Whether you\u2019re trackside or watching from home, read on to explore NASCAR facts that give every lap even more meaning.<\/p>\n
Get\u00a0Reader\u2019s Digest\u2019s\u00a0Read Up newsletter<\/a> for more fun facts, humor, cleaning, travel and tech all week long.<\/p>\n Drivers can earn a big payday<\/p>\n Considered NASCAR\u2019s most prestigious event, the Daytona 500 is often called the Great American Race. First place will pocket an estimated $3 million.<\/p>\n The season boasts more than 12,000 miles of racing<\/p>\n To win the Cup Series, a driver must top the standings at the end of the 36-race season. What determines those standings? Points, which drivers earn for their position at each stage of each race. Drivers race more than 12,000 miles in total each season. (The numbers in race names indicate the miles, not the laps.) That\u2019s like \u00adgoing from New York to Los Angeles and back\u2014twice.<\/p>\n NASCAR\u2019s history involves bootleggers<\/p>\n The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing\u2014NASCAR for short\u2014was founded in 1947. But its roots trace back to Prohibition. Bootleggers of the 1920s and \u201930s moved alcohol in cars modified for \u00adextra speed so nimble drivers could outrun the police. The winner of the first official NASCAR race, held in Daytona\u2028in February 1948, was former booze runner Robert \u201cRed\u201d Byron.<\/p>\n Racing is very physically demanding<\/p>\n If auto racing hardly seems like a sport<\/a> to you, consider this: During\u2028a race, a driver\u2019s heart rate turbos to 170 to 180 beats per minute, right in line with the average marathoner. NASCAR drivers also lose up to seven pounds of sweat from start to finish, so they use pit stops to wolf down energy gels and bars.<\/p>\n Pit stops are lightning fast<\/p>\n Pit stops last\u2028an average of 13 to 16 seconds. In that blink of an eye, five people from the pit crew refuel the car and change some or all of the tires. The fastest tire changers make a swap in about four seconds.<\/p>\n Racetrack lengths and layouts are all different<\/p>\n Racetracks vary in size, ranging from the shortest, the quarter-\u00admile oval at Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina, to the longest, Road America in Wisconsin, a 4-mile road course with 14 turns. Not every track features in the Cup Series every year, except stalwarts like Daytona and Indiana\u2019s Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But the Indy 500 race that also happens at the Speedway is not a NASCAR event. It\u2019s part of the IndyCar Series, which is more like Formula 1.<\/p>\n Formula 1 is giving NASCAR a run for its money<\/p>\n Formula 1, or F1, features smaller single-seat cars<\/a> with open cockpits. These cars go faster than the stock cars of NASCAR, which look more like sedans. Some F1 races take place on city streets, not racetracks. In the United States, NASCAR is the more popular of the two; globally, F1 has the larger fan base. But F1 has exploded in popularity stateside, thanks, in part, to the Netflix reality series Formula 1: Drive to Survive. ESPN, which broadcasts F1 races, says viewership has doubled since 2018.<\/p>\n NASCAR has gone global<\/p>\n Still, NASCAR is not an exclusively American sport<\/a>. Races have been held as far away as Australia and Japan, and last June, an official point-paying Cup Series race was held outside the U.S. for the first time, at the Aut\u00f3dromo Hermanos Rodr\u00edguez in Mexico City. NASCAR also runs separate series in Mexico, Canada and Brazil, as well as one in Europe.<\/p>\n Women love the sport\u2014as fans and drivers<\/p>\n Women make up about 37% of the NASCAR fan base. In fact, female drivers go bumper to bumper<\/a> with their male counterparts in \u00adNASCAR races. Danica Patrick\u2028is perhaps the most \u00adfamous female driver. She became the first woman to hold the pole position (the front and most favorable position at the start of a race, given to the driver with the fastest qualifying time) in the Daytona 500 in 2013. Though Patrick never won a NASCAR race before she retired in 2018, she still holds\u2028the record for the most \u00adtop-10 finishes by a female driver, at seven.<\/p>\n Photo finishes catch a split-second difference<\/p>\n When three drivers crossed the finish line just 0.007 of a second apart at a race in Atlanta in February 2024, two high-speed cameras determined their order. Of course, such technology didn\u2019t exist at the first Daytona 500 in 1959. Lee Petty was declared the winner of that race\u2014but not until 61 hours after it ended. A newsreel image developed days after the race proved that Petty had crossed the finish line 2 feet ahead of his competitor, Johnny Beauchamp.<\/p>\n NASCAR legends are pretty impressive<\/p>\n Lee Petty\u2019s son, Richard Petty,\u2028is a NASCAR\u2028legend in his own right. Affectionately known as The King among fans, Richard is the all-time winningest driver with 200 wins, nearly twice as many victories as \u00adDavid Pearson, who holds second place. On the opposite end of things, J.D. McDuffie raced 653 times in his nearly 30-year career beginning in 1963, yet he never won a race.<\/p>\n Each flag has its own distinct meaning<\/p>\n Even if you\u2019ve never watched NASCAR, you\u2019d likely still recognize the black-and-white checkered flag that signals the end of a race. The flagman, who stands above the finish line and essentially controls the race, uses different flags to communicate various messages to the drivers, including white (one lap remaining), green (go\/race normally), yellow (reduce speed\/race\u2028under caution) and red (stop). Yellow and red flags may also be used to indicate dangerous conditions like bad weather, debris on\u2028the track, or crashes.<\/p>\n Auto racing is risky \u2026 but safer than it was<\/p>\n Auto racing, it must be said, is inherently dangerous. Cars collide regularly, often going 200 mph. Following the 2001 death of driver Dale Earnhardt Sr. from a crash during the final lap of the Daytona 500, NASCAR implemented safety upgrades such as the HANS device (a head restraint designed to protect the neck) and the SAFER barrier (a cushioned wall that surrounds the track). Thankfully, there have been no driver fatalities<\/a> in the NASCAR Cup\u2028Series since.<\/p>\n Why trust us<\/p>\n At\u00a0Reader\u2019s Digest, we\u2019re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers\u2019 personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team<\/a>, our contributors and our editorial policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sources:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drivers, start your engines! The NASCAR Cup Series roars to life each February with the iconic Daytona 500…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,179544,82],"class_list":["post-431039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-facts","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Gettyimages](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-143381566-a.jpg\")
RACINGONE\/CONTRIBUTOR\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n![\"13](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/13-Surprising-NASCAR-Facts-Thatll-Make-You-See-Racing-Differently_GettyImages-2221562283-scaled.jpg\")
JONATHAN BACHMAN\/STRINGER\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n