American racing: the Brickyard, the beach and the drag strip.

Who ran American racing

The American Automobile Association's Contest Board sanctioned racing in the United States from 1902. On 3 August 1955 the AAA said it would dissolve the board, with members pointing to the Le Mans disaster and the death of Indy 500 driver Bill Vukovich. Tony Hulman proposed a successor, and the United States Auto Club (USAC) was formed on 16 September 1955; it sanctioned the Indianapolis 500 from 1956 (Indianapolis Motor Speedway encyclopedia). Britannica notes that no single body governs US racing today and that American sanctioning bodies link to the FIA through ACCUS-FIA.

The Indianapolis 500

The first 500 ran in May 1911 and was won by Ray Harroun (see early racing). The National Park Service describes the speedway as a test bed for rear-view mirrors, front- and all-wheel drive, overhead camshafts, turbochargers and tyres, and it is a National Historic Landmark. Its owners have been Carl Fisher's group from 1909, Eddie Rickenbacker from 1927, Tony Hulman and Hulman & Co., and Roger Penske, whose purchase of the speedway and the IndyCar series closed in January 2020 (WFYI). The year of Hulman's purchase is given as November 1945 by the Indianapolis Business Journal, as 1945 by WFYI, and as 1946 by the National Park Service.

The IBJ records that the track closed in 1917 and 1918, that Rickenbacker cancelled the 1942 race after Pearl Harbor, and that racing returned in 1946. Louis Meyer became the first three-time winner in 1936 and, according to the IBJ, started the winner's tradition of drinking milk. The IBJ also counts at least 66 deaths in racing at the speedway since 1909, among them Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs on the second lap of the 1964 race. Pirelli notes that the 500 was a round of the first Formula One World Championship, in 1950.

Indianapolis was slow to take up the rear engine. Jack Brabham brought a rear-engined Cooper-Climax in May 1961, qualified 13th and finished ninth. Jim Clark was second in a Ford-powered Lotus in 1963, and in 1965 he became the first to win the 500 in a rear-engined car, by nearly two minutes; 27 of that year's 33 starters had the engine behind the driver (IMS).

Wikipedia lists four drivers with four Indy 500 wins each: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, Rick Mears and Hélio Castroneves, and credits Team Penske with a record 20 wins, the first in 1972. The IMS refers to the 2026 race as the 110th running. Wikipedia reports that Felix Rosenqvist (Meyer Shank Racing) won it by 0.0233 seconds over David Malukas, described as the closest finish in the race's history.

NASCAR's roots, as historians describe them

Britannica places the start of stock car racing on the beach at Daytona Beach, Florida, in the 1930s, before it moved to tracks. The Saturday Evening Post describes how, during Prohibition, bootleggers modified ordinary-looking cars for speed to haul illegal liquor, and how those cars kept racing at informal local meetings after repeal in 1933.

How large a part moonshine played is a matter of interpretation. History.com, drawing on author Neal Thompson and historian Daniel S. Pierce, reports that the Ford V-8 introduced in 1932 was a favourite with runners, and that Pierce finds ties to illegal alcohol among a large share of early mechanics, owners, promoters and track owners. Thompson's own claim is hedged: that without moonshine money NASCAR probably would not have grown as quickly or in the same way. History.com also says Atlanta bootlegger Raymond Parks ran what Thompson calls the first formal racing team, which won NASCAR's first two championships with Red Byron; Parks entered the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2017.

The founding of NASCAR

In December 1947 Bill France Sr. brought drivers, owners and promoters together at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach to form a body that would police promoters, standardise rules and run a championship (Saturday Evening Post). The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was incorporated on 21 February 1948 (Jayski). That is why sources give two founding years: Britannica uses 1947, the year of the meeting, while Jayski and the Saturday Evening Post use February 1948, the incorporation.

For 2026, Jayski reports that NASCAR returned to a 10-race "Chase" for 16 drivers, with the title going to the points leader after the Homestead-Miami finale. The 2026 Cup season was still in progress as of October 2026. Career records are on notable drivers, and the series today is on our NASCAR page.

Drag racing and the NHRA

Britannica says drag racing began in the 1930s on quarter-mile strips in the Southern California desert and spread quickly after World War II. It dates the National Hot Rod Association to 1951; Wikipedia gives May 1951 and names the founder as Wally Parks, a dry-lakes racer and editor of Hot Rod magazine. According to Wikipedia, the NHRA set out to promote safety and sportsmanship and to separate organised hot rodding from reckless street racing. Its first Nationals were held at Great Bend, Kansas, in 1955, and the U.S. Nationals now run at Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg, Indiana. Britannica records that the FIA recognised drag racing in 1965.

The first kart

Wikipedia, citing FIA Karting, records the first kart as the Caretta-West Bend, built in August 1956 in Glendale, California, by Art Ingels and Lou Borelli, with a tube frame and a small West Bend two-stroke engine. Ingels built race cars at Kurtis Kraft, and early karts were run in car parks, including at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. We could not confirm these details from FIA Karting directly.

Can-Am, 1966 to 1974

Wikipedia describes Can-Am, the Canadian-American Challenge Cup, as an SCCA and CASC championship that began in 1966 with two Canadian and four US races. It ran to the FIA's Group 7 rules: any engine size, turbochargers and superchargers allowed, and free aerodynamics, so long as the car had two seats and enclosed wheels. John Surtees won the first title in a Lola T70. McLaren's works team won five in a row from 1967 to 1971, with Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme finishing first and second so often that the series was nicknamed the "Bruce and Denny show"; McLaren was killed testing at Goodwood in 1970. Wikipedia says costs, the 1973 oil crisis and recession ended the original series during 1974, and that the SCCA revived the name from 1977 to 1987 for single-seater-based cars.

Ford against Ferrari at Le Mans

Hagerty reports that American carmakers withdrew public support for racing after 1955 under a formal ban that lasted until 1962, when Henry Ford II launched Ford's "Total Performance" programme. The rest of this story comes from Wikipedia, as we could not retrieve Ford's own account. Ferrari had won Le Mans every year from 1960 to 1965. In 1963 Ford negotiated to buy Ferrari and paid for an audit, but Enzo Ferrari broke off talks late, largely over who would control open-wheel racing, including Indianapolis. Henry Ford II then ordered a car to beat Ferrari at Le Mans.

The GT40 began at Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough, England, under John Wyer, based on the Lola Mk6, and passed to Carroll Shelby's team after poor results in 1964. Ford then won Le Mans four years running:

In 1966 Ford finished first, second and third and arranged a staged dead heat, but the organisers ruled that the car which had started further back had covered more distance, so McLaren and Amon won over Ken Miles and Denny Hulme. Wikipedia notes that accounts of how the finish unfolded differ. Miles was killed in August 1966 while testing Ford's J-car at Riverside.