Why NASCAR Race Cars Have Stickers For Headlights

Though the stock cars driven by NASCAR drivers may carry familiar names and have some resemblance to the production cars they are styled after, they don't really have that much in common. Take the affordable 2025 Toyota Camry hybrid sedan and the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen Camry it is modeled after, for example. While the road Camry has a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine powering the front wheels (with optional all-wheel drive), the NASCAR version is a rear-drive monster machine powered by a 358 cubic-inch V8 that makes up to 670 horsepower. 

Look closely at NASCAR race cars like these, and you'll see that even things as simple as the headlights are different. NASCAR race cars' headlights and tailights are simply stickers applied over the body of the car as a part of its graphics scheme. That's because working headlights simply aren't necessary in NASCAR. The stickers are just there to make the race car look more like the road car its based on and maintain a brand identity.

NASCAR runs on a variety of different tracks, from massive superspeedways at Daytona and Talladega to road tracks that incorporate right turns. No matter what track they are on, though, NASCAR races are always either held during the day, or on tracks that are illuminated by bright lights at night. As a result, headlights are not necessary. 

In the earlier days, when NASCAR stock cars had bodies like production cars, the headlight assemblies were simply removed and blocked off. As the race cars became both more aero-focused in the '80s (and farther removed from production cars), the headlight slots were eventually done away with all together. At one point, NASCAR race cars had no visual headlight shapes of any type. By the late 1990s, however, the headlight stickers were implemented to help give the cars more of a visual connection to the road cars they were representing.

In recent years, however, NASCAR has adopted new rules that require cars participating in the Cup Series to have functioning brake lights in the rear. With more road courses added to the schedule, NASCAR now also offers a wet-weather tire that's used during certain road course races that happen with inclement weather. NASCAR vehicles also have windshield wipers that were installed to make driving in the rain safer.

If you do want to know what a NASCAR Cup Series car would look like with working headlights and taillights, just look at the Garage 56 car from the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans. Manufacturers added fully functional headlights and taillights to this Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Cup Camaro when converting it into a Le Mans endurance racer. These lights are critical for running the dark and often rainy stretches of this legendary 24-hour race, where multiple classes of cars are racing at the same time.

As for normal NASCAR racing? Though the series continues to add new road and street courses to the schedule, including a NASCAR race on an active military base, NASCAR doesn't have any plans to start holding night races on tracks that don't have lights. In other words, don't expect the now ubiquitous headlight stickers to go away anytime soon.