The World Stock Car Association Race Naming Guidelines form the guideline by which new names are chosen for all races under WSCA purview. The first set of guidelines were developed at the end of 1969 and published for the 1970 National Stock Car Series. Further guidelines were published in 1972 and 1983 for the World Stock Car Championship, and guidelines were published following the establishment or purchase of World Stock Car Lites, Eurocup, the Pacific Championship, the North American Stock Car Tour, and the Stock Car E-Series.
World Stock Car Championship[edit | edit source]
The WSCC Guidelines were the first established nomenclature guidelines in stock car racing, defining how each race would be named in the record books. This was the last step in a number of reforms by Jack Crawford, who wanted to modernize stock car racing and create a more serious national sport.
The initial guidelines, as released in 1970, were as follows:
- The first race taking place at a given track or location (city/state) will be given the name of the city or state.
- Subsequent races at the same track will be named after a nearby county, landmark, or the track itself.
- Subsequent races in the same state will be named after a nearby county, landmark, or the track itself.
- Title sponsorship would not be reflected in the official race name, but would be noted for broadcast and media purposes.
- While all races were officially named the Round of [Location], road course events would be referred to as Grands Prix of [Location] as well.
The 1972 updates added guidelines for exhibition races, as well as races in foreign countries:
- Exhibition races would utilize the format [Location] Stock Car Exhibition; the first race to use this would be the 1973 Donington Stock Car Exhibition.
- Races in foreign countries would follow the same naming conventions as races in the United States. Second races in a specific country could also be named after a nearby country, if the host track is within 150 miles of the country in question.
The 1983 updates added guidelines for using home languages for races in foreign countries:
- When applicable, foreign language race names should be equivalent to the English name, or the closest approximation.
- While the official name will be noted in English, the translated name is permitted to be used on broadcast and media.
Continuity of pre-1970's Races[edit | edit source]
In order to establish a continuous timeline of races in the record books, Jack Crawford additionally tasked the committee to address the series' history up to that point. Prior to the modernization efforts of the late 1960's and the advent of race title sponsorship, races were often referred to by their ordinal place in the schedule; this was due in no-small part to races being added or dropped from the schedule on short notice to drivers and teams, and the relative ease of which a promoter was able to sanction a race.
Committee members chose to being by looking at the 1950 series schedule and work forward. This allowed the committee to establish "continuity" of a particular named race; in other words, the committee would determine the timeline of host races for a particular race. Their criteria was as follows:
- The first appearance of a city or state on the schedule will be the establishing race. (e.g. the 1950 race at Langhorne Speedway was the establishing race for the Round of Pennsylvania). Subsequent races at the same track will be given a different name, as will subsequent races in the same state.
- Continuous appearances by a track on subsequent schedules will be considered part of the same race.
- If a track does not appear on a given schedule, the race will move to a new track. The new track will take the place of the previous one in the continuous appearance clause (2).
- Races will only be considered "skipped" if no sanctioned events took place in that location (state/city) during the year in question.
The committee presented its timeline to series officials, who accepted it and announced the retroactive naming of all races prior to 1970 for record-keeping purposes only.