In 1948, at the Daytona Beach Streamline hotel a meeting was held with a group of mechanics, drivers, and promoters throughout the sport. For three days they hammered out a plan to transform a group of rebel racers to a national pastime, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. NASCAR would grow from a band of bootleggers outrunning each other with their modified cars to the biggest spectator sport in America. NASCAR is the United States of America in a microcosm with men like Wendell Scott, illegal whiskey runners, Bill France’s impact on the sport, and the influence of women in NASCAR.
First, NASCAR relates to the history of America by Wendell Scott and the period of segregation. Wendell Scott was NASCAR’s first African-American star, every race was a struggle.
Bill France dreamt of making NASCAR an all-American sport that brought people together. But the America of the 1960s was a nation divided. In the 1960s, the checkered flag and the Confederate flag shared a common thread. They both represented the division of black and white. Scott was a rebel racing in a sport represented by the rebel flag. (“The Ride of Their Lives”)
Wendell Scott won his first and only…show more content… “The sport’s first bootleggers were cousins from the hills of Georgia: Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall, and Raymond Parks.” (“Espn Ultimate Nascar”) They caught the racing fever after the 1938 race at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, Georgia. Lloyd Seay and Ray Hall both started bootlegging as teenagers and they drove for their uncle, Raymond Parks. Lloyd drove to his brother's house to sleep overnight. Next morning, their cousin came to the house to settle a dispute over sugar that Lloyd had charged to the cousin’s account. They went to the cousin’s father’s house to settle the dispute, and Lloyd was shot by Woodrow Anderson. He was buried in Dawsonville
