The recent decision by NASCAR officials to revisit the idea of rear spoilers replacing the wings on Sprint Cup cars may require a look back at the history of that device. For the first 15 years of NASCAR's existence, when most of the racing was done in close quarters on dirt bullrings, the idea of using aerodynamics to benefit racecars was considered laughable.

But with the construction of Daytona International Speedway, followed by the additions of high-banked superspeedways in Charlotte and Atlanta -- and the resulting increase in speed -- suddenly the idea of streamlining the cars to gain a competitive advantage on big tracks took hold. However, that came with a corresponding lack of control. The faster the cars went, the harder it was for the drivers to hang on.

McQuagg's Dodge in '66.

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Dodge engineers came up with an elegantly simple solution: a thin strip of angled metal attached to the rear edge of the trunk lid. And so was born NASCAR's first spoiler.

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The problem came to a head for Sam McQuagg and his Dodge team in the middle of the 1966 season. The Columbus, Ga., native and 1965 NASCAR rookie of the year was driving the new Charger, which was plenty fast, if you could keep the rear wheels on the ground.

"You would spin the tires at 180 mph going down the backstretch," McQuagg said.

Dodge engineers came up with an elegantly simple solution: a thin strip of angled metal attached to the rear edge of the trunk lid. And so was born NASCAR's first spoiler.

How well did it work? In its debut, the spoiler helped McQuagg dominate the 1966 Firecracker 400. He led 126 of the 160 laps, including the final 30, as he nearly lapped the entire field. It would be his only Cup victory.

"We tested spoilers at Daytona for about 30 days in June," McQuagg said. "When I won the race at Daytona in July, that was the first race that was ever run in NASCAR with a spoiler on the car.

"It was a little spoiler that was probably about an inch-and-a-half high and it was contoured, you know, to give it a little sweeping effect. It really worked, too. It made a lot of difference in that car. It kept the car from flying. That little spoiler disturbed the air enough that it kept it down."

It didn't take long for the rest of the field to notice. By the time the series returned to Daytona in February of 1967, the new Ford Torinos and Mercury Cyclones were also sporting spoilers. The next logical step -- following the lead of Jim Hall's Chapparal in the Canadian-American sports car series -- was to add a high rear wing, which began appearing on the aerodynamically ground-breaking Dodge Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds in 1969.

After Bill France legislated the winged cars out of the sport in the early '70s, the spoiler returned and remained a mainstay until the current chassis design -- and like hemlines, the size of the spoiler has grown and shrunk with every modification to the rulebook. But that's not to say that the spoiler hasn't had its share of controversies.

In 1981, NASCAR mandated a downsize of the Cup chassis, which gave teams fits in practice for the Daytona 500. After several harrowing crashes in practice and the qualifying races, officials agreed to allow the installation of larger spoilers on the cars to help with rear-end stability.

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It was a little spoiler that was probably about an inch-and-a-half high and it was contoured, you know, to give it a little sweeping effect. It really worked, too. It made a lot of difference in that car. It kept the car from flying.

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-- SAM McQUAGG

Two years later, Cale Yarborough had become the first driver to officially lap Daytona at more than 200 mph on his first lap of qualifying. However, on the second, his Chevrolet went out of control and flipped. Again, the size of spoiler came into question -- and Yarborough ended up winning the race in his backup car, a Pontiac.

Spoiler height rules have been at the forefront of disagreements ever since. In 1991, larger spoilers were introduced again in an effort to improve handling and reduce speeds. And during the rest of the decade, NASCAR officials fiddled with spoiler sizes and angles in an effort to equalize competition, mainly drawing the ire of Ford owner Jack Roush.

In 2002, NASCAR changed the rules twice before that season's Daytona 500, allowing Ford and Chrysler teams to cut their spoilers in an effort to keep them competitive with the faster Chevrolets.

So how will NASCAR officials deal with the return of the spoiler? With a common chassis template and a spoiler supplier, the cars should theoretically be equal. But as past history has shown, the sanctioning body can -- and will -- manipulate the rulebook in any way it wishes.

As of McQuagg, racing with a spoiler wasn't his only NASCAR first. He was also the first driver allowed to park his motorhome in the Daytona paddock area.

"I talked to Mr. France and told him what the deal was, that it was a place for the drivers, and my wife made sandwiches for everybody and everything," McQuagg said. "So he said we could 'go tell [competition director Norris Freel] I said it was all right.' I don't remember if it was the 500 or the 400.

"I'm almost certain it would have been 1967, maybe 1968, right along there, but we brought it in and it worked out real well. And after that, you know what's happened since. The only difference is we had cheap Winnebagos and they got these luxury motorhomes. A lot of difference in the money."

In addition to his win at Daytona, McQuagg will be remembered for two huge accidents at Darlington. He and Yarborough got together in the 1965 Southern 500, with Yarborough's car flipping over the guardrail and into the parking lot -- a scene replayed in the credits of ABC's "Wide World of Sports" for years.

Two years later at the same venue, McQuagg tangled with Dick Hutcherson coming out of Turn 4, sending McQuagg's car into the pit wall, then barrel-rolling at least eight times. McQuagg was able to climb from his car before collapsing. He was rushed to the hospital, treated and released.

He cut back on his involvement in NASCAR after that, running less than a dozen more races in his career, including a pair of top-10 finishes at Darlington and Talladega in 1974. Having learned to fly airplanes before his NASCAR career took off, McQuagg returned to the skies as a corporate pilot for W.C. Bradley Co. in his hometown of Columbus.

"We used to run in Jacksonville, Fla., on Sunday afternoons," McQuagg said. "They always had an afternoon race on Sunday, like at 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon. When that race would be over, like at 3:30 or 4, we'd get in the car and try to get to Atlanta in time to run a Peach Bowl Sunday night, which was starting like at 7:30 or 8. This would have been 1958 or 1959, along there.

"So I told my wife, 'I'm going go learn to fly an airplane, buy me an airplane, then I won't have to fool with these cars all the time.' I did that and started flying, and some of the drivers started traveling with me. Some drivers had airplanes earlier, but at that time I was about the only person that had one that was racing. We would even we go up to run in the northeast and I had a lot of the drivers that always rode in the airplane with me. It worked out real good and turned out to be a very good job after I retired from the racing."

McQuagg, a member of the Jacksonville (Fla.) Speedway Hall of Fame and the Georgia Automobile Racing Hall of Fame Association, died of cancer last January. He was 73.