NASCAR THE RISE OF AMERICAN SPEED SERIES
NASHVILLE – Ap– Each week millions of NASCAR fans – a massive television and digital audience – tune in to watch NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events and today CMT announced an unprecedented six hour, three night special event dedicated to the fearless men who took stock car racing out of the backwoods and into the national spotlight with “ NASCAR: The Rise of American Speed,” premiering Sunday May 8, May 15 and May 22 at 9 pm ET/PT. “And actually,” he adds, “the fight probably helped.New Interviews Include NASCAR Superstars Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Richard Petty, Tony Stewart and Darrell Waltrip But it actually is one of the big key moments that made NASCAR what it was. And then right after the race ends, when it’s this big victory, (Donnie) Allison and (Cale) Yarborough get in a huge fistfight. “That whole story is huge,” David says, “because they ended up having this huge viewership and then this great finish at the end. And it’s just these innovative things they do to solve problems and to help grow the sport.”
NASCAR THE RISE OF AMERICAN SPEED DRIVERS
“So (NASCAR CEO Bill France Jr.) has all the drivers start doing laps at a low speed to dry the track, and then when it’s safe then he lets it go.
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“They needed a way to dry the track so they could still have the race or else they’re going to put reruns or other stuff on,” Kelly explains. That turned out to be a watershed event for the league – but it almost didn’t happen thanks to a race-day downpour in Florida. Television played a huge part in NASCAR’s growth, starting in 1979 with the first start-to-finish telecast of the Daytona 500. Parts 2 and 3 look at the postwar years to the current generation of drivers. And following an impassioned speech (as re-enacted in Episode 1) in 1948 at a Daytona Beach, Fla., hotel bar, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was born. But it feels right that that’s where an American sport would come from.”Īfter World War II, France was able to organize investors, drivers and mechanics and sell them on his vision of a unified league where drivers and teams raced for a championship. Just the fact that the cops are paying them in government checks, which take a while to clear, and the bootleggers are paying them in cash, they’re going to make the bootleggers’ cars faster. “Bootleggers are paying mechanics to make them faster than the cops who are chasing them.
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“We love that part of the story and it makes sense … you know, how are cars becoming better and faster?” says Stephen David, an executive producer (with Tim W. But to do that, they needed fast cars that could outrun the feds, and so they turned to topnotch mechanics such as Bill France and Red Vogt.Īnd so out of necessity, the first race car was born.
The story begins in Depression-era Georgia, where jobs were few and so men such as future racing legends Roy Hall and Lloyd Seay supported themselves by running moonshine. The program brings NASCAR’s history to life through re-enactments, archival footage and interviews with experts and drivers including Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon, focusing on the personalities and events that made it what it is today.
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Yes, the nation’s largest motorsport was born from bootlegging, and this story and others are told in the three-night, six-hour special event “NASCAR: The Rise of American Speed,” airing consecutive Sundays beginning May 8 on Country Music Television. Many a successful and legitimate business has its roots in unlawful activity.