Why NASCAR Needs The Camping World Truck Series Alive and Kicking, Pt. 1

Writer's Note: This will be the first of a four part series chronicling why NASCAR needs its two racing divisions in the Nationwide Series and the Camping World Truck Series around for the drivers, fans, and the sport itself. Parts I and II will look at the Truck Series, where as Part III and IV will focus on the history and state of the future for the Nationwide Series.

What separates NASCAR from most motorsports series, as well as most sports in general, is that it has three majoring championship divisions. The most famous of the three is the Sprint Cup, which was previously known as the Grand National Series, the Winston Grand National Series, the Winston Cup Series, and the NEXTEL Cup Series.

This particular article will detail the origins of NASCAR's "third" championship series in the form of the Truck Series. As you'll see, the creation of this particular racing division is very similar to its Cup counterpart. Sometimes, the best of ideas do get heard, especially for a group of four former racers and some future NASCAR faces.

Flashback to the year 1993, a time when tragedy would strike the world of sports, from the untimely passing of Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis to the aviation tragedies of the defending NASCAR Winston Cup champion in Alan Kulwicki and popular second-generation driver Davey Allison.

Racing fans had been accustomed to the top tour in the Winston Cup Series, which served as stock car racing's melting bot with a potpourri of the stars of the time like Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jarrett, Ernie Irvan, and Rusty Wallace, as well as new faces like Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, Ted Musgrave, and Kyle Petty.

There were only two racing levels for NASCAR with the Cup ranks and the "minor leagues" in what was then called the Busch Grand National Series (now known as the Nationwide Series), which were physically identical to the Cup cars but utilized V-6 engines instead of the V-8 powerplants.

More often than not, the best of the BGN level would get the "call up" or promotion to a Cup ride, which ranged from a second or third string team for a cooky car owner to a multi-car operation.

If you were not successful in the Cup Series, you either flocked to the feeder series like the American Speed Association, the Automobile Racing Club of America, or to the BGN division.

It was a proven formula that often served as a cycle of second chances or new opportunities for the young guns and aging stars of stock car racing, although a revolution would happen in the Winston Cup Series that greatly changed this "ladder of succession."

Four SCORE off-road racers, namely Dick Landfield, Jimmy Smith, Jim Venable, and Frank "Scoop" Vessels, decided to shake things up with the NASCAR racing scene.

Having competed for several years in off-road racing trucks, these four men conceived and pitched the idea of having stock trucks competing under the sanctioning powers of NASCAR.

Wanting to give trucks a bigger stage, so to speak, to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of racing enthusiasts, the group built a prototype truck to present to the racing sanction.

These trucks would use stock car chassis that could adapt to a truck body frame while using V-8 engines. It would be an affordable option for developing racers and motorsports legends to compete around the short tracks of America.

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