I was wondering about the practice of giving names and/or numbers to various types of racing cars. Which got which, and why? Thanks.

Names and Numbers…lets see.

NASCAR (Stockcar)
The numbers belong to the NASCAR sanctioning body, not its teams. NASCAR's long-standing policy is that it owns and assigns the numbers of cars in the series, and that they are not for sale. The names on the car are sponsors names of their products. They pay millions of dollars to the team for the spot on the car. Quarter panels, Hood and Trunks command the most money. The main sponsor also has a hand in how the car is painted and its looks.

NHRA (Dragracing)
Same as NASCAR sponsors pay big money to have their names advertised on the cars, and again how it’s painted up.

Dragracing in general…
There are those who race for the sport without major corporate money. I used to race, 20 years. Over those years I had names on the cars…those were made up be me. This is normal practice. “Pollock Joe” and “Steel Cowboy”…on a steel horse I ride and was wanted dead or alive during my weekend runs

As in NHRA/NASCAR we also had contingency…



They would pay out money after a win, mostly for those in the top eight (8) and at the end of the racing season for those who finished in top ten (10). It wasn’t much…like $15 to $25 bucks each sticker. The sticker where given to us at the beginning of the racing season by the track and NHRA.

I hope this clears up your questions...if anything else please feel free to ask.

Happy Modeling,
Joe

Here are some of my cars...

Wow, never knew you were an actual autombile racer! You learn something new every day.

BTW, the kits I have are AMT modified stockers, with actual stripped out interiors, huge tires, roll cages, the full treatment. I wanted to do two of those, but were cars with the full modification as per my kits done without rich sponsors, or was that feasible? The car kits' decals are generic, indicating fictional small businesses such as garages rather than suggesting larger companies.

For the timeframe of the modifieds your talking about that would be true, they were the start and heart of NASCAR for the longest time. Local guys wrenching on cars in their garage or at the local shop and running them on a Saturday night .

Joe's info on the NASCAR numbers is mostly correct. Nascar owns the numbers, but, the car owners buy them from NASCAR. There was a fairly large controversy last year when one of the favorite sons of NASCAR (way overrated in my opinion) changed teams and the team owner he used to work for (his stepmom!) would not sell the number to his new team owner. A third team owner sold the double digit variant of that number to the other team so that fans who got tattoos could just add the second eight to their existing ones...

Dave