The History of Auto Racing

The History of Auto Racing

Auto racing, also known worldwide as motor racing, stands for amateur and professional automobile racing as a sport and subsequently a sport competition that can take place on a wide variety of tracks, roads or closed circuits. After years and years of technological progress, nowadays auto racing comes in several distinct forms.

While in the United States of America its most popular form has come to be the stock car racing along to NASCAR as the most acknowledged brand, the European scene is dominated by the Formula 1 races, where iconic figures such as Michael Schumacher or Mika Hakkinen have captured and forever retained the love and appreciation of the crowd. These two, among many others, have broken unthinkable managing record after record, and thus setting new grounds in the automotive racing scene.

Nevertheless, many other forms of auto racing exist out there and, to sum up the most important names in the industry, we have to mention speedway racing, Grand Prix racing, sports car racing, karting, midget-car racing or drag racing. Touring car racing, production car, is honorable mentions as well.


No matter which type of car racing you are thriving towards to the most, the Internet is filled with all the right information and basic guidelines you need to get started, and we will make sure to point you in the best possible direction for you to find what you are looking for.

Brief History of the First Auto Racing Elements

It was the invention of gasoline-fueled, internally-combusted engine that truly boosted up the initial auto racing movements. This dates way back in 1880, whiles the first automobile competition to be ever organized, took place between Paris and Rouen in France, in 1894. Spread over a distance of 80 Km, the race was won with a constant speed of 16.4 Kph.

That stands for only 10.2 Mph! However, the first ever actual auto race acknowledged, dates just one year later, in 1985, and was conducted between Paris and Bordeaux. This time around, the distance spread across 1.178 Km, while the winner managed to maintain an average 24.15 Kph speed thus setting new grounds in the automotive industry. While in those times and with the current technology available, these results have been deemed as groundbreaking, decades of evolution that have followed have revealed that a lot more is possible in the extreme world of auto vehicles speed.

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In the early 1900s, a record speed of 80.46 Kph had been reached, and while this seemed a little bit dangerous to both pilots and audiences, did they knew at that time that the future was holding so much more.

The History of Grand Prix

It was in the 1960s when the entire United States have fallen under the craze and excitement for the World Championship Formula One Grand Prix Qualifiers, and it was many years later that the entire scene would have Italy and Spain at its center. Before this and the first ever Grand Prix that had taken place in France in 1906 was completely different to the first ever Indianapolis 500 Race, thus setting a full set of essential discrepancies between North American and French racing. Basically, depending on the scenery and the type of auto vehicles used, the car durability was one of the key factors to determine the type of race that would have followed. While in 1934 the most frequent winners have been Italian and French car manufacturers, what was left of the later 1930s was definitely dominated by German ones.

With the early 1950s, the installment of a World Championship for Drivers series, which involved around 15 Grand Prix Races, among which those of Belgium, Monaco, Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Canada and South Africa, as well as the United States lead straight to the first installment of a championship destined exclusively to the manufacturers of Formula 1. The first one ever dates 1955.

The Evolution of Auto Racing

It was from that moment on when everything started to evolve at a speed faster than the one the new type of vehicles were able to reach.

From the early 1911s when the top speed recorded was of 120.04 Kph, to the nearly 260 Kph registered during the Indianapolis 500 in the late 1970s, everything started to change and manufacturers in the automotive industry began focusing on easier materials for the vehicles as well as more and more endurable ones. Of course, the difficulty of the terrain and the track will lower the potential speed in certain levels, yet technology is starting to overcome these factors as well.



The auto racing industry is breaking record after record from one race to another and at this pace it seems that the average speeds that vehicles will be capable of in the near future will only equal ones considered top ones a couple of years back. With such a fast evolution and such groundbreaking records, car racing has quickly come to be a high-leveled entertainment sport, gathering thousands of new fans from one race to another.




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