Stock car racing

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Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing found mainly in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and Brazil. Traditionally, races are run on oval tracks measuring approximately ¼ mile to 2.66 miles (about 400 meters to 4.2 kilometres) in length. NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is the world's largest governing body for stock car racing, and its Sprint Cup Series (named for its sponsor, Sprint Nextel Corporation) is the de facto premier series of stock car racing. Top level races are 200 to 600 miles (320–1000 km) in length. Average speeds in the top classes are usually within 70–80% of comparable levels of open wheel racing at the same tracks. Some stock cars may reach speeds in excess of 200 mph (320 km/h) at tracks such as Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway. For safety, devices such as restrictor plates may be used at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway that limit top speeds to approximately 192 mph (309 km/h).

• 1 Stock cars
  • 1.1 Classes
    • 1.1.1 Street Stock
    • 1.1.2 Super Stock
    • 1.1.3 Late Model
• 2 The early years
• 3 The Golden Age
• 4 Stock car series
  • 4.1 Stock car racing in New Zealand
  • 4.2 Stock car racing in Britain
• 5 Stock car driver career paths
  • 5.1 Crossover drivers
• 6 Stock car racing compared to other forms of motorsport
  • 6.1 Tactics
• 7 See also
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Stock cars

A stock car, in the original sense of the term, described an automobile that has not been modified from its original factory configuration. Later the term stock car came to mean any production-based automobile used in racing. This term is used to differentiate such a car from a race car, a special, custom-built car designed only for racing purposes.

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