Jose Sanchez
Research expert covering society, economy, & politics for Latin America
NASCAR - statistics & facts
Founded in 1948, NASCAR has set motorsports fans’ pulses racing for nearly 80 years. As the organization responsible for stock car racing – events which originally featured regular cars as opposed to the elite class of vehicles seen in Formula One – NASCAR has an iconic place in U.S. American sporting culture. The organization runs several racing series, with the NASCAR Cup Series being at the very top. Out of all the teams that have competed in the championship over the years, Hendrick Motorsports has won more NASCAR Cup Series titles than any other, with 304 wins.
Who are the best NASCAR drivers of all time?
When looking at the drivers with the most NASCAR Cup Series wins, one name stands out in particular: Richard Petty. During his racing career, Petty won the Cup Series on 200 occasions – significantly more than David Pearson in second place. The current era features a number of big names, such as Kyle Busch and Bubba Wallace. Both Busch and Wallace are among the NASCAR drivers with the biggest social media audiences, while Busch alone is the highest-earning NASCAR driver in the United States, having a reported annual income of nearly 17 million U.S. dollars.How many people watch NASCAR?
While NASCAR’s average TV audience rose in 2024, viewing figures are down by over a million since 2015. Other figures do not tell a better story: the average TV audience of the Daytona 500 – NASCAR’s most prestigious race – has more than halved since 2000. Whether NASCAR can reverse this trend in coming years remains to be seen, yet all hope is not lost: a 2023 survey found the age profile of NASCAR fans to be generally younger than the wider U.S. population.
