STATE OF THE SPORT: NASCAR CHAIRMAN/CEO BRIAN FRANCE

This transcript of France’s Q&A at the NASCAR Awards Banquet is a good gauge of the sport’s standing as we leave the 2013 season behind and look ahead to 2014. Moderated by NASCAR’s Brett Jewkes, France hits a number of topics of interest to our readership.

Q. First, Brian, just give us perspective on the 2013 season as we wrap it up here and talk about what will be memorable for you.

 BRIAN FRANCE: Well, I think obviously we'll start with the Gen-6 car, and there were some fair questions and expectations would we get that right, and in '08 arguably we didn't. I think we changed that in a big way getting the car manufacturers, the teams and others all on the same page, and we got a better racing product, which is the center of it all for us, off to a fairly good start. We can go back to California and other very memorable races.

 And then we rolled into May, and as I had been saying we were going to make some changes in competition in terms of how we looked at our rules packages and separated some things, got some more signs and art, we brought in Gene Stefanyshyn who's been added for eight months or so now, and he's making a lot of interesting steps that we're looking at -- that's the heart of it all, us getting closer, tighter, and then always safe competition.

 And then we rolled into a nice, unbelievably tight Chase battle, right, coming into Richmond and we had what happened at Richmond, and I would say every sport that's large and competitive faces moments where your credibility and other things are tested, and the question is how do you respond. I think our team and our group did a very good job under the circumstances and obviously made some tough decisions, and then we rolled into the Chase and had a very, very competitive Chase, and you're seeing some history be made, I think, with Jimmie and his team being so good at the right time is amazing.

 And you saw -- the last thing I would tell you is you saw a mix of things coming in the future. You saw young drivers coming up through various series. They're going to be with us; Kyle Larson being one, at the Cup level beginning of next year; Darrell Wallace had a bit of a breakout year for himself, first time in a national series in trucks, getting a win, competing strongly just about every weekend, a bright spot in diversity for the future, a very talented young man.

 And here we are, we're here in Vegas celebrating with our industry, and this is a fun time for us, and it will be a fun time later on today, and it will be a really fun time tomorrow night.

 So we had a good year, and obviously there's some business things we've got accomplished like getting our media rights secured for the next decade. That's tremendous for the industry, great visibility. NBC is going to do a really good job. I'm convinced of that. They're beginning to make their own talent announcements here in the last week or two, and they'll make more, and they'll change the presentation in a very positive way.

 We'll try to get the racing even more competitive than it is today, and we'll work with our TV partners and we'll work with our stakeholders to make this sport as competitive and as fun and as big as it can be.

 BRETT JEWKES: Let's talk about how we spent last Wednesday, the purchase of Iowa Speedway. We'd love to have your perspective here.

 BRIAN FRANCE: I wouldn't put the fun word as an adjective of that.

 BRETT JEWKES: It was a fun closing.

 BRIAN FRANCE: It was interesting. We felt all along as we'd watched the Iowa Speedway go through some management changes and ownership changes in the last few years, and it became available. It's an attractive asset in a region of the country that is very NASCAR centric, and they run multiple events for multiple series, they've had a lot of success. The public companies that are in the space, for various reasons, the timing wasn't right for them, but the time was right for us. So from a NASCAR standpoint, we'll get to give some stability to a facility that needs that, number one. We'll be able to -- we've got a lot of talent through our system that we'll be able to deploy to promote, run, operate and execute that facility, and we'll try to do our best to position it.

 Now, you know, we have in recent years bought a couple of speedways: Road Atlanta and Sebring, so it's not totally uncommon. Our family owned Martinsville for quite a long time before ISC purchased it outright. This is not terribly uncommon, but at the end of the day, it's an attractive asset at the right price in the right place, and we're very comfortable having made that acquisition.

 BRETT JEWKES: Looking at 2014, what's your focal point and what are some things that should be expected for next year?

 BRIAN FRANCE: There will be a test on Monday [Wednesday, Dec. 11, actually. Postponed due to weather]. It's an important test for us. It is, and I'll be there. It will be led by Gene Stefanyshyn and Robin and the group, and we're after some interesting changes to the rules packages. You've heard me say this for a while now, and we'll be validating some of our beliefs, a prior test and other things, and I'm liking what I'm seeing. It's tightening up competition, and that's hallmark. We wake up every day and try to do that.

 43 teams probably do just the opposite. They try to get up in the morning, look at our rules package and want to lead every lap and gain the system. That's how it works, right? So we're trying to figure that out in a bigger, smarter way, and hopefully we will accomplish that.

 So that's the number one thing that we're trying to get off to a good start, and then we've got the young drivers coming. We've got lots of teams that have shifted around. And by the way, a Monday test is going to give some of those teams some early opportunities to feel out their new teams, some of those drivers. So that will be good for them. They help them a little bit, particularly early on at the intermediate tracks, depending on how testing goes.

 So we're going to roll in. Obviously it's the final year of our existing TV contracts. I've got great assurances from one of the best partners and friends in the business in John Skipper at ESPN, that this remains an important property for them, past and present, and they're going to do a great job as we say goodbye in their final year, and then we'll be getting NBC up to speed and getting -- you'll start to see some of the -- more announcements on talent and presentation. You're going to hear a lot about integration, about how they're going to use the Olympics and the NFL and all of the assets that NBC Universal are going to bring to bear because this is a franchise decision for them to come into NASCAR. They're putting a big financial bet down, and they really want to make this sport bigger and better, and I have a lot of faith in them.

 So we'll get off hopefully to a good start with the Daytona 500. As you know, they're under way with their massive construction project, so there will be a few cranes in the air when you get down there, but hopefully it will get off to a good start and have a great 2014.

Q. Brian, long-term or short-term, is there any plans or efforts of NASCAR to get new manufacturers into Sprint Cup?

 BRIAN FRANCE: Well, it's very complicated to do at the Cup level, mostly because it's very hard for a manufacturer to secure enough good-quality teams in the short run for them. They all want to come in and be competitive.

 That said, there is some room there, and I would also tell you, we didn't get into sports car racing just to be in sports car racing. We got in it because it gave us some strategic relationships, namely relationships with OEMs around the world, and those are going to prove to be beneficial as they see how NASCAR works in the road racing series that they participate in now, and I think they'll like the way we handle competition and manufacturers and so on.

 So my hope is -- I've had nothing but praise for Toyota as an example who came in a few years ago and what they've done for the sport. They've made racing better, promoted it bigger, and if we can attract a new manufacturer to come in, that would be terrific.

Q. You look at the reach of NBC and there's always excitement when a new network comes in, but they have been speaking out about the fact that they feel like they can get more butts in the seats via what they plan to do on the television side of things. What do you see that they will be able to do differently that might create that?

 BRIAN FRANCE: First, it's a priority for them. And no disrespect to ESPN. I just said, they're one of the great partners in that space we've ever had. They've got a lot of things to focus on, right? NBC has chosen a different route. They have big what they called tent pole franchises in the NFL and NHL, ourselves. So right away, we're going to get a lot more attention simply because it's their focus. They're going to use the assets within the Universal platform, the E Channel, things that we don't think about every day, to cross-promote day in and day out.

 And when you create interest levels that hopefully go up, we match that with even better racing than we have today, our goal. We bring out our stars, which is something that Jill Gregory and others are working on now, and our teams, and then they have something to really, really promote, and then by definition it's better TV ratings, better interest level and more admission tickets sold.

Q. You reduced the officiating staff for next year to streamline the process. How will the officiating look different next year? Will we see any changes that we would notice on pit road, and will fans notice anything different?

 BRIAN FRANCE: The big thing you're going to notice, we didn't just reduce the staff of the officials just because. We're going to technology, which is the other thing I left out. So over time you're going to see pit road technology. What do I mean by that? I mean cameras. I mean different ways that we're going to inspect the cars using technology as much as possible, and we'll be using that data and information for fans, as well. So it won't be that we'll just be able to capture -- what you hear now as a buzz word is big data, right? You hear that word being used a lot. And some of the other leagues are looking at how they're going to use what they call the big data opportunity.

 Whether it's small data or big data, we're going to be using it, and our hope is to do two things: One is to be either more accurate in how we inspect the pit stops pre- and post-race inspections. We also want to be more relevant to companies, and you've heard me say this before, that arguably this sport should have a lot of technology companies.

 But we're not as relevant as we can be right now. We're going to change that over time. HP came in with us on our fan to media engagement center and spent tens of millions of dollars promoting that position and that technology that they helped us create and promoted the sport at the same time. That's our hope.

 Our hope is that when -- let's take Meg Whitman at HP. We get Meg Whitman to a race and she walks around, and I'm talking about the first quarter of next year. Down the road, she walks around and she looks at technology at pit stations, she looks at cameras and infrared, all kinds of cool stuff going on, all relevant, all important. That's going to make her feel a lot more comfortable with our company, with our technologies being a part of that. That's what we're trying to do, pure and simple.

 BRETT JEWKES: It also helps us push more data back to the fans.

 BRIAN FRANCE: That was the second part. That's correct.

 Q. You said that as far as the Iowa acquisition goes that it was not -- the timing wasn't right for the public company. From ISC's standpoint, is that because of the current capital commitment to Daytona, and do you see a time in the future where Iowa might become a part of the ISC portfolio?

 BRIAN FRANCE: It's always possible. They made a decision that they had plenty on their plate. They're not too far up the road of course in Kansas already, and with Daytona Rising, they've got hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of capital committed, and also I don't think they wanted to lose their focus on all that, so they felt it wasn't in their interest at this time.

Q. Are you looking at changes for next year, or can you talk about the idea of incentivizing winning a little bit more, and I bring it up partly because you remember the Talladega fall race where everybody kind of ran in line the last 10, 15 laps in that kind of bizarre finish, and yet you heard guys talk during the Chase about how you can't have a bad finish and how guys that have problems in Chicago in one sense or another are almost kind of eliminated right from the start and didn't have the opportunity to get back in because the penalty was so severe? Are you looking at changes for 2014 to further incentivize that so we don't have some of those situations, or can you talk about that?

 BRIAN FRANCE: Yeah, drivers tend to -- it's usually the glass is half full for those guys whenever they're explaining what just happened or what might happen, so you've got to put that into some perspective. But do I think we have it perfect in terms of the right incentives to win? I don't think we do. I think we can do -- I'm not willing to say exactly what it'll be, but I think we can do a little bit better.

 But I saw some things that I thought, hey, not that they weren't trying to win, but that maybe the incentives or the risk might have outweighed that, and we'll be looking at that. I think the first thing for us is to get the rules packages in the best place that we can, and by the way, that'll be an ongoing -- we have it right today and they may not be right a year from now. So I would say we're always going to look at that because winning has to be the most important thing.

 Then it's balanced, though, that there are 42 other teams on the same playing field, racetrack, at the same time. So we can't have a -- somebody wins, somebody loses. 98 percent of the field is going to lose. So we have to balance that a little bit. But there's some things we can do to keep working on that. I said our priority is the rules packages, but after that will be some format discussion or format discussion every year. Race links, we've made changes in that.

 We ought not do those things before we get as comfortable as we can on do we have the best packages for these cars right now, and I think trying to do formats and race incentives and all kinds of other things before you do -- you see how it plays out -- look, if we do the things that we're looking at, we're looking for more green flag lead changes. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for tighter racing, in particular on the mile-and-a-halfs. It's a hard thing to do because you've got, as I said, 43 of the best teams in the world trying to figure out how to gain whatever it is and lead every lap every minute. That's what they do. That's their job.

Q. I don't have the empirical data handy, but I've been hearing that millenials, whatever, don't care about cars as much as people of previous generations. I was wondering what NASCAR is doing to address fans. If they don't like cars, how do you get them interested in car racing?

 BRIAN FRANCE: Well, there's a lot of data on that in lots of places. I wouldn't say it like that. I think it is proved that they're waiting longer to buy -- to get their driver's license than I did, certainly. I was there on my 16th birthday ready to get my liberty and freedom and drive my car all over town, right. And they're getting their liberty and freedom every day on a device going all over the world, right.

 That's true in some respects. What's also true is that they like social things using their device that is relevant to a specific event, and there will be nowhere in any sport over time that they'll become -- that millenials will come to a NASCAR race hopefully and use their device to interact with the event in ways that will be super cool and super unique. That's an exciting thing for a lot of people on our team to help -- and the tracks, who really are zeroed into this, Daytona in particular, over the next decade as that all unfolds.

 But that's just cultural shifts going on, right? That's just part of it. We'll figure out how we fit in and do the best we can.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about possible changes to the Cup schedule in 2015. How likely do you feel there will be significant change, and what would be your priorities when looking at possible changes?

 BRIAN FRANCE: Most tracks with a couple of exceptions don't like to give up a date that's worked for them and so on that they've had for a long time. So there might be a change or two, but I wouldn't predict any significant changes.

 Q. Brian, NASCAR was faced with probably one of its toughest credibility issues this year at Richmond. I was just wondering using a little 20/20 hindsight, how did you feel that NASCAR responded to it, and in the message that you sent both the competitors and to fans, do you think it was a strong one enough to allay any doubts that they may have going forward?

 BRIAN FRANCE: Well, I have a lot of confidence that in six days we tackled a lot. We had a number of scenarios going on at the same time that all contributed to what we had to deal with. And the question is in a kind of a crisis like that, what are your priorities. Our first priority was to deal swiftly. That's the number one. Not let something linger into the Chase or get confused with that.

 The second was try to do the right thing, even if it wasn't going to be the most popular thing.

 And the third thing that I found out in these kind of situations is trying to explain a solution in a very complicated set of circumstances is probably the hardest thing to do. But looking back, I wouldn't change anything, and I'm not one of these guys that walks around and never says that.

 I just think we moved swiftly. I think we sent an undeniable message that we were not going to tolerate that. And I think -- and I said earlier, it does test you a little bit. In every sport sometime in the cycle, hopefully it's very rare, has a moment where these things happen. They're always different because of every sport, but I like what our group did. In six days, investigate three different situations, rule on them, rewrite entire important rules area.

 We did that on Saturday morning, by the way. I had our guys fly in, I sat in for four or five hours to really -- we had done some work on it during the week after we had done the investigation, and then we wrote the new rule that morning. That's the urgency that we had, and then made the announcements and then of course I dealt with the drivers and the crew chiefs later on that afternoon. That's the sequence of things, so I feel good about it.

Q. Brian, you've mentioned Daytona Rising project. Give me the perspective, NASCAR's perspective on that project.

 BRIAN FRANCE: Well, I think the size of it is obviously very significant. I think it's going to change the experience because it'll be the only stadium-style speedway in the world. And I think obviously it's the biggest event and the kickoff. It's not just the biggest event on the schedule. We all know that, right? What else it is, though, is that's the moment every year at Daytona that we get an opportunity to reach millions of fans that at no other event that we do, to take a look at us. You know the ratings, 30 million people watch and all of that. 15 million of those people, they'll watch us every week.

 So to the extent we get off to a good start and the racing is good at Phoenix and other subsequent events that we've got on the schedule, so Daytona by making this investment helps that equation. It's also where our whole industry gathers, sponsors and media partners, to kick it off. So having a state-of-the-art facility was very important.  So they're doing a lot of things that are going to be helpful, not only to their company, but I know to the industry, too.

Q. Can you address qualifying? There's been talk that we could see some changes in qualifying in the near future.

BRIAN FRANCE: I think you will, and it's the one format that we will deal with because it's not part of the race-day event. And our goal is to make that a little more exciting, a little more interesting for the fans. The track operators have certainly wanted that for a long time, and they're right. So we've been working on some ideas, and there will be something pretty shortly on that, and it will make it more exciting, qualifying.

Q. What do you make of the Formula 1 race being scheduled against Texas?

BRIAN FRANCE: Well, I wouldn't have done that myself. You might expect me to say that. I'm sure they had the same kind of scheduling challenges that we do. They go all over the world, and that was what they chose. It wouldn't be my first choice.

I expect them to suffer a lot more than Texas will suffer. I don't think it's good for either group or either series. That's their prerogative to schedule events when they want to and see how it works out.

Q. We've heard you discuss how you feel your team responded to Richmond and how proud you are of that. But I'm curious about your personal emotion, when you realized what was going on, what impact that would have on the sport that your family built, and just when you realize that there is blatant manipulation of a race occurring, what was that like for you personally, your emotion?

BRIAN FRANCE: I was pissed off, if you really want to know the truth.

Q. I do, thank you.

BRIAN FRANCE: I was very angry about it. But I also knew that I'm a student of -- as you guys know, of sports. I don't know if I'm the biggest sports fan in the company. I kind of say I am. But I had seen -- and I knew that if we dealt with it, if we dealt with it really straight on, that we wouldn't have a long-term blemish. It was going to be really tough, especially for the teams that got penalized, losing sponsors; that was no fun for anybody. But I knew that our credibility would be preserved if we did the right thing and we acted swiftly, and over time.

So I wasn't ever worried about that. But of course we were disappointed. But that's just the nature, I guess, of competitive sports. You've got human beings trying to do their best, and sometimes they cross lines they shouldn't cross.

Q. Brian, in January you said about the Gen-6 car, about how it would be evaluated. You said you would measure it by lead changes and how it races. There were fewer lead changes this year in 2013 than 2012. How would you grade the Gen-6? Was it below average based on that because that was the standard for how you were going to judge it? And I guess expanding on that a little bit, any potential for format changes competition wise beyond qualifying in terms of racing for the future?

BRIAN FRANCE: Well, I didn't quite say that. I said that was an important criteria. There's never one thing we're going to judge. The number one thing we had to judge in the Gen-6 car was acceptance by the manufacturers, the teams and the drivers. That's the number one thing. And then obviously we want to get more lead changes and we want to get closer, tighter competition. I'd love a photo finish every weekend if I could pull a lever up in the tower to create that. I'm obviously kidding.

The point is that we're going to be working all the time on getting the competition -- and it should have -- lead changes are going to be a huge part. I think that is a big measuring stick. But it's not the only one. Safety is in there in a high place, acceptance, all kinds of things.