Stock Car Racing - Stock Car Series

Stock Car Series

The most prominent championship in stock car racing is the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, named after its sponsor Sprint Nextel. It is the most popular racing series in the United States, drawing over 6 million spectators in 1997, an average live audience of over 190,000 people for each race.

The most famous event in the series is the Daytona 500, an annual 500-mile (800 km) race at Daytona Beach, Florida. The series' second-biggest event is arguably The Brickyard 400, an annual 400-mile (640 km) race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the legendary home of the Indianapolis 500, an open-wheeled race. NASCAR also operates the Nationwide Series, a stock car junior league, and the Camping World Truck Series, a junior league where pickup trucks are raced. Together the two car-based series (Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series) drew 8 million spectators in 1997, compared to 4 million for both American open-wheel series (CART and IRL), which merged in 2008 under the IRL banner. In 2002, 17 of the 20 US top sporting events in terms of attendance were stock car races. Only football drew more television viewers that year.

Besides NASCAR, there are a number of other national or regional stock-car sanctioning bodies in the United States. There are a few organizations that cater to these local short tracks. The Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), American Speed Association (ASA), Champion Racing Association (CRA), International Motor Contest Association (IMCA), United Auto Racing Association UARA and, United Speed Alliance Racing (USAR) all sanction their own forms of stock-car racing, on varying types of track, and with various levels of media coverage. The International Race of Champions (IROC) series used stock cars, but is usually perceived as being outside of the usual stock car racing scene because of its 'All-Star' design.

Internationally, stock car racing has not enjoyed the same success as within the United States. The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series enjoys generally strong car-counts using the base of the sport in Canada (the short-oval region of Southern Ontario). Brazil also has a successful stock car racing series, with starting grids of 40 or more cars, and four brands competing: Chevrolet, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and Peugeot. Brazilian Stock Car also has two developing series. Argentina also have a popular stock series, called Turismo Carretera. Unsuccessful efforts have been made in Australia, South Africa, and Japan as well.