Why are there 43 cars in each Nascar Nextel Cup race?

Answer 1

Back in the old days of NASCAR, there were some tracks where there were no limits, such as Darlington (as many as 75) and Daytona (in the 50's many times). Over the years the size sort of evolved. It was 40 for the large tracks and 32 for the small tracks in the late 70's and early 80's. Then if was 42 for large and 36 for the small/short tracks. Then the champion's provisional took it to 43 and NASCAR made 43 universal at all tracks including thee small/short tracks, like Bristol. As good explanation is at NASCAR.com: 43-car field a product of slow change by Dave Rodman.(3-23-2002)

Answer 2

NASCAR started playing with the size of the fields five or six years ago. Different tracks used to start different amounts of cars in each race depending mainly on how many pit stalls the track had available to use. NASCAR wanted to standardize the size of the fields and after some trial and error, settled on a field consisting of 36 qualifiers with six provisionals that could be used by the regular drivers. That's a total of 42 cars.

The story about the odd car, the 43rd starter, began about twelve years ago when Richard Petty was having trouble making the starting lineup. NASCAR created a Champions Provisional to help get Petty into the field. In fact it could be used to help any present or ex-champion but just recently was used for other drivers, if a Champions Provisional wasn't used. It goes to the car owner with the highest points that didn't qualify on speed.

NASCAR was happy with the standardization and stuck with that number even though some drivers had to share pit stalls at some tracks before they were brought up to the present standards. They could run more at some tracks and they probably should run fewer cars at others, but it's a standard 43 cars now and I don't see that ever changing.

Answer 3

You are preaching to the choir here. It is a somewhat open secret amonst NASCAR teams and drviers that the cars and the drivers are not racing to win as much as they are racing to finish as well as they can week after week. So, instead of actually extracting every last ounce of speed and horsepower from the car and engine they are really just driving at about 80-90% of the true potential of the car and their ability levels. The Chase was really invented to add excitement because the the point system rewards finishing and consistency over winning that the final races were not as exciting. To me the point system should be much closer to the way it is in F1, something like 10 pts to the winner, 6 to second 5 to 3rd and on down. So, if you finish out side of the top 7 you might as well have not finished at all. This way winning is almost everything. This will be far more exciting because it will become very clear what teams/cars/drivers are good at certain tracks but not others. Also, the lead in the points race could change dramatically from race to race. Even if you eliminated the points for say anyone finishing below the top 20 or top 15 it make it more exciting. The big problem: the sponsors would hate this because if more drivers crash out or withdraw from races their advertisements on the car get less exposure to fans.

Answer 4

Prior to the modern era of NASCAR(mid 70's) the NASCAR fiels had anywhere from 16 cars(1/4 mile tracks) to 60 plus cars on large tracks(Talladega-Daytona-Road corses).
With the startof the modern era different amounts of cars were used,34 or 36 on the half miles and 45 on the large tracks.The adding of provisionals to the quailifing list .the number was set at 43 to fit all tracks.
Most people say because this was Richard Petty's number butit was a random number chose by NASCAR.

Answer 5

In my opinion I think that it is a good thing, because back in the old days of Nascar from the late 40's to the early 70's there would be from 50-75 cars starting a race, do know how long it would take with qualifying,

Answer 6

At one time there were as many as 80 cars starting Nascar races. Nascar has set the number at 43 for safety reasons.

Answer 7

The first Southern 500 in 1950 had 75 entries and the following year it had 82 or 83 and took 6.5 hrs to complete. Imagine if we had that now a days? That would be wild!

Answer 8

It is because of Richard Petty. He raced the #43 car and Nascar did it out of respect to him. Thank you.

Answer 9

coz nascar says so