NASCAR was born 75 years ago today at a hotel in Daytona
December 14, 1947 was a Sunday afternoon. Yes, most of the men who gathered in Daytona Beach, Fla. on that chilly, gray day were dressed in suits. But no, it was not a church service. Far from it. There was entirely too much brown liquor on the table and cigar smoke in the air for that. However, it was a christening. The roll-your-quarters beginning of a billion dollar business, 75 years ago today. The birth of NASCAR.
That Sunday was the first of four days of meetings attended by a revolving door of nearly 40 businessmen, promoters, race car owners and race car drivers. You’ll notice that “bootleggers” is not included in that list of occupations. That’s because pretty much all of them were, from white lightning dabblers to downright moonshine titans, they just didn’t want anyone to know it.
“The way y’all remember it now was like the pictures we took, that we were this cleaned-up-looking bunch of men who knew exactly what they were doing,” recalled attendee Raymond Parks in 2007, three years before his death and ten years before his posthumous election to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “In reality, we were a bunch characters all there hoping to straighten some things out. If we didn’t, fine, we’d go back to do what we were doing before. But it certainly worked out. At least for some folks it did.”
Welcome to the Ebony Room
It was a rough-hewn continental congress of racers, summoned to the space-themed Ebony Room, a rooftop lounge atop Daytona’s still-new art deco show palace known as the Streamline Hotel, a venue then best known for hosting Al Capone and his wise-guy cohorts as they migrated south during World War II.
The curious attendees showed up having accepted an invitation, really a challenge, via an advertisement placed in the de facto bible of American motorsports, Speed Age magazine. That ad had been placed by a Daytona Beach businessman and racer-turned-promoter named William Henry Getty France, aka “Big Bill”.
Recalled Parks: “That’s the nickname you get when you’re 6-foot-5 and you’re around race car drivers all the time, because race car drivers are typically little people.”
France had spent the prior decade rising from house painter and gas station owner to part-time racer and, eventually, the overseer of racing on Daytona’s famous super-fast white sand beaches. The two years after the end of WWII saw veterans returning home from Europe and the Pacific who immediately sought their post-war thrills behind the wheel. From coast to coast, they raced their street cars over country roads, around self-plowed oval racetracks and yes, on the beach course operated by “Big Bill”.
France, frustrated by what he perceived as condescension from AAA and the IndyCar crowd, went so far as to start his own sanctioning body in 1947. He called it the National Championship Stock Car Circuit, or NCSCC, racing under his penned phrase “Where The Fastest That Run, Run The Fastest.” Problem was, all of those racers scattered all over the nation had also started their own stock car series, from the American Stock Car Racing Association to the National Stock Car Racing Association to the poorly titled Stock Car Auto Racing Society — SCARS.
Every one of those series employed their own convoluted points systems and every rulebook was different, but none of that mattered because rules were essentially unenforceable. A spaghetti pile of names and cars, run by an unintelligible alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies, ensured constant chaos that allowed shady track promoters to rob racers blind and kept any would-be race fan from having any clue as to who, what and where they should be watching.
“Every track and every area has a ‘national champion’ of every type of racing,” France declared to the Ebony Room as his guests took their seats. “This has so confused sportswriters that they give up in disgust after trying to give the public an accurate picture.”
Bill France Jr., aka “Bill Junior” and son of “Big Bill,” explained: “It was all a big mess, and my father knew it, but so did everyone else.”
He did so during Daytona Speedweeks 1998, the kickoff of NASCAR’s 50th anniversary celebration. His Winston-burned voice pushed through a tour guide’s microphone as he led a media bus ride around town. That tour had stopped in front of the Streamline, and “Bill Junior” was pointing to the rooftop.
“It didn’t take much convincing to get those guys to show up here and see if they could straighten it out,” he said. “It wasn’t the most educated, sophisticated bunch of men, but they were all smart. Smart enough to know that they could all benefit if it got organized.”
The bulk of the attendees were locals, but they also came from Atlanta and North Carolina, from New England and New Rochelle, N.Y., from as far as deep into the Midwest. The buttoned-up and the dressed-down, representing nearly every corner of the United States from the right side of the Mississippi River.
But the room was filled with as much distrust as it was smoke. There were open arguments punctuated by whispers. Group discussions laced by secret one-on-one asides. A lounge full of alpha males found it difficult to agree on what their race cars should look like or even what to call their new organization.
The man who bankrolled the meetings at the request of France was Parks, already a legendary car owner with racers Lloyd Seay, who was dead, and Roy Hall, who was in prison. But the man who’d made his fortune in real estate and cars, not to mention gambling houses and moonshining, was so skeptical of the happenings inside the Ebony Room that he initially refused to sit at the table with France and the others. Parks chose instead to sit at the bar with a couple of female students from a local charm school that “Big Bill” had brought in for the meetings.
“I wanted it to work. Heck, I paid for everyone to be there. But until I saw that everyone there was actually serious about it, I wasn’t buying in,” Parks said on the 60th anniversary of the Streamline meetings. “By the second day, Red and Red assured me that there was progress being made, so I went in there, too.”
‘Next thing you know, NASCAR belonged to Bill France’
The first Red was Red Byron, who drove for Parks. The second was Red Vogt, who built Parks’ cars. Like everyone else in the room, they were blown away at how “Big Bill” took charge of the proceedings. He’d opened the first day with a rousing call to arms.
“Nothing stands still in the world. Things get better or worse, bigger or smaller.” He kicked off day two of a hangover by setting a blue collar tone. “Stock car racing has got distinct possibilities for Sunday shows. I would allow race-minded boys that work all week who don’t have enough money to afford a regular racing car to be competition to the rich guy. It allows them the opportunity to go to a racetrack on Sunday and show their stuff and maybe win a prize …”
France wanted stock cars. Right off the street. Raced on dirt and, whenever possible, on Sundays. There was some opposition, but not much. In fact, “Big Bill” seemed to allow just enough arguing to make those in the room believe that they were making the decisions and not him. That even went for the organization’s new name. Byron suggested National Stock Car Racing Association. Vogt suggested National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing, which France liked because “NASCAR” rolled off the tongue. After Byron’s name won in a 7-4 vote, France reminded that there was already a NSCRA in Georgia, and perhaps they’d like to think about it. They revoted. This time, NASCAR won.
“‘Big Bill’ should have been a politician,” explained longtime Charlotte Observer motorsports scribe Tom Higgins, himself a NASCAR Hall of Famer, in 2017, about seven months before his death. “His invitation list to those meetings was just the right mix of friends versus foes. And when they closed those meetings with officer elections, which also determined who got the most shares of ownership, who do you think convinced them to give Bill France Senior the first presidency of NASCAR and the most shares? Bill France Senior, that’s who!”
It was true. The man who would later brag, “I can hold my board meetings in a phone booth” left the Streamline Hotel on Dec. 17, 1947, with the title of NASCAR president and 50% of those shares. Not knowing yet what they had signed over, the group posed for the now-famous photo of their meeting in the Ebony Room, “Big Bill” having smoothly positioned himself at the head of the table.
As Parks liked to say with a shake of the head and he-got-me grin, “Next thing you know, NASCAR belonged to Bill France.”
A new age, a new Streamline
France’s belief in one-man rule has proven wise beyond his 82-year life, which ended on June 7, 1992.
NASCAR was formerly incorporated on Feb. 21, 1948. The winner of its first race and championship was Red Byron, driving for Parks in a car prepared by Vogt. But, oddly enough, none of that was in a stock car. The postwar lag in streetcar production out of Detroit forced NASCAR to start by racing in ’48 using fender-less Modifieds, with the Strictly Stock division finally taking the green flag in Charlotte on June 19, 1949.
“Big Bill” reigned as NASCAR chairman and CEO until handing over the keys to Bill France Jr. in 1972, having survived financial crises, gas shortages, driver strikes and the deaths of multiple superstars. As the sport raced into the 1970s, it began its so-called Modern Era and spent the next three decades on an alpine-like climb.
“Bill Junior,” who died in 2007, was succeeded by Mike Helton as president, followed by Brian France, grandson of “Big Bill,” and since 2018, Steve Phelps. “Big Bill”‘s second son, the soft-spoken Jim France, is now NASCAR chairman. He was only three years old in February 1947. His niece, Bill France Jr’s daughter Lesa France Kennedy, serves as NASCAR’s executive vice chair. Most have their eyes on her son, 30-year-old Ben Kennedy, as the heir apparent to the stock car kingdom.
On Wednesday, they will all gather at the Streamline Hotel for a Founder’s Day celebration. They will toast their stock car racing forefathers in what is now known as the Sky Lounge Bar, the space formerly known as the Ebony Room, now wallpapered with photos of the men who gathered there to burn tobacco, sip amber fluids and draw up the paperwork that started the world’s largest stock car racing series.
That series is experiencing a bit of a rebirth, a reversal of recent misfortune that is much like the Streamline itself. After decades of disrepair, the old hotel vibrates with life. Remember that ’98 bus tour with “Bill Junior”? The place was in such terrible shape that day that he refused to get off the bus and go inside because, “It might collapse on top of us.” Now, after a $6 million overhaul and one Travel Channel “Hotel Impossible” star turn, it has become a Daytona hot spot. When Dale Earnhardt Jr. launched his new vodka line last February, he did so alongside his wife on the same roof where Parks once hung out at the bar with the charm school students.
This year’s Dec. 14 festivities mark the kickoff of NASCAR’s 75th anniversary celebration, with the promise of both eyes on 2023 and beyond, while keeping one foot planted in 1947.
“How cool would it be to go back and watch a race on the beach, right? Having to make sure that you’re trying to figure out when what’s low tide? What’s high tide?” Phelps says of the view from atop the Streamline, looking across Highway A1A at the Atlantic Ocean. “Then I look out my window here at my office and I see Daytona International Speedway. The vision to be able to create this in the 1940s and ’50’s, I mean, it’s just extraordinary. This is what Bill Senior envisioned.”
NASCAR’s fifth-ever president speaks of the sport’s recent gains in television ratings and attendance and the successes of experiments such as racing at the L.A. Coliseum and the raciness — with safety work currently being done — of the new Next Gen car. He talks about the gift of guidance that is his ability to lean on the France family. Then he reminds that one of “Big Bill’s” speeches from the Streamline Hotel, the one about “Stock car racing has got distinct possibilities for Sunday shows …” is displayed across a giant wall in NASCAR’s Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C. A constant, stories-tall reminder of what happened 75 years ago this week.
“There’s a statement that I’ve heard from both Jim France and Mike Helton and that’s where we are … they always say we are stewards for the sport. We need to leave it better than when we found it,” Phelps continues. “Everything we do ladders to that, that North Star. I think that’s helpful. So, when people come to work, when I come to work, we know what’s expected. And it started that day at the Streamline Hotel.”
One team is a win away from advancing to a third straight Stanley Cup Final. The other is about to once again come up short in a conference final. As drastic as that sounds, that is the reality facing the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes following the Panthers’ 6-2 win Saturday in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers opened the series by scoring five goals in each of the first two games and exposing the Hurricanes in a way that hadn’t been done by another team this postseason. On Saturday, it appeared that the Canes may have found a solution as they entered the third period tied at 1-1 … before the Panthers exploded for five straight goals to close out Game 3 in emphatic fashion.
How did both teams perform? Who is worth watching in Game 4? And given that there’s a sweep in play, what could Monday mean for both teams, knowing that one of them could see their season come to an end? Ryan S. Clark and Kristen Shilton answer those questions while reviewing what has been a lopsided Eastern Conference finals.
The Panthers withstood an expected early push from Carolina and settled swiftly into their own game. They failed to capitalize on their first-period power-play chance but made up for it by opening the scoring with a goal credited to Niko Mikkola (that actually went off Carolina’s Dmitry Orlov) midway through the first. It was a deflating marker for Carolina goalie Pyotr Kochetkov to cede right after a solid Hurricanes penalty kill and appeared to diminish Carolina’s confidence.
There was potential to shift Carolina’s momentum, though. Before the first period ended, Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen finished a check sending Jackson Blake awkwardly into the boards. That earned Luostarinen a five-minute penalty and game misconduct, putting the Panthers down two of their top forwards in Luostarinen and an injured Sam Reinhart. But Florida didn’t let the lengthy man advantage hurt its momentum. The Panthers killed it off and matched Carolina’s shot total while shorthanded.
While the score was tied at 1-1 going into the third, Florida regained its lead with Jesper Boqvist undressing (to put it mildly) Orlov in shocking fashion. Boqvist entered the lineup to replace Reinhart, and it was the type of contribution Florida could only hope to see from its depth skater.
It was all Panthers from there, with goals from Mikkola, Aleksander Barkov (capitalizing on a turnover by Orlov), Evan Rodrigues and Brad Marchand giving Florida a 6-1 lead halfway through the third and putting Carolina against the ropes going into an elimination Game 4. Florida will wonder about Mikkola’s status ahead of that tilt. (He left in the third period Saturday after slamming into the end boards.) But the Cats can’t be too frustrated given their win. — Kristen Shilton
0:53
Jesper Boqvist puts Panthers back ahead
Jesper Boqvist goes through the goaltender’s legs to restore the Panthers’ lead vs. the Hurricanes.
Unofficial Canadian poet laureate Avril Lavigne once posed one of more philosophical questions of her generation: Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?
Everything the Hurricanes did through the first two periods of Game 3 created the belief that they could potentially stick with the Panthers. Only to then fall apart in the third period. Again.
There are numerous reasons why losing Game 3 is so damning for the Hurricanes. What might be the most prominent and prevalent is there might not be anything else they can do at this stage. We have seen the Panthers take a 3-0 series lead only to be pushed to a Game 7 in a playoff series. That was the case in last year’s Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers.
But through three games of this series? The Hurricanes have switched goaltenders, adjusted their lineups and sought out other alterations within their structure — and still lost by a large margin while once again falling prey to being on the other end of a big period. — Ryan S. Clark
Three Stars of Game 3
Mikkola has had quite a series. The defensemen has broken up plays, taken command off the rush and created quality scoring chances. He had two goals in Game 3 for his first career multigoal playoff game and the fourth multigoal playoff game in Panthers franchise history.
It was two goals and a helper for the Cats’ captain. This was Barkov’s 20th career multipoint playoff game, the most in Panthers franchise history.
3. The Panthers’ third period
The Panthers unloaded in the final frame, scoring five goals to run away with Game 3 by a final score of 6-2. Five tucks is the most in any period in a playoff game in franchise history. The Hurricanes have now lost 15 straight conference final games since they won the Stanley Cup in 2006. — Arda Öcal
0:44
Panthers pour it on with 2 more quick goals
The Panthers net two more goals in just over a minute to pad their lead vs. the Hurricanes.
Players to watch in Game 4
There’s no question Florida’s netminder has been building a Conn Smythe case with his excellent play in this postseason. However, Bobrovsky hasn’t been at his most dominant in (initial) closeout games during the playoffs. He made 26 saves for an .897 save percentage in Florida’s Game 5 win over Tampa Bay to send the Lightning home, and made just 15 stops (.882 SV%) in Florida’s Game 6 loss to Toronto in the second round, when the Panthers had a chance to advance.
Bobrovsky was practically impenetrable in Game 7 of that series as the Leafs imploded, but it’s fair to wonder what version of Bobrovsky the Panthers will get in Game 4.
When Florida had an opportunity to close out Edmonton in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final last spring, Bobrovsky turned in his worst showing of the playoffs, with five goals allowed on 11 shots that saw him chased from the net in an 8-1 thumping. Florida has put itself in a good position to send Carolina home, but wouldn’t it be nice to do it sooner than later? Bobrovsky at his best will help Florida do just that. — Shilton
Benching Frederik Andersen was done with the belief that Kochetkov could give the Hurricanes a stronger chance to win. Through two periods, it appeared that that could be the case, as Kochetkov received the necessary support from the Hurricanes’ defensive structure, something that had been an issue in the first two games.
But the Panthers’ five consecutive goals in the third period derailed things. The Hurricanes have now allowed 16 goals over three games. It’s a stark contrast to the first two rounds, when Carolina allowed 18 total in 10 games against the Devils and Capitals.
Kochetkov’s first two periods of Game 3 provided a level of consistency the Hurricanes have struggled to find at times. Is it possible they take something from the opening two-thirds of Game 3 and parlay it into a different outcome in Game 4? Or will it be game and season over instead? — Clark
Big questions for Game 4
Is Florida ready to end this series?
The cliché that the fourth win of a playoff series is the hardest to get exists for a reason. The Panthers experienced that firsthand last season when they took a 3-0 lead over Edmonton in the Stanley Cup Final, then crisscrossed the continent over the next week as the Oilers clawed back to force a Game 7.
Did the Panthers learn their lesson on how to close an opponent out quickly? Florida did it to these very Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals two years ago with a tidy four-game sweep featuring many of the same elements we’ve seen from the Panthers in this round. But Florida appeared to have Edmonton well in hand 11 months ago, too.
Game 3 was arguably the Hurricanes’ best of the series. If they can channel some significant desperation into their game Monday, how will Florida handle the pressure of an urgent club trying not to be embarrassed with a 16th consecutive loss in a conference final situation? The Panthers can’t afford to look past what will be a dramatic Game 4. — Shilton
Is this it for the Hurricanes — and what comes next if it is?
That in and of itself is a rather loaded question for several reasons, with the obvious being: Will Monday be Carolina’s last game of the 2025 playoffs? If it is, what could that mean for the franchise going forward?
The way the Hurricanes have been constructed has allowed them to become a perennial playoff team with a legitimate chance of reaching the conference finals. But that comes with the caveat that the Canes might not go any further than that.
It was a dilemma the Panthers faced before making the changes that saw them not only win a Stanley Cup, but also be one win away from a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final. Maybe it doesn’t come to that point for the Hurricanes. But if they allow five or more goals for a fourth straight game while also struggling to score? It could lead to some difficult questions this offseason in Raleigh. — Clark
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Greg Wyshynski
SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers are one win away from an Eastern Conference finals sweep. They’ve outscored the Carolina Hurricanes, a team that’s lost 15 straight conference final games, by a count of 16-4. Yet Panthers forward Brad Marchand is still ready for this series to go the distance.
“We’re prepared to go seven here,” he said after their 6-2 victory in Game 3 on Saturday night. “I mean, you can’t start looking ahead. That’s such a dangerous game to play.”
Contextually, that mindset might seem preposterous. The Panthers are trying to match the Tampa Bay Lightning as the only teams since the Edmonton Oilers’ 1980s dynasty to advance to the Stanley Cup Final in three straight seasons, having won the Cup last season. They’ve dominated the Hurricanes with their physicality, scoring depth and the goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky, who now has a .947 save percentage and a 1.33 goals-against average in the conference finals.
It seems like a matter of when, not if, Florida will eliminate Carolina — and the “when” is trending to be Monday night at home in Game 4. Yet the Panthers are the last team to take a 3-0 lead for granted.
Coach Paul Maurice recalled their semifinals series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2023, when they went up 3-0 and dropped a Game 4 on home ice. “We wanted it so bad that we tried to win the game on every play,” he said.
Then came the ultimate lesson on how not to close out a series: The 2024 Stanley Cup Final, which saw the Panthers squander a 3-0 series lead to the Edmonton Oilers before finally winning Game 7 to hoist the Cup for the first time.
Maurice hopes his players understand the dynamics at play in Game 4.
“They have the desperation advantage. You have, potentially, the desire advantage. Both teams will fight that. Can we control the desire emotion and play the game? Can they control the desperation emotion and play the game? The common denominator is just playing the game,” he said.
Game 3 saw the Hurricanes play with more desperation than they’ve exhibited in this series. The game was tied 1-1 entering the third period after Carolina’s Logan Stankoven — who Bobrovsky robbed earlier in the second period with a lunging blocker save — managed to knock the puck past him for a power-play goal at 14:51 to even the score.
The Hurricanes were finally looking like the stingy, tight-checking team they’re known for being. Maurice wasn’t expecting a windfall of offense from the Panthers after the first 40 minutes of Game 3.
“We’re not going out to the third period saying, ‘Well, we can tell this is going to work out [for us]. I’ve got an extra piece of gum in my pocket for the second overtime. That’s how our experience with Carolina has been,” the coach said.
The gum stayed in his pocket. Florida scored five goals in the first 10:37 of the third period to put the game — and potentially the series — away.
“We knew we needed to be a little better than what we were in the second period, so we tried to keep things simple and I think we got rewarded for that,” said captain Aleksander Barkov, who had two of the goals in the onslaught.
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour was left dumbfounded.
“We’re playing better and then we just turn pucks over. It’s not what we do. I think everyone’s just pretty surprised, you know what I mean?” he said. “Just you can’t do that. In a preseason game it’s going to cost you. But against that team, and you turn it over for odd man rushes? Forget it.”
The key to the rally was a goal by forward Jesper Boqvist, who was put on Barkov’s line as an injury replacement for Sam Reinhart, the Panthers’ leading scorer in the regular season. He took a short pass from linemate Evan Rodrigues and then turned Carolina defenseman Dmitry Orlov (minus-4) inside out before scoring on the backhand against Pyotr Kochetkov (22 saves), who got the start over Frederik Andersen in Game 3 for Carolina.
Boqvist had just one goal and one assist in 9 playoff games this postseason, averaging 8:53 in ice time. In Game 3, he had three points (1 goal, 2 assists) and skated 15:08 for the Panthers.
“He’s an extremely gifted player. I love playing with him. He can kind of play anywhere in the lineup and he’s such an incredible skater. So strong with the puck, so smart. And that was a massive goal,” Marchand said.
The Panthers won Game 3 without Reinhart and without having forward Eetu Luostarinen for most of the game, after he was ejected for boarding Carolina forward Jackson Blake in the first period. Luostarinen was tied for the team lead with 13 points entering Game 3, with 4 goals and 9 assists.
The Panthers would kill off that 5-minute major in what Maurice called “a real inflection point in the game,” considering that Florida was missing key penalty killers in Luostarinen and Reinhart, who is day-to-day with a lower body injury. When they needed him, Bobrovsky (23 saves) was a great last line of defense.
Thanks to their third-period deluge, the Panthers are now poised to sweep the Hurricanes in the conference final for the second time in three postseasons. Yet even with Florida’s domination of the series, Marchand said his team is anything but overconfident.
“I don’t think the way the games have been played is really an indication of what the outcome’s been, score wise. They’ve been pretty tight. It just seems like we’ve gotten a couple bounces, a couple lucky breaks here and there that have given us a pretty good lead,” he said.
“But it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything about next game. We’ve got to come in and prepare the same way. It’s always the toughest one to get, so we got to make sure we bring our best.”
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Greg Wyshynski
SUNRISE, Fla. — Florida Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen was ejected from Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals after a boarding major against forward Jackson Blake of the Carolina Hurricanes.
With 3:01 left in the first period, Blake was chasing the puck back in his own zone with Luostarinen behind him. As Luostarinen reached out with his stick, Blake stopped short of the boards and Luostarinen hit through him. Luostarinen drove Blake’s head into the boards, bloodying the Carolina forward.
The on-ice officials gave Luostarinen a five-minute major and then reviewed the hit. They confirmed the call on the ice. Per NHL Rule 41.5, when a major penalty for boarding is called, a game misconduct is automatic. A major penalty for boarding is determined by “the degree of violence of the impact with the boards.”
Luostarinen was tied for the team lead with 13 points entering Game 3, with 4 goals and 9 assists. He scored 12 of those points on the road. Blake returned to action in the second period.
The Panthers lead the series 2-0 and had a 1-0 lead in Game 3 when the major penalty was called.
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