Americans, like the rest of the world, initially began using public streets to host automobile races, but these venues were often unsafe to the public as they offered relatively little crowd control. Promoters and drivers in the United States discovered that horse racing tracks could provide better conditions for drivers and spectators than public streets. This, in turn, was succeeded by board track racing (which was short-lived as many of the tracks were highly flammable and difficult to maintain) followed by oval track racing, which remains the dominant form of racing in the United States but is not used in the rest of the world; road racing has generally waned. However, an extensive, albeit illegal street racing culture still persists.