Why does NASCAR turn left?

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     Just ask a friend about NASCAR, and you’ll quickly find out that one of the sport’s biggest stereotypes is that they “only turn left”. While that is not entirely true, a majority of the NASCAR schedule takes place on oval tracks, traveling counterclockwise. Why is that?? 

Well, the answer to that question is not as straight forward as you might think, it deals with tradition, nationality, and weight distribution. Let’s dive into that. 

For starters NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), is an American Motorsport, which has deep roots in the American South, originating from prohibition, and the hot rods bootleggers would assemble to escape the authorities. In the early days, the association raced at many dirt surfaced horse racing tracks. Horse racing dates back centuries, though gained the most traction as a British Sport in the 17th and 18th centuries. After the American Revolution, when British Colonists suddenly became independent Americans, many customs of the United States purposely became anti-British, one of these customs was the direction of travel by horse. In Britain, roads laws required horses, wagons, and buggies to veer to the left side of a street, and in a similar fashion, their horse racing veered to the right and traveled clockwise. The rebellious Americans despised the British, and in defiance created road laws requiring horses, wagons, and buggies to veer to the right side of the street. In the United States horse racing followed suit veering to the left, and in traveling counterclockwise. 

Eventually the automobile was invented, and mass produced for consumers. In the United States, these anti-British customs continued, with the use of the automobiles on the road, and at the race track. 

Now, that was a long time ago, and you would be right to ask: why does NASCAR still race like that today? Well, in the United States, road laws still stand strong today enforcing travel on the right side of the road, though NASCAR continues not because of law, but because of both tradition and convenience. NASCAR began in the 1940’s with real stock cars, ones you could buy at the car dealership, and those cars were left side steering vehicles. Over the years stock car racing has strayed further and further from actually being “stock”, though many factors of the car have remained the same, such as being painted to appear as certain car model, and driving from the left side of the car. Driving from the left side of a car adds more weight to that side, and makes turning towards the left slightly easier, especially on banked tracks. Obviously this weight distribution isn’t the most significant factor because we still see open wheel racing series’ like Formula 1,  and IndyCar centered within the car, and still able to make both left and right turns. Overall though the action of turning left on an oval track would be far more difficult from the right side of the race car. A driver sitting on the left side of the car, and driving counter clockwise around also brings some real safety to the sport. The way that NASCAR positions the driver and runs counterclockwise, keeps the driver as far as possible from the outside wall, therefore in the case of an accident involving the outside wall, a driver is less likely to make direct contact with the wall.

Stock car racing itself has existed much longer than NASCAR has. Back before NASCAR some stock car oval races were actually run clockwise, rather than counterclockwise. Many drivers complained of the confusion that it brought changing the racing direction from week to week, and how they drove better in one direction than the other. When NASCAR was formed in 1949, this issue was confronted and a rule was put in place to purposely enforce the counterclockwise direction of travel at oval tracks, which like previously stated, was the most common direction of travel in American Motorsports.

Today, like many motorsports, the NASCAR schedule features left and right turns, with road course tracks like Watkins Glen International, Sonoma Raceway, and the Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In recent years we have seen a greater push for road courses on the NASCAR schedule with the 2021 season featuring 7 in total. This, therefore means that NASCAR’s “left turn” stereotype is not entirely true, but it is rooted in deep stock car racing tradition.