Q&A: Brian France
By Lee Montgomery, Turner Sports Interactive
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR has created a firestorm over the past month with the announcement that it will change the way it determines the Nextel Cup champion, going to a playoff-type format.
Drivers and fans have overwhelmingly been against it, but NASCAR is moving forward anyway, hoping to convince everyone the new plan will create more excitement and interest.
NASCAR chairman Brian France, one of the architects of the plan, stopped by the Daytona International Speedway media center Thursday afternoon and was greeted with a variety of questions on the proposed system.
While he didn't reveal any new information, he addressed some of the facets of the new system, which should be announced next week during the UAW-GM Motorsports NASCAR Media Tour in Charlotte, N.C.
Opening remarks
Brian France: We're committed to doing something, and we're committed to doing something very shortly. I have said all along that we're going to do something, and we're going to do something dramatic because we have a good system. If we can make a good system great, that takes a dramatic move. We'll look, and we'll announce it soon.
But don't call it a playoff?
Brian France: I wouldn't at all because a playoff implies a lot of things, notably that it's the best-of-three, single-elimination. We're not talking about something like that. We're talking about something that has a big element of consistency, as much as two-and-a-half months, and you've heard 10 races.
There'll be some features to what we announce that have not been reported that when that gets out and everybody understands how much thought and what occurs, then our fans, and certainly the drivers -- we know that if we change anything, there's a natural negative reaction, and we understand that.
But when we lay out ultimately what we're going to do, everybody will go, 'You know what? That makes some sense.' Secondly, this isn't going to be one of these that you do and don't know what the result is. We're going to see the results. We'll see it as early as this fall, and we'll see it year after year.
We are largely confident that the plan that I know of that is on the table is going to work and is going to grow the sport, period.
Q: Your father said that if it fails, that you can always go back to square one. But if from what we're hearing, we go to 10 races and those 10 races deciding the championship, would you look at revamping the schedule in 2005 so we can spike the interest in those tracks and perhaps varying the tracks so perhaps there is a road course or not so weighted heavily on the 1.5-mile tracks?
Brian France: Well, look, a couple things. I'm not sure exactly what he said. I know what he meant, and that's we will make adjustments to any change that we make, if we think it didn't quite achieve the goal we wanted. We don't think there are going to be a lot of adjustments.
We certainly don't think there's going to be us announcing the system, and the next year we revert to something totally different. That's not what we're about. We're about continuity.
We didn't go to the Brickyard a couple times. We go there every year. We don't do major changes without an awful lot of thought, a pretty good track record of making sure that they last and that they do what we think they're going to do.
No. 1, the schedule has moved around a little bit, realignment. It's going to move around some -- hopefully, not a lot -- but it's going to move around some in the future. If you look at the mix of tracks in the last 10 races, it's pretty good. There are short tracks, superspeedways, some mile-and-a-halves - Homestead-Miami now is probably the perfect place, (since) the drivers like a competitive place to settle things.
We're pretty confident. There will always some realignment changes that we'll do.
Q: What you're reading and when you're hearing what we've all been writing, are we just way off?
Brian France: Look, the nature of something dramatic, the nature that we want to be more inclusive -- what I think is interesting is if more drivers have an opportunity to win a championship every year, that's a great thing.
If we put a plan in place that promotes harder racing -- what we do know is we've got a system that's too much balanced on consistency. We want consistency. We've got a long year, a lot of different tracks, and it should play a big role. We think it plays too much of a role. That's the balance we're after now. Whatever new plan we come with is going to be effective.
Q: Several drivers -- Jeff Gordon, most notably, -- oppose it because they don't think of it as a drivers' points system but as an entertainment-based system. How would you address that?
Brian France: We are in the entertainment business. Hopefully, our events entertain people. What I think is really interesting is if everybody in this room and every driver said if we left the same current points system the way it is today, and we went out five years and we had five guys going for the championship in October and three at the final race and a last-lap win to settle the championship on the track, we'd all love that, right? No one disagrees with that.
If we have a system and an environment that promotes that in a real meaningful way, who in the world would think that's a bad thing?
If I'm Jeff Gordon, what I think first is now I'm going to have a shot at the championship every year. There are a few guys who always probably are going to be at least in the top 10 in mid-September. He's one of them, one of the elite guys. Instead of being eighth and having no chance every other year, every year, Jeff Gordon is going to say, "OK, if I strap in on right now, I put my best game forward, I can win a championship."
If I'm him, and I think when he thinks about it and the confidence he has -- and guys like Tony Stewart, Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. -- all these guys who pride themselves and are the best racers, they're going to like this plan as it unfolds. I really believe that.
Q: How much would this dramatic change impact your ability to run this sport? In other words, if it's successful, how easy will it be for you to run. If it's not successful, will it be difficult for you to run it?
Brian France: I hope it gets easier. If we make good decisions and everybody benefits, I'd like to think, it would be a little bit easier to manage the sport. But when it gets bigger, it's never easier. You just sort of take that as it comes.
Q: Did the genesis of this originate with you? If so, how hard of a sell did you have to make to the rest of NASCAR's brass to get it going?
Brian France: We haven't announced it fully, so I don't want to say that we're absolutely there. But I will tell you that like drivers and like fans, when you see something that's a big change, even internally, people go, "Whoa, is that too much?" So, yeah, there was a lot of soul-searching that we had to do.
We ran all the models, we've got everybody in rooms to think things through. I will tell you that pretty quickly, our top people, including my father, though, "Geez, there are some things here we can do." They're dramatic, but we've made dramatic moves before.
We're going to lead the sport in an intelligent way and try to make progress, as I said when I got my new role. I think it went pretty well. That's what you want. If you're us and the media, you want to hear there was some real debate and soul-searching that goes on in any kind of big decision. It was a normal, good bantering back and forth of the pros and cons. We think we're going to end up with a good result.
Q: Jeff Burton had some of us in his hauler. It was real interesting. He said NASCAR could never run the sport by voting by the athletes and the owners. Can you talk about running via polls of the athletes on a number of issues, including this?
Brian France: I more than anybody want to reach out when we make big decisions to get input. You've got to remember, the competing interest that everybody has -- the drivers: they're all competing with each other, so they have different things when they evaluate a move we make; the sponsors: they have a competing interest; our television networks, our XM Radio affiliates, licensees -- everybody has a point of view that is selfish to them, and that's the way it should be.
Somebody has to pull all that together and say, "We've heard from everybody, but you know what? What's good for everyone? Not just a few people, everyone." That's what we're supposed to do, that's what race fans want us to do. I'm a huge sports fan, all kind of sports. When any change is made, I typically go, "Gosh, I wish they wouldn't do that." Usually, it works out very well, but that's a natural reaction to say.
Nobody wants their sport that they love to change and go backwards. They don't want it to be less than it is, at a minimum. We think the kind of changes that we're talking about, our race fans are going to love it.
You're going to hear guys getting out of the car going, "OK, I've got to win today, I've got to compete today because I'm in the championship hunt. I'm one of 10" -- or it's going to be more than 10, perhaps. It's not just 10 -- "I'm going to be part of an elite group." You're going to see our fans gravitate to that. They're going to like that.
Q: You're kind of hinting that there perhaps there will be more than 10. Give us something.
Brian France: I'll tell you this. I don't know if it's anything new, but we believe in the old system, if you had a chance to win the championship whenever there's a cut off point -- let's call it mid-September, 10 races to go -- that if you're in striking distance, legitimately, we're going to include you. We're going to find a way.
That may be more than 10. It could be 11, it could be 12. What we're not going to do is have somebody outside the top 10 that has a run in the final 10 races or however many races and could've won a championship, but we eliminated them. We're going to find a way to solve that, and we will solve that. That's one of those features that we'll be putting forward that you guys that will make more sense.
Q: How much of it is TV driven?
Brian France: First of all, it wasn't their idea. Second of all, they're embracing it, in particular the NBC and Turner people, as you would expect. The Fox team has come out and said that they understand it and giving a lift to different story lines and different things to talk about and different stories of interest that will occur earlier, even in June and July.
Let's face it, we've got a long season. They like the fact of ending on a big note going into a very short off-season. They didn't drive it, but I think they're going to embrace it.
Q: Is this an example of the Brian France era, being more willing to change? "Hey, if it doesn't work, we'll try something else?"
Brian France: I didn't say else. What I've said is we think this is going to work, and we're going to make adjustments. It's not the Brian France era; it's the NASCAR era. I just happen to be the guy that's helping to manage it.
We are going to move faster. I have said that. I want us to move quicker, you guys want us to move quicker on issues. But that's just not my opinion. Everybody wants to. Mike Helton wants to move faster.
Q: The announcement will be Tuesday?
Brian France: We do have an announcement on Tuesday.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Lee Montgomery, Turner Sports Interactive
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR has created a firestorm over the past month with the announcement that it will change the way it determines the Nextel Cup champion, going to a playoff-type format.
Drivers and fans have overwhelmingly been against it, but NASCAR is moving forward anyway, hoping to convince everyone the new plan will create more excitement and interest.
NASCAR chairman Brian France, one of the architects of the plan, stopped by the Daytona International Speedway media center Thursday afternoon and was greeted with a variety of questions on the proposed system.
While he didn't reveal any new information, he addressed some of the facets of the new system, which should be announced next week during the UAW-GM Motorsports NASCAR Media Tour in Charlotte, N.C.
Opening remarks
Brian France: We're committed to doing something, and we're committed to doing something very shortly. I have said all along that we're going to do something, and we're going to do something dramatic because we have a good system. If we can make a good system great, that takes a dramatic move. We'll look, and we'll announce it soon.
But don't call it a playoff?
Brian France: I wouldn't at all because a playoff implies a lot of things, notably that it's the best-of-three, single-elimination. We're not talking about something like that. We're talking about something that has a big element of consistency, as much as two-and-a-half months, and you've heard 10 races.
There'll be some features to what we announce that have not been reported that when that gets out and everybody understands how much thought and what occurs, then our fans, and certainly the drivers -- we know that if we change anything, there's a natural negative reaction, and we understand that.
But when we lay out ultimately what we're going to do, everybody will go, 'You know what? That makes some sense.' Secondly, this isn't going to be one of these that you do and don't know what the result is. We're going to see the results. We'll see it as early as this fall, and we'll see it year after year.
We are largely confident that the plan that I know of that is on the table is going to work and is going to grow the sport, period.
Q: Your father said that if it fails, that you can always go back to square one. But if from what we're hearing, we go to 10 races and those 10 races deciding the championship, would you look at revamping the schedule in 2005 so we can spike the interest in those tracks and perhaps varying the tracks so perhaps there is a road course or not so weighted heavily on the 1.5-mile tracks?
Brian France: Well, look, a couple things. I'm not sure exactly what he said. I know what he meant, and that's we will make adjustments to any change that we make, if we think it didn't quite achieve the goal we wanted. We don't think there are going to be a lot of adjustments.
We certainly don't think there's going to be us announcing the system, and the next year we revert to something totally different. That's not what we're about. We're about continuity.
We didn't go to the Brickyard a couple times. We go there every year. We don't do major changes without an awful lot of thought, a pretty good track record of making sure that they last and that they do what we think they're going to do.
No. 1, the schedule has moved around a little bit, realignment. It's going to move around some -- hopefully, not a lot -- but it's going to move around some in the future. If you look at the mix of tracks in the last 10 races, it's pretty good. There are short tracks, superspeedways, some mile-and-a-halves - Homestead-Miami now is probably the perfect place, (since) the drivers like a competitive place to settle things.
We're pretty confident. There will always some realignment changes that we'll do.
Q: What you're reading and when you're hearing what we've all been writing, are we just way off?
Brian France: Look, the nature of something dramatic, the nature that we want to be more inclusive -- what I think is interesting is if more drivers have an opportunity to win a championship every year, that's a great thing.
If we put a plan in place that promotes harder racing -- what we do know is we've got a system that's too much balanced on consistency. We want consistency. We've got a long year, a lot of different tracks, and it should play a big role. We think it plays too much of a role. That's the balance we're after now. Whatever new plan we come with is going to be effective.
Q: Several drivers -- Jeff Gordon, most notably, -- oppose it because they don't think of it as a drivers' points system but as an entertainment-based system. How would you address that?
Brian France: We are in the entertainment business. Hopefully, our events entertain people. What I think is really interesting is if everybody in this room and every driver said if we left the same current points system the way it is today, and we went out five years and we had five guys going for the championship in October and three at the final race and a last-lap win to settle the championship on the track, we'd all love that, right? No one disagrees with that.
If we have a system and an environment that promotes that in a real meaningful way, who in the world would think that's a bad thing?
If I'm Jeff Gordon, what I think first is now I'm going to have a shot at the championship every year. There are a few guys who always probably are going to be at least in the top 10 in mid-September. He's one of them, one of the elite guys. Instead of being eighth and having no chance every other year, every year, Jeff Gordon is going to say, "OK, if I strap in on right now, I put my best game forward, I can win a championship."
If I'm him, and I think when he thinks about it and the confidence he has -- and guys like Tony Stewart, Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. -- all these guys who pride themselves and are the best racers, they're going to like this plan as it unfolds. I really believe that.
Q: How much would this dramatic change impact your ability to run this sport? In other words, if it's successful, how easy will it be for you to run. If it's not successful, will it be difficult for you to run it?
Brian France: I hope it gets easier. If we make good decisions and everybody benefits, I'd like to think, it would be a little bit easier to manage the sport. But when it gets bigger, it's never easier. You just sort of take that as it comes.
Q: Did the genesis of this originate with you? If so, how hard of a sell did you have to make to the rest of NASCAR's brass to get it going?
Brian France: We haven't announced it fully, so I don't want to say that we're absolutely there. But I will tell you that like drivers and like fans, when you see something that's a big change, even internally, people go, "Whoa, is that too much?" So, yeah, there was a lot of soul-searching that we had to do.
We ran all the models, we've got everybody in rooms to think things through. I will tell you that pretty quickly, our top people, including my father, though, "Geez, there are some things here we can do." They're dramatic, but we've made dramatic moves before.
We're going to lead the sport in an intelligent way and try to make progress, as I said when I got my new role. I think it went pretty well. That's what you want. If you're us and the media, you want to hear there was some real debate and soul-searching that goes on in any kind of big decision. It was a normal, good bantering back and forth of the pros and cons. We think we're going to end up with a good result.
Q: Jeff Burton had some of us in his hauler. It was real interesting. He said NASCAR could never run the sport by voting by the athletes and the owners. Can you talk about running via polls of the athletes on a number of issues, including this?
Brian France: I more than anybody want to reach out when we make big decisions to get input. You've got to remember, the competing interest that everybody has -- the drivers: they're all competing with each other, so they have different things when they evaluate a move we make; the sponsors: they have a competing interest; our television networks, our XM Radio affiliates, licensees -- everybody has a point of view that is selfish to them, and that's the way it should be.
Somebody has to pull all that together and say, "We've heard from everybody, but you know what? What's good for everyone? Not just a few people, everyone." That's what we're supposed to do, that's what race fans want us to do. I'm a huge sports fan, all kind of sports. When any change is made, I typically go, "Gosh, I wish they wouldn't do that." Usually, it works out very well, but that's a natural reaction to say.
Nobody wants their sport that they love to change and go backwards. They don't want it to be less than it is, at a minimum. We think the kind of changes that we're talking about, our race fans are going to love it.
You're going to hear guys getting out of the car going, "OK, I've got to win today, I've got to compete today because I'm in the championship hunt. I'm one of 10" -- or it's going to be more than 10, perhaps. It's not just 10 -- "I'm going to be part of an elite group." You're going to see our fans gravitate to that. They're going to like that.
Q: You're kind of hinting that there perhaps there will be more than 10. Give us something.
Brian France: I'll tell you this. I don't know if it's anything new, but we believe in the old system, if you had a chance to win the championship whenever there's a cut off point -- let's call it mid-September, 10 races to go -- that if you're in striking distance, legitimately, we're going to include you. We're going to find a way.
That may be more than 10. It could be 11, it could be 12. What we're not going to do is have somebody outside the top 10 that has a run in the final 10 races or however many races and could've won a championship, but we eliminated them. We're going to find a way to solve that, and we will solve that. That's one of those features that we'll be putting forward that you guys that will make more sense.
Q: How much of it is TV driven?
Brian France: First of all, it wasn't their idea. Second of all, they're embracing it, in particular the NBC and Turner people, as you would expect. The Fox team has come out and said that they understand it and giving a lift to different story lines and different things to talk about and different stories of interest that will occur earlier, even in June and July.
Let's face it, we've got a long season. They like the fact of ending on a big note going into a very short off-season. They didn't drive it, but I think they're going to embrace it.
Q: Is this an example of the Brian France era, being more willing to change? "Hey, if it doesn't work, we'll try something else?"
Brian France: I didn't say else. What I've said is we think this is going to work, and we're going to make adjustments. It's not the Brian France era; it's the NASCAR era. I just happen to be the guy that's helping to manage it.
We are going to move faster. I have said that. I want us to move quicker, you guys want us to move quicker on issues. But that's just not my opinion. Everybody wants to. Mike Helton wants to move faster.
Q: The announcement will be Tuesday?
Brian France: We do have an announcement on Tuesday.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
