On this day in 1936, the Daytona Beach racetrack hosted its first oval stock car race, complete with scoring controversies and crashes. The event was halted after 72 of 78 laps, with driver Milt Marion winning the $1,700 prize.
Even though the new crop of NASCAR race cars mimics the look of models on the road, they’re still anything but stock — at least until Toyota sells a Camry with rear-wheel-drive and a V-8.
But when the first stock car race was held at Daytona Beach on March 8, 1936, drivers brought their own street-legal open tops, coupes and saloons to the race. The grueling 3.2-mile course didn’t discriminate against aerodynamic tricks or windshield angle; it simply demanded that a car survive its grueling, pit-filled sandy turns.
Marred with scoring controversy, stalled cars and mid-corner mash-ups, the race was stopped after 72 of the 78 laps, and the $1,700 prize went to driver Milt Marion. As the vintage video below shows, more regulation couldn’t have hurt for the chaotic event.
The daylight saving time debate is back, with President Trump calling it a “50-50 issue” and lawmakers proposing to end it. Should the U.S. end daylight saving time?
The twice-yearly clock changes are a hot topic but lawmakers’ past attempts to get rid of them and switch to permanent daylight saving time have stalled.
Driving the news: Trump spoke briefly about clocks springing forward Thursday when signing executive orders.
- “I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people want to have more light earlier because they don’t want to take their kids to school in the dark,” he said.
- “It’s very much a fifty-fifty issue and it’s something I can do, but a lot of people like it one way, a lot of people like it the other way.”
Flashback: Trump said in December that the Republican Party would aim to get rid of daylight saving time.
- “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
- “Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our nation,” he wrote.
The latest: Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act in January to “lock the clock” and “make Daylight Saving Time the year-round standard.”
- “I’m excited to have President Trump back in the White House and fully on board to LOCK THE CLOCK so we can get this good bill passed and make this common-sense change that will simplify and benefit the lives of American families,” Scott said in a January statement.
- Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) introduced companion legislation in the House.
Yes, but: In 2022, the Sunshine Protection Act passed by unanimous consent by the Senate but was not voted on by the House.
An unvaccinated adult in New Mexico has become the second person to die from a measles outbreak, a week after an unvaccinated child in Texas died from the disease.
Health officials reported Friday that there are 198 measles cases in West Texas, with cases in New Mexico tripling to 30 in a single day, according to local authorities.
Nearly all measles cases are in unvaccinated individuals or those with unknown vaccination status. At least 23 people have been hospitalized, with five cases of individuals vaccinated with one dose of the MMR vaccine.
President Trump said his administration could impose reciprocal tariffs on Canada for dairy products and lumber as early as Friday amid a mounting trade war between the two nations.
Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, complained about Canada’s steep tariffs on dairy products and lumber imported from the U.S. The president claimed Canada is charging Americans a tariff of more than 200 percent on dairy products and a “tremendously high tariff” on lumber exports.
“They make it impossible for us to sell lumber or dairy products into Canada. But our numbers are a tiny fraction of that. Almost nonexistent,” Trump said.
“They’ll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it,” Trump added. “And that’s what reciprocal means. And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair.”
Trump told reporters his administration was loosening environmental regulations “on an emergency basis” to allow more trees to be cut down in order to create more domestic lumber supply.