What does NASCAR stand for?

December 1947, Bill France Sr. of Daytona Beach, Fla., organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel across the street from the Atlantic Ocean to discuss the problems facing stock car racing.

France had come to Florida from Washington, D.C., years earlier. He operated a local service station and also promoted races on the city’s famed beach-road courses, often racing himself. He was a man of strong will – and ambition. Thus, by the time that meeting at the Streamline Hotel was completed, the

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was born,(NASCAR). Few knew when the meeting adjourned if the organization would be successful. In fact, there were skeptics who believed it never would work.

Not even France, who believed a sanctioning body was exactly what the sport of stock car racing needed, could have envisioned what NASCAR has become.