The Untold Truth Of The Daytona 500

Publish date: 2024-05-09

Each February, the Daytona 500 takes place at the Daytona International Speedway, a facility that can accommodate more than 100,000 fans. But long before the NASCAR speedway was built in 1958, as per the NASCAR website, the Daytona, Florida, area was a hotbed of early, formative auto racing. As early as 1905, when cars were a new and curious novelty, daring drivers raced them right next to the ocean on a road course consisting of hard beach sand and the nearby highway, according to Forbes. Beyond races, land speed records were attempted at Daytona, and both drew tourists to sunny Florida during the months where it was cold and wintry elsewhere on the eastern seaboard. 

The car racing culture helped build up Daytona as a vacation destination, and in 1938, Bill France, a Washington, D.C. transplant who moved to Daytona to open an auto repair shop, got the job to run the beach race. According to Forbes, in July 1949, the event attracted 5,000 fans, and in 1950, France — by then the founder and head of NASCAR — moved it to February, bringing in a crowd of 9,500. 

In 1959, the race was held at the Daytona International Speedway for the first time. Johnny Beauchamp was declared the winner, edging out Lee Petty, who, according to History, protested the outcome. With news photographs as proof, Petty showed that he had actually crossed the finish line before Beauchamp, and three days after the race, Petty was declared the winner.

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