NASCAR was founded by William France Sr. and a small group of fellow race promoters at Daytona Beach, Florida in 1947. The original premiere event in the series was held at the Daytona Beach Road Course. France began planning a new track for the premiere event in his fledgling series in 1953. On August 16, 1954 he signed a contract with city officials to create this new track that would become famous as the Daytona International Speedway. Ground was broken on November 25, 1957. The soil underneath the banked corners was dug from the infield of the track, and the large hole in the infield filled with water from the low water table and is now known as Lake Lloyd. The speedway opened on February 22, 1959 to a crowd of 41,000 people.

The track was almost not complete for that first race date, however. In 1958, needing more money to meet his goal, France traveled to Atlanta to meet with the Coca-Cola company to hopefully get funding to complete construction. Coca-Cola officials told him he would never finish it on time and refused to fund it. France then went to the Pepsi-Cola company, then headquartered in North Carolina, and they cut him a check on the spot. Because of this, until all NASCAR tracks were told to sell Coca-Cola as "The Official Soft-Drink of NASCAR", Pepsi, and not Coca-Cola, would come to be sold at all NASCAR Tracks that the France family owned.

The Daytona 500, the most important race for NASCAR's premier series, is held annually at Daytona International Speedway. It is a 200-lap, 500 mile (805 km) stock car race. The list of Daytona 500 winners dates back to the inaugural race in 1959, and includes Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, and Dale Earnhardt.

Lights were installed in 1998 so that the Pepsi 400 could be held at night. Musco Lighting was responsible for this event; and was officially known as "The World's Largest Single Lighted Outdoor Sports Facility"[1] before being surpassed by Losail International Circuit. However, the race was delayed until October that year due to thick smoke from wildfires that summer. The Pepsi 400 has been held under lights ever since.

It also contains an attraction called Daytona 500 Experience. The winning car from the Daytona 500 is placed inside the attraction building each year.