In 1986, Watkins Glen Returns, Controversy Erupts Over Name

The 1986 NASCAR Cup season ranks as one of the most compelling in stock car racing history for several reasons — some of which had little, if anything, to do with on-track competition.

Perhaps the most notable occurrence was NASCAR’s return to Watkins Glen International, the 2.45-mile road course located in upstate New York. The track, nestled among the region’s beautiful terrain of forests, mountains and lakes, was well known and respected as the long-time home of the United States Grand Prix, the only American event at the time for the distinguished Formula One Circuit.

The new race was eagerly anticipated by NASCAR fans who were anxious to see how the rumbling stock cars would perform on a track long reserved for the sleek, faster open wheel cars.

It took only a bit of research to learn that the race would not be NASCAR’s first on the Watkins Glen course. There was an event there in 1957, won by Buck Baker. There was another in 1964, won by Billy Wade and Marvin Panch was the winner of the 1965 event. NASCAR would not return for 21 years.

As newsworthy was the Watkins Glen return was in 1986, other matters also made headlines — and, I might add, created controversy.

Debate began even before the season did.

Since 1949, NASCAR had applied the name Grand National to its top series. That changed in 1971, when R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. helped create the Winston Cup Series, which led to a new name, the NASCAR Winston Cup Grand National Series. Then, in late 1985, NASCAR President Bill France Jr. announced that “Grand National” would no longer be used and the elite tour would be known as simply the NASCAR Winston Cup Series beginning in 1986.

You might well have thought very little about all of this. After all, what’s in a name, right? So what?

But it created an uproar. And the media were right in the middle of it.

Seems the writers and broadcasters of the day had little problem using the Winston Cup name. However, their bosses routinely dropped it in favor of the Grand National tag. They fell back on that name because most newspapers, radio and television networks at that time had strict limitations as to how much free corporate advertising they were going to permit. Thus, they informed their outlets to avoid using corporate sponsor names when reporting on sports. In NASCAR, that meant Winston Cup was to be replaced by Grand National.

To their credit, NASCAR and Reynolds knew this would happen. So “Grand National” was applied…