About Racing
Racing began many years ago shortly after the first gas powered automobile was invented and has been a popular sport since its inception. The first race to be organized was in 1887 by the editor of Le Velocipede a Paris publication, Monsieur Fossier. The race was only two kilometers long. The world's first car race that was registered as an actual race was from Paris to Rouen and took place in 1894.
The first race regular racing venue was in France in the city of Nice. The first auto race that took place in the United States was in Chicago, Illinois in 1895 and was 54 miles long ran from south of the city to the north along Lake Michigan to Evanston, Illinois and returned to the starting location. The race lasted for 10 hours and an half.
The longest every race by automobiles was a New York to Paris race in 1908 and had six teams. The American team was the winner of the race that was over 22,000 miles and took 169 days. The world's oldest motor racing track is the Milwaukee Mile with auto racing at the track since 1903. It was built originally as a horse track and converted to a car track.
The first track to be built exclusively for auto racing was in 1907 in Surrey, England at the Brooklands. From there competition spread throughout the British Isles and the first India race was held in 1905.
In the 1930s racing changed from high priced cars to pure race cars with cars like the Bugatti, Alfa Romeo and the Mercedes Benz. In 1948 NASCAR was founded by William France Sr. with the first stock car race held in 1949.
During the mid to late 1900s many different types of racing started and flourished. Grand Prix racing became very popular as well as Formula One and other racing types. Also the off road racing became very popular in Europe with a large number of rallies that were held annually throughout Western Europe.
In the United States NASCAR flourished with the popularity of race drivers like Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and many others that made it one of the country's most popular sports. The popularity of Formula One racing was restricted to Europe until the late 1990s when race car drivers like Michael Schumacher made the sport a worldwide sport and even more popularity came to the sport. Other types of racing to become popular and are still popular till today are drag racing, off road and open wheel.
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