Bill France Sr.

Bill France, Sr., American race car driver, founded NASCAR (died 1992)

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Born: September 26, 1909
Died: June 7, 1992
Zodiac sign: Libra
Birth year: 1909

About Bill France Sr.

William Henry Getty France (September 26, 1909 – June 7, 1992) was an American businessman and racing driver. He was also known as Bill France Sr. or Big Bill. He is best known for founding and managing NASCAR, a sanctioning body of American-based stock car racing. == Early life == France was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Emma Graham, an immigrant from Ireland, and William Henry France. His older brother James died at the age of 11. Big Bill skipped school as a teenager to make laps in the family Model T Ford at the high-banked 1.5-mile (2.4 km) board track near Laurel, Maryland. He ran laps until there was just enough time to beat his father home. France worked at several jobs before owning and operating his own service station. He built his customer base by waking before dawn and crank-starting customers' cars in the middle of winter.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

France was familiar with Daytona Beach's land speed record history when he moved his family from Washington, D.C. to Daytona in the spring of 1935 to escape the Great Depression.
Malcolm Campbell and other land speed record competitors decided to stop competing for land speed records at Daytona in favor of the Bonneville Salt Flats later in 1935 because the track was getting too rutted.
On March 8, 1936, the first stock car race was held on the Daytona Beach Road Course, promoted by local racer Sig Haugdahl.

Bill France Sr. timeline

1935France was familiar with Daytona Beach's land speed record history when he moved his family from Washington, D.C. to Daytona in the spring of 1935 to escape the Great Depression.
1935Malcolm Campbell and other land speed record competitors decided to stop competing for land speed records at Daytona in favor of the Bonneville Salt Flats later in 1935 because the track was getting too rutted.
1936On March 8, 1936, the first stock car race was held on the Daytona Beach Road Course, promoted by local racer Sig Haugdahl.

The world when Bill France Sr. was born

Bill France Sr. was born in 1909. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1909

Best-selling book"The Inner Shrine" – Basil King

Headlines and milestones

Major sports momentHonus Wagner leads Pittsburgh Pirates to World Series victory
Top headlineRobert Peary claims to reach the North Pole
Technology milestoneBakelite (first fully synthetic plastic) invented
Notable inventionBakelite plastic
World population~1.69B

United States snapshot

U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
U.S. population88.8M

1909 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Bill France Sr.'s birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure	1909	2026
Population	88.8M	341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Yale LUX, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.