NASCAR isn’t alone in crediting hunger with the advent of the flag on race days.

“To signal when dinner was ready and the racing should end, a tablecloth - which, during this time period, was checkered - was waved.” “Racing at that point was done on horseback, and those at the races would typically eat together afterward,” according to NASCAR’s website. Perhaps the most satisfying folktale about the checkered or check-patterned flag is one tying it to checked picnic blankets. Let’s take a look at three of the most common theories behind the origins of the checkered flag. People have said that the checkered flag was inspired by everything from a naval communication symbol to it being based on a pattern worn by race officials, but there hasn’t been much documentation to back those estimations up. So clearly that photo proves the flag has a long history at the end of races - but it doesn’t answer how it came to be used. It seems the first photographic documentation of a checkered flag being used as a signal in a race is the photo below, which was taken at the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Race in New York. The image shows official race starter Fred Wagner, at left, waving the signal for the winning driver, Louis Wagner. (The latter Wagner was driving a Darracq V8 with an average pace of 63 miles per hour on the 297.1-mile course, in case you were wondering.) You need to dig through several layers of myth first.

But trying to figure out how that black-and-white flag came to be used as the ultimate signal in racing isn’t as easy as you might think. The checkered flag waved at the end of an auto race is as iconic as many national flags.

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