NASCAR AND ITS GREATEST DRIVERS NOTABLE WoMEN OF NASCAR's EARLY DAYS SARA CHRISTIAN Sara Christian 1918 1980 finished 14th of 33 drivers in NASCAR s first Strictly Stock race held in Charlotte N C on June 19 1949 She also took part in six other races in 1949 50 earning two top 10 finishes She was voted Woman Driver of the Year in 1949 S ETHEL FLOCK MoBLEY o Ethel Flock Mobley 1920 1984 participated in two Strictly Stock races in 1949 In the Daytona ASIA THE Box BOB FLOCK na OOD SO SIMPSON ST JR Ethel Flock Mobley was named after ethyl the type of gas ber father used in his taxi RacingOne IsC Archives Getty Images
NASCAR THEN AND Now Beach race on July 10 she competed against her three brothers Tim Fonty and Bob defeating two of them It was the only NASCAR event to feature four siblings Mobley also competed in many all women races LoUISE SMITH Louise Smith 1916 2006 got her start outrun ning the police in her native South Carolina Nicknamed the Good Or Gal by her fellow racers Smith competed in IT Strictly Stock and Grand National races between 1949 and a 1952 with four top 20 finishes She was the first woman inducted into the International L Motorsports Hall of Fame RSE TO NATIONAL PROMINENCE France changed the name of the series to Grand National in 1950 That name was used until 1971 when the tobacco company R J Reynolds bought sponsorship rights to the series and renamed it the Winston Cup Series it was also known as the Cup Series or NASCAR Cup Series By then stock cars were built specifically for rac ing NASCAR s rules required cars to resemble their stock counterparts in their dimensions and appearance but car own ers drivers and mechanics increasingly 13
NASCAR AND ITS GREATEST DRIVERS MMU Bill France Jr right succeeded his father as president of NASCAR in 1972 RacingOne ISC Archives Getty Images I4
NASCAR TEN AND Now exploited those rules in their attempts to gain a competitive advantage NASCAR was also responsible for requiring equipment in cars that by 1970 had reached over 200 miles 322 kilometers per hour in nonrace conditions In the 1970s there was an expansion of cor porate advertising which was both a function of and spur to NASCAR s growing national profile NASCAR itself underwent a number of changes with France stepping down as presi dent in 1972 in favor of Bill France Jr his son After years of experimenting with the number of points awarded for each race NASCAR in 1975 imposed a scoring system that remained in place until 2004 thereby inaugurating the modern era of the Cup Series The 1970s were dominated by Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough who between them won eight championships from 1971 to 1980 In the 1980s Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt emerged as the most prominent drivers in the Cup Series The sport continued to expand and in 1984 Ronald Reagan became the first sitting U S president to attend a Cup Series race In the 1990s Earnhardt won four championships and Jeff Gordon won three In 1994 the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the home of the Indianapolis 500 hosted its first Cup Series race 15
