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France says NASCAR must get back to its roots

Submitted by SHNS on Tue, 01/22/2008 - 14:11

CONCORD, N.C. -- "Come home to NASCAR." That's Brian France's key point as he lays out his game plan for the 2008 season.France, NASCAR's CEO, said he wants to "re-energize the bonds with our core fans.""Change is good to a point," he said Monday, "and we think we've had all the change this sport can handle for a while."France is responding to complaints from some of the sport's longtime fans that explosive expansion and changes over the past several years have cost NASCAR some of its core audience. So at the sport's annual media tour in the Charlotte area, France spoke at his company's research-and-development facility 10 miles from Lowe's Motor Speedway and used a number of catchphrases to give clear direction to his plans. Among them:-- "Back to basics."-- "Minimize change."-- "Emphasize history, emphasize tradition."France pointed to such traditional NASCAR tracks as Richmond, Martinsville, Lowe's and Darlington, emphasizing that they are just as important to the success and growth of the sport as the glittery new tracks in Chicago, Las Vegas and Texas.France said he wants the stories this season to focus on the action on the track and that he wants NASCAR, and its various controversies, minimized.The stories he would like to see include:-- "How will Dale Earnhardt Jr. do at Rick Hendrick's? Will this be a breakout season for Toyota?"-- "Will Jimmie Johnson win a third straight championship? Will Jeff Gordon win his fifth title? Will Hendrick continue as the 'New England Patriots on wheels?'"-- "How will Juan Pablo Montoya do in his second season on the tour?"-- "We're all going to be talking about how good the racing is."However, France and Mike Helton, NASCAR's president, both talked about possible "tweaks" to the controversial Car of Tomorrow, although Helton insisted that "this is our car now."France hinted that he would be watching the entire COT project closely: "Is the Car of Tomorrow, which is the car of today, producing the best racing in the world?"Will NASCAR be softer and gentler?That's exactly what France and Helton seemed to indicate. When asked about the heavy penalties on drivers who are too outspoken, France said his men would be backing off. "It's important for our drivers to express themselves," he said.Helton said that after a couple of years of hard penalties on crew chiefs and drivers alike, it's time "to give them some breathing room."The slumping U.S. economy, France conceded, would hit NASCAR and its tracks "just like it affects everyone else."Value packages of tickets will be one response by NASCAR promoters.France added a key: "Emphasize the positives.""Every other form of motor sport in the world would love to have NASCAR's problems," France said. "Much has been said about TV and attendance, but how many sports are averaging 120,000 per event? Our events were first or second (in ratings) on TV for 21 of 36 weekends in 2007."We have great numbers."France said he took great pride in NBC's Tom Brokaw, as guest speaker at the sport's New York awards banquet in December, calling NASCAR "the greatest American sport."France also said he was pushing to "green up" NASCAR with a move toward alternative fuels. "It may not make that much difference to the climate, but it's important for NASCAR to make this an important symbolic move."France also spent time pointing to the success of his personally pushed "Drive for Diversity" program, a well-promoted tutoring of eight promising young minority drivers -- female, Hispanic and black. Marcus Jadotte, NASCAR's head of the diversity program, said that it is an ambitious project "to redefine NASCAR." And Jadotte said that NASCAR was interested in promoting the success of its diversity students on the track and also off the track.France said: "We will have a breakthrough at the highest level of this sport ... but it will take time."Part of NASCAR's campaign to bring its core back into the family will begin at the weekly short tracks, which have languished in recent years since R.J. Reynolds pulled out of sponsorship and as other forms of rival entertainment have risen.George Silberman, who is in charge of revitalizing the short-track series, said that NASCAR was stepping up its advertising campaign for fans to see "NASCAR in your neighborhood."In short, Helton said of 2008: "Times change ... and we need to change with the times."(Contact Mike Mulhern at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)