0.25 to 2.66 miles (0.4 to 4.3 kilometers).
NASCAR vehicles practicing at Daytona International Speedway in 2004Īll types of oval tracks and road courses