Considering NASCAR has its roots with the Moonshine runners from the Prohibition years, the sport has come an incredibly long way in a relatively short space of time.What isn’t particuarly well known in its home land of the USA, is just how big the sport is becoming in Europe, and especially Great Britain.
At the start of the 1990′s, mention NASCAR to somebody in Europe, they wouldn’t know much about it. The exception to the rule would be the Daytona 500, Richard Petty, and, thanks to a cameo in “The Dukes Of Hazzard,” Cale Yarbrough. That would be about it. In Britain, we knew more about Indycar, thanks to the likes of Jim Clark, Mario Andretti and Graham Hill. Television wise, we had no NASCAR, just an hour of Indy 500 highlights, and that was that! Formula One was, and still is, king of motorsports. It always will be. However, with the dawn of satelite TV, things were about to change.
NASCAR hit the UK television screens in 2004 with the Daytona 500. Throughout the next few years two races were shown live. Daytona and The Brickyard 400. In those days, there wasn’t a great deal of interest and live coverage was dropped in 1999 for hour long highlights. One positive though was the building of two Ovals in Britain at Rockingham, and Lausitzring in Germany. A minor series called ASCAR raced on the ovals, but the main reason for their existance was to host Champ Cars. Indeed Lausitz is famous for Alex Zanardi’s horrifying crash. Sadly, the ovals get little use these days, although the British Pick Up Truck championship do use Rockingham.
It wasn’t until the new NASCAR TV deal in 2007, plus the addition of Juan Pablo Montoya to the series that the sport began to grow more internationally. Not to mention Australian racing star Marcos Ambrose showing up around the same time. Montoya’s involvement brought NASCAR to the minds of Formula One fans. His biggest fan base outside of his own country is Europe. The new TV deal enabled Cup and Nationwide Series races to both be shown live here.
More and more people began to notice the sport, and it was only a matter of time until social media was used to increase interest. These days, the NASCAR Fans UK accounts on Facebook and Twitter have a huge following. They bring NASCAR news to British fans on a par with Formula One. There are similar accounts across Europe, and I’d say that NASCAR is probably one of the fastest growing sports on the continent.
As in the USA, drivers have a loyal fan base, and it’s be no surprise that Dale Earnhardt Jr has the biggest following over here. Other popular drivers include Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Tony Stewart.