WHY Does NASCAR Turn Left?

NASCAR has been stereotyped for years to be a “dumb redneck sport that goes fast and turns to the left” according to many people. While there are tons of intricacies in the sport outside of that on a surface level this seems to be true. But today I want to dive into a seemingly inconsequential piece of NASCAR’s foundation and simply ask, “Why does NASCAR turn left?”

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Outro Song:
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[TheIceberg]

What odd NASCAR facts do you know about?

[DennyDeliversYT]

hardcore NASCAR fans: _gets made fun of because all left turns…_

also hardcore NASCAR fans: *_actually don’t know why it’s left and not right…_*

[BrandonA]

I have had a dumb idea that for every track we visit twice, the 2nd time it would be clockwise. Although it makes no sense, it would be very entertaining to watch. Great vid btw

[dustykh]

Joe Weatherly died by hitting the wall driver side first at riverside, a road course which had a right turn with a concrete wall on the exit. A real life example of why we turn left.

[calebstuart]

Fun fact: here in the UK, most ovals are run both directions, since most racing on them is in modified road cars where the driver sits on the right

[MayBeSomething]

I have noticed that, in gym class, no one ever told us to run laps around the gym counterclockwise, but we did anyways, and I was curious about why.

[TheJeffBala]

Me: Why do we turn left in NASCAR?

ICEBERG: It all starts with the American

Me: I'm totally lost but also totally entertained.

[peterstratta]

Whenever someone asked me why NASCAR turns left I would always say they're mimicking chariots in the Roman Coliseum. I definitely learned something here! Thanks for this.

[theragingdolphinsmaniac]

You left out one tiny detail...we here in America did not invent circle track racing. We get blamed for simpleton racing and turning left, EXCEPT Brooklands in Surrey England had the worlds first superspeedway circle track (look it up)....and guess what...they turned LEFT! Indianapolis and Daytona adopted it that as an archetype and everybody followed its lead. Then beyond that the first racetracks here started out as horse racing tracks which turned LEFT! So the precedent was established long before NASCAR and Indycar.

[Shay_Mendez]

Huh. This was really informative. I just thought the cars turned left because it was the first thing that came to mind.

[ItsNothin]

They do turn right! Usually ends in a trip to the garage tho 🙄

[NCR]

Literally the question everyone wants to know

[mattmotorsport]

In Australia, the Thunderdome oval could be used in both directions. Our 'AUSCAR' went clockwise due to the driver being on the right and NASCAR went anti-clockwise.

There have also smaller production-based speedway series that discourage staggered setups by the organisers randomly assigning a direction before each race.

[Lord_Foxy]

As a Nascar fan the one thing I've always wanted was the organizer of the race at Like Dega or something just smoke a fat blunt and go: "Today ... We turn right"

[irvingboy]

Why just turn left when you can turn right to go left

[aldouscoroza]

Every one's favorite Question. Hahahah they forget that they also Turn Right with Road Courses.

[ChristopherCollinsworth]

You should have added baseball in this. We turn left around the bases.

[grahamcrackergaming]

There actually were ovals that did turn to the right, or at least a few of em. To put it abruptly, American motorsports didn’t fully start oval racing. Or at least the trend ovals since the only ovals in the US that were built was Milwaukee Mile and Indianapolis. Oval racing can be dated back in Europe pre WW1 in the old Grand Prix days. (It was just known as Grand Prix racing cause there wasn’t a Formula 1 til like the 1950s or 60s) even the test oval track for the Opel Bike Company even held a couple Grand Prix races. And Monza when when Grand Prix/F1 cars and sports cars ran the combination of the Grand Prix circuit and oval they’d always run it clockwise. And there were races that F1 and USAC IndyCar ran together at Monza calling the race “Race of Two Worlds” and ran the Monza oval clockwise. Though IndyCars were always the winners since they were more designed for ovals than their road racing counterparts. But oval racing in Europe I say kinda set the stage for modern day oval racing in the US and around the world. When American motor racing began it was always races at either horse tracks or beaches. Ovals in Europe were these built tracks made out of either wood or concrete. And in a way they were kinda stadium like venues.

[geneclarke]

A as passive fan, I only like the road courses which are closer to the history of racing when bootleggers were outrunning the prohibition cops - remember the Dukes of Hazard or at least Daisy Duke.

[seanberry]

In New Zealand, we have (had? not even sure if it still runs) a stock car class that runs heats in alternating directions. It's basically a self-policing system to prevent teams from secretly altering their suspension in a way that gives a cornering advantage.