NASCAR CEO Brian France tells fans not to worry about health of sport

NASCAR’s CEO and chairman discussed a wide range of topics during an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

NASCAR CEO and chairman Brian France shared his opinions on a variety of hot-button issues when he called SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday.

Among the topics France covered was the possible addition of a fourth manufacturer, the proliferation of young drivers while several veterans are stepping away, the rash of penalties the sanctioning body has issued this season, and assuaging fans’ concerns about the health of the sport.

Here is a roundup of what France said in response to questions co-hosts Jim Noble and Chocolate Myers asked NASCAR’s top executive during the nearly 20-minute interview:

The health of the sport at a time where several teams are experiencing a sponsorship shortage and dealing with ballooned budgets, which has resulted in several organizations downsizing or folding:

“I would say look at history; there’s always cycles. Sometimes we have too many teams. I remember not that long ago, Richard Petty when he was racing couldn’t make the event for example. That happened.

We’re working on it all the time. That stuff works itself out. Every sport has different cycles where it’s better than it was or less than it should be, whatever it is, that will work out. Our job is that if there is a way for us from a policy standpoint, as an example, getting the cost out of the system, that we are going to work, that’s where the charter agreements that we did a couple of years ago allow us to, get at those things.

“I wouldn’t worry about that for one minute if I were a fan because it just works itself out. We will make good decisions and the teams are working very closely with us to take any shortcomings out of the system and figure it out. I wouldn’t worry about that for a minute if I were a fan.”

The implementation of stages that incentivized drivers to compete hard for a race’s entire duration by awarding bonus points, which were then added to a driver’s playoff points totals:

“The whole idea is that every lap matters, you can’t relax. Stages matter. If you go back many years ago, you could cruise around and build up a big point lead. You cannot cruise around at all. You gotta be on it. And that’s what I think people really enjoy. I’ve always believed that brings out the biggest moments, too. It brings out the driver talent.”

The addition of a fourth manufacturer to compete against Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota:

“There’s two that have shown a lot of interest and are examining just how you go about it. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to come in and get the right teams. They all want to come in and compete at a very high level as fast as they can, which makes the challenge even harder.

“There are two and we’ll see how it plays out. Our preference would be to be able to add one more. Interestingly, the other car manufactures are open to that, too. They’d like to compete themselves with one another and take a lot of pride in that. My hope is that as soon as it can work out, we’ll add a fourth.”

On the young talent emerging across NASCAR’s three national divisions, which comes as Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have either retired or will soon do so:

“That’s the exciting part. The other part is we are in a transition. That happens if you go through our history. Sometimes it happens the way it is now, where a number of the top drivers exit for one reason or another. You didn’t mention Carl Edwards, who left for different reasons. That happens. Usually it’s more of not so many at one time but every once in a while we’ll have these moments. Everybody steps away at their choosing. The good news for us, you’re exactly right, there’s a lot of talent here that is coming through the system that are really going to be competitive and show their thing and that’s the beauty of sports.”

Whether there is too much focus on post-race penalties and what NASCAR can do to dispel the notion that teams are cheating as opposed to trying to find a performance edge:

“Boy, do I dislike two things: One is having to deal with penalties or infractions even though we have to. We have to keep the playing field even, and we have to do what we have to do. The second part that I would prefer to not have to talk about is the business side of NASCAR. That’s important, too.

“Because all of it takes away from what happened on Sunday or Saturday or Friday night in any of our national series. I look at it this way: I never get worked up over anything because I know the teams are pushing right to that last inch and then every once in a while they flop over the line, and there’s very rarely where it’s somebody just egregiously trying to get an advantage. It’s true that we have to have restrictions and tight rules and so on and it’s also true that the teams are so close to that line they’re going to create a P1 or P2, whatever it’s going to be, I don’t get worked over that because that’s auto racing.

“If we weren’t having some of that, then they’re not competing hard, they’re not trying to out-think, out-engineer, out-do some other teams. I don’t get so worked up over that. Frankly, I’d rather not talk about it. I’d rather we do what we do, which is we issue the penalty and we phrase it in a way and just not make it a big deal, but I realize it is easy to get caught up in it.”