F1 vs NASCAR | Start Your Engines | 1

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0:22It's June 19, 2005. Race day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Inside a plush motorhome in the paddock, Formula One supremo Bernie Eccleston sits in a leather chair, watching a television mounted on the wall. Outside, more than 100 ,000 fans packed the grandstands for the United States Grand Prix. The cars circle the circuit on their formation or warm-up lap. The atmosphere is electric. But Eccleston knows something the fans don't. This race is about to become one of the strangest spectacles in motorsport history. For the last three days, Formula One has been in chaos. Emergency meetings, heated arguments, last-minute negotiations behind closed doors, all over a single component.

1:16Tires. Teams running on Michelins discovered something terrifying during practice. The high-speed final corner is simply too much for the tires to handle. Cars returned to the pits with the rubber shredded after just a few laps. One driver even crashed into the wall. And when they race today, every car will take that corner more than 70 times at speeds of 200 miles an hour. A blowout wouldn't just end a driver's race. It could end their life. But despite the risk, F1 officials have refused to install extra curves to slow the cars at the crucial turn. They reasoned that doing so would penalize the teams that don't use Michelin.

2:02So the track is staying the same. Eccleston leans forward in his seat as the cars approach the end of the formation lap. Twenty cars sweep toward the final corner. Then, one car peels off into the pit lane. Another follows, and another, and another. In total, fourteen cars drive into the pits. Mechanics roll them straight into the garages. Every team using Michelin tires has withdrawn from the race. Out in the grandstands, a dawning realization spreads through the crowd like a shockwave. Cheers turn to booze. Some fans hurl drinks and programs towards the track. Others simply stand there in stunned disbelief.

2:52The starting lights flicker above the grid. Just six cars remain, sitting alone on the vast strait of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The starting lights go out, and the race is on. The smallest grid in Formula One history charges toward the first turn. Eccleston watches his screen for another moment. Then, he shrugs. The race has started, so he won't have to pay out for a cancellation. He stands, straightens his jacket, and walks out of the motorhome. The boos from the grandstand echo across the paddock as he heads for a waiting car. In a few minutes, he'll be on his private jet. Formula One has stumbled in America before.

3:42But to Eccleston, this feels different. Like the final straw. For years, he's fought to crack the U.S. market. But America already has its racing king, NASCAR. With packed speedways every weekend, celebrity drivers and massive television audiences, NASCAR owns American Motorsport. Formula One may be the world's most popular racing series, but in the U.S., it's always been the outsider looking in.

4:17As his car pulls away from the speedway, Eccleston makes a decision. He's done chasing America. Formula One doesn't need it. NASCAR can have it. But Eccleston's decision won't be the final word. Formula One will try again. And when it does, it won't just challenge NASCAR. It will threaten everything NASCAR has built.

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5:24From Audible Originals, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars.

5:52On any given Sunday, millions of fans tune in to see which driver will take the checkered flag in America's favorite motorsport, NASCAR. For decades, it's been the undisputed king of the track. Loud V8 engines, packed ovals, drivers trading paint at 200 miles an hour. But outside the United States, another racing series reigns supreme. Formula One. It's glamorous, high-tech, wildly popular around the world. Yet while the rest of the globe thrills to Grand Prix, the U.S. has long seemed immune to its appeal. Until now. Boosted by a hit Netflix show, Formula One is exploding in popularity, selling out races in Austin, Miami, and Las Vegas.

6:41Its drivers are now as recognizable as their NASCAR peers. But how did F1 change gears and finally start challenging NASCAR's dominance? To understand, we need to go back to where this battle all began. Back to a time when racing wasn't about glory or fame, but about survival. This is Episode 1, Start Your Engines.

7:14It's a still night on the back roads of rural North Carolina in the late 1930s. A lone Ford V8 barrels through the darkness, its suspension rattling over rutted dirt and loose gravel. The trunk and back seat are packed tight with bottles of liquor. Prohibition ended nationally in 1933, but across the South, hundreds of counties remain dry, which means there are still plenty of thirsty customers ready to pay for alcohol smuggled across county lines. Suddenly, lights flare in the rearview mirror. A sedan surges out of the gloom, its engine howling as it closes the gap. The bootlegger has no doubt who's inside.

7:55Federal agents. And they're not here to play nice. A muzzle flash bursts from one of the windows, and a gunshot echoes through the night. The bullet tears into the dust behind the Ford. The bootlegger floors the gas pedal and the Ford's engine roars as the car lunges into the next bend. The driver wrenches the wheel through a tight turn, tires spitting gravel into the ditch. The feds try to follow. They're outmatched. The bootlegger knows every blind corner, every ditch, every hidden turnoff along these rural roads. Behind him, the headlights begin to fade. Then suddenly, the bootlegger veers off the road and pulls into a weathered wooden garage.

8:42A man steps out of the shadows and slams the heavy doors shut. Seconds later, the feds roar past, chasing a ghost down that empty road. It's another clean getaway. Across the dry counties of the south, scenes like this one are routine. But the bootleggers' high-speed driving is becoming more than just a way to evade the law. At night, they smuggle alcohol. But during the day, they gather on remote farms, dusty fields, even on coastal beaches. And they race. The tracks are rough. The rules are loose. The crowds are growing. And among the spectators is a young mechanic from Florida who thinks he might be a pretty good driver himself.

9:28Bill France Sr.

9:36It's September 5th, 1938, and morning light spills across the wide, hard-packed sand of Daytona Beach, Florida. 29-year-old Bill France Sr., a broad-shouldered mechanic known around town as Big Bill, stands beside a low dune with a hammer in his hand. With three powerful blows, he drives a wooden stake deep into the sand, then nails a warning sign to the top. Beware, rattlesnakes. France steps back, wipes the sweat from his brow, and looks down the long stretch of beach road. He spent all morning placing these signs along the dunes that separate the road from the beach. But there are no rattlesnakes here.

10:20France has organized a stock car race on the beach this afternoon, and he doesn't want any freeloaders taking shortcuts over the dunes to avoid the 50-cent admission fee. By midday, paying spectators crowd along the sand, eager to watch battered coops and sedans roar up the beach and thunder back along the adjacent highway. Today's prize is worth chasing. $240 in cash, plus a case of beer, a bottle of rum, a case of motor oil, and a box of cigars. Even France himself is competing for the purse.

11:01When the race ends, he crosses the line in second place, just behind a gun-toting bootlegger named Smokey Purser. But instead of pulling in to celebrate, Purser speeds away, shouting that he'll be back later to collect his winnings. France watches him go, suspicion creeping in. Modifications to cars are strictly forbidden, and Purser's sudden exit looks a lot like a man trying to hide something under the hood. So, France strips Purser of the victory and declares himself the winner. Protests erupt from the other drivers who claim the whole thing's a fix. To calm things down, France quickly rules himself out too and awards the win and prize to the third-placed driver.

11:50But France is still the day's biggest winner. His race has drawn 5 ,000 paying fans. When he counts the cash later that night, France has cleared nearly$2 ,000, which is over$45 ,000 in today's money. Along the way, he's learned something important. There's money to be made in stock car racing.

12:21Nine years later, December 14, 1947, at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach. Cigarette smoke curls beneath the ceiling of the hotel's top-floor cocktail lounge. The room is packed with stock car racing pioneers, champion drivers, car owners, mechanics with grease under their fingernails. At the center of it all stands France, who is now one of stock car racing's leading promoters. He calls the meeting to order. Fellas, what we've got right now ain't a sport. It's a mess. A few men nod. France sweeps a hand across the room. Promoters skipping out on prize money. Drivers getting cheated. Every track making up its own rules.

13:10A driver near the front raises his hand. Hell, that's racing, Bill. Always has been. Bad eggs don't last long. We run them out of town. France shakes his head. We shouldn't have to. We got the drivers, we got the cars, and we got the fans. Ordinary working folks who love this kind of racing. What we don't have is somebody running it right. Someone near the back of the room calls out. Hey, what about the American Automobile Association? A triple A? All they care about is the Indianapolis 500. To them, we're just a bunch of hillbillies racing junkyard cars. No, we don't need those uptight northerners.

13:49We need our own association. One set of rules, guaranteed purses, a real championship. You really think we can pull that off ourselves? Well, all we can do is try. Let's break into groups. Drivers over here, owners at that table, mechanics, y 'all go by the bar. Let's figure out what it'll take to make this thing work. The conversations stretch on for three long days. Rules are debated, schedules argued, prize guarantees hammered out. But slowly, something new begins to take shape. the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, NASCAR. But while most of the men in the room are focused on when and where races will run, France is focused on securing control of the new organization.

14:42The others barely notice. They think they're building a cooperative. But France knows better. and by the time anyone realizes they've handed the future of stock car racing to one man, it's already too late to stop him.

15:01France may be an autocrat, but he's also a visionary. When the first NASCAR-sanctioned race takes place on Daytona Beach two months later, it's still a rough-and-ready affair. Around 14 ,000 fans line the beach to watch battered coops thunder along the 2.2-mile sand and highway course. But France is imagining something far bigger. Throughout the 50s and 60s, he moves NASCAR away from improvised venues and toward purpose-built speedways. Grandstands hold tens of thousands of fans, and steep banking allows cars to reach breathtaking speeds. Teams become slick professional operations, with full-time drivers supported by mechanics and pit crews.

15:50To attract big-money sponsors, NASCAR also needs respectability. So France buries its bootlegging past. And in 1971, he strikes a groundbreaking deal with tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. Its Winston cigarette brand becomes NASCAR's biggest sponsor, injecting millions of dollars into the sport. More companies follow, all eager to get their brands in front of race fans. Every race car becomes a moving billboard. Sponsor money is plowed back into the sport, modernizing tracks, building comfortable facilities to increase its appeal to middle-class fans. And that, in turn, attracts even more sponsors.

16:35In 1972, France hands leadership of NASCAR to his son, Bill France Jr. Almost immediately, France Jr. takes the next big step in the sport's evolution, television. He strikes deals with ABC and CBS to broadcast some NASCAR races nationwide. ABC only shows the start and end of races, and CBS doesn't air them live. But the broadcasts do introduce millions more Americans to the sport. And in 1978, CBS signs a deal to broadcast entire races live.

17:16It's February 18, 1979, at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. And for the first time ever, a NASCAR race is being broadcast live across the nation. In the Northeast, a massive snowstorm has blanketed much of New England and New York. Millions of Americans are stuck inside flipping through the channels, and an estimated 15 million households land on CBS's coverage of the Daytona 500. For many viewers, it's their first taste of NASCAR, and it's a spectacular introduction. As the final lap begins, the cameras track a tight battle at the front. Donnie Allison leads. Cale Yarborough follows.

17:59Engines scream down the long back straight at nearly 200 miles an hour. Neither driver is willing to lift. The cars drift closer, and then they collide. Cale hits him. He slides. Donnie Allison slides. Think it again. They drive into the turret. They're hitting the wall. They're head on the wall. They slide down to the inside. Let's watch those third-place cars. They're out of it. Who is going to win it? As the two leaders spin onto the grass, the rest of the field blasts past in a blur of noise and speed. At the front of that charging pack is Richard Petty. Those watching at home are now on the edge of their seats as Petty storms over the line with Daryl Waltrip practically glued to his rear bumper.

18:45But the drama isn't over. Back on the track, Allison and Yarborough are out of their wrecked cars and trading blows. And there's a fight between Cale Yarborough and Donny Allison. The tempers overflowing. They're angry. They know they have lost. And what a bitter defeat. For millions of snowbound Americans watching at home, this is their first real look at NASCAR. It's messy, dramatic, raw, and full of unfiltered emotion. And long before the age of social media, it becomes the perfect viral moment. But across the Atlantic, the drama at the Daytona 500 barely registers. Because while stock car racing is conquering the United States, another racing empire is taking shape overseas.

19:36Its name is Formula One. And the man behind its rise is every bit as cunning as Bill France Sr.

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22:07It's September 5th, 1970, and the qualifying race is underway for the Formula One Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Standing in the paddock, 39-year-old Bernie Eccleston reads his newspaper. He's a self-made man who made a fortune selling used cars. Now, at this time, he's not head of Formula One, far from it. But he's using his wealth to indulge his love of fast cars by carving out a place in Formula One as a business advisor who helps guide drivers' careers. All morning, the circuit has been alive with the screams of cars running flat out as drivers chase the fastest qualifying time. But as Eccleston flips the page, he pauses and looks up from his newspaper.

22:55Something feels wrong. Takes him a moment to realize what it is. The engines have stopped. The track has fallen eerily silent, which can mean only one thing. An accident. Someone nearby mentions the driver who's crashed is Jochen Rindt, the Austrian driver who's on the brink of becoming world champion. Eccleston doesn't wait for details. He pushes past officials, slips through a police cordon, and sprints onto the track, his heart hammering as he runs. Eccleston is Rint's business advisor, and in quiet moments between the races, the two have talked about starting their own team. When Eccleston reaches the crash site, his heart sinks.

23:39An ambulance is already pulling away, lights flashing. What's left of Rint's shattered race car sits on the grass. The front half has been obliterated by the fence. Marshalls stand nearby in stunned silence. Then, Eccleston notices something lying in the grass. Rint's helmet. He bends down and picks it up, the smooth white shell smeared with blood. A race official catches Eccleston's eye and slowly shakes his head. No announcement will come until the race is finished, but the message is clear. Wren is gone. Death is never far away in Formula One. In just 20 years, more than 30 drivers have lost their lives.

24:28Still, the loss of his friend leaves Eccleston reeling. He walks slowly back to the pits, the blood-stained helmet still in his hands. The memory of this day will stay with Bernie Eccleston forever. Remember, Eccleston and Rant had a vision for the future of Formula One. But he won't let that dream die with his friend.

24:57Eighteen months later, March 1972, it's evening at the Ranch Hotel near Johannesburg, just outside the circuit, hosting the South African Grand Prix. Inside a small meeting room, the bosses from Britain's Formula One teams crowd around a long table cluttered with ashtrays and teacups. At the head sits Colin Chapman of Lotus, talking animatedly between puffs of his cigarette. A few seats down, slightly apart from the rest, is Eccleston. He rises quietly and circles the table, pouring tea. Several men nod their thanks without even looking up. To them, Eccleston is just the used car dealer who recently bought the Brabham Racing Team, a newcomer who still needs to earn his place.

25:46When Formula One began in the 1950s, it was dominated by continental Europe's great car manufacturers, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz. But in the 1960s, small British outfits like Lotus and Brabham began winning championships with just a fraction of those manufacturers' budgets. The British may be brilliant engineers, building fast cars in cramped workshops, but they are terrible businessmen, spending every season teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Eccleston listens as the complaints pile up from the other team owners. Promoters slow to pay up, bad contracts, travel costs swallowing their meager prize money.