The Dale Jr. Download - 408 - Brian France - The Rise, Fall, and Everything in Between

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

On the season finale of the Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis sit down with one of their most highly anticipated guests to date: former NASCAR CEO Brian France. In 2002, RJ Reynolds announced it would be pulling its Winston branding as a title sponsor for the NASCAR Cup series after 30 years. Not long after, Bill France Jr., the CEO who oversaw that era stepped down from his position of power. With the organization at a crossroads, Brian arose to the occasion and helped fill the void of his father’s absence while ushering the premiere stock car division into its modern-day state. From 2003 to ‘18, many changes took place on Brian’s watch that molded NASCAR racing into the motorsport that we watch today. The Dirty Mo crew and listeners alike were eager to have Brian to the Bojangles Studio hot seat to discuss what he felt was a success and a miss during his tenure at the helm of the organization. His education in running an empire began at an early age while growing up in the shadow of his father Bill Jr. A place in the shadows of giants is something that Dale Jr. and Brian can relate to, and the two recall how their fathers were certainly allies but never close friends.Once of age and eager to work, Brian took a position working at Talladega Superspeedway. He became fascinated with the business side of racing and in the 1990s he went on to manage Tucson Raceway Park and work at NASCAR’s Los Angeles office. His tasks included capitalizing on NASCAR’s flourishing west coast fanbase while strengthening its connection to the entertainment capital of the world, which resulted in NASCAR’s integration into the mainstream television and film industry. After helping to negotiate NASCAR’s first national television package deal in 2001, the stage was set for Brian to try his hand at leading the sanctioning body.Dale compares Brian and Bill Jr.’s leadership styles and what it's like having one strong character making decisions versus an entire committee of voices. Brian says he recognizes that many of the changes NASCAR has gone through over the last two decades may be alienating to longtime fans, but insists that the intention was always to promote growth through progression. He explains that NASCAR leadership often looks into untapped markets and develops strategies to help bring new fans into the fold including races in new markets, its diversity programs, and collaborative efforts with other sports and business entities.In 2004, NASCAR along with its new title sponsor partner Nextel introduced the Chase for Cup playoffs system, which would radically alter the traditional points championship structure. Brian explains that the desire to create “big moments” in points racing inspired the inclusion of cutoff lines and races. They discuss how the Playoffs field was expanded from 10 to now 16 and the events that occurred over the years to influence those decisions. Brian admits that a lot of the structuring came from looking at how other sports leagues officiate their playoff systems and what effects it has on their respective championships.Since Dale was an active competitor during Brian’s time in charge, he was anxious to get his insight on one of the most polarizing developments in the last 20 years: the Car of Tomorrow. Making its debut in 2007, the CoT was intended to increase competition while improving safety initiatives, but it became regarded as an inferior machine by drivers and fans. Brian admits that he viewed the car as a mistake and wishes that he would have gotten more input from the drivers and teams in its manufacturing. The conversation also touches on the Jeremy Mayfield scandal, the 2013 Regular Season finale at Richmond, Brian’s lack of presence at the races, and his 2018 arrest. Download listeners can expect a candid look at one of motorsports most influential leaders in modern history, as well as insight into the decision-making that shifted NASCAR into a household name. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. There he is. Come on in here, buddy. Have a seat. Hey, everybody. Glad you tuned in. It's time for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. Mike Davis, Del Anardt Jr.

The Mojangles Studio. Got a great guest today. Well, how you doing, Rhett? I'm doing fine right now. The first race was in Obolok of Florida in 1948. You died on that hill. Your career died on that hill, and you were hard-headed. Just something for everybody out there, you know.

When the time comes, you know, don't get on the cigar-shaped shit. Get on this saucer, okay? Just a little friendly advice. And that was far more egregious than what Denny Hamman did. What? I don't think Denny Hamlin even touched him. Are you kidding me, Mike? Hey, door bumper clear.

I think they did either. You need to watch the freaking race. I did watch the race. They hit. You'll know when it's time to retire because you run out of the B. You kind of, when you're at zero. That's like, I don't know what's going to stay in my last year. There was a raid on your house.

Right. What was the rate for and what came up? And then that's when he said, well, lock him up. Five, six later, boom, my hands around my back and I'm going to jail, you know. Well, that's not what Kyle Petty said. What is Kyle Petty got to do with this? Hey, everybody. Welcome to the final episode of 2022 of the Dale Jr. Download.

I am Dale Jr. and with me is my co-host, Mike Davis. How's it going, Mike? Going great, buddy. Mike, we have a doozy today. Yes, we do. Brian France is going to be on the show. Brian France was the CEO of NASCAR for 15 years. Some.

Good while, yeah. Yeah. And had a very traumatic removal. or whatever you want to call it from the sport. It made news. It did. And, you know, we haven't heard much about him. And he was interested in coming on the show.

We've had him on our list for a long time. Didn't know if that would ever be something that would happen. Well, it turns out he wants to come on here and tell us what he's been up to. Obviously, we're going to talk about everything that he went through as, you know, growing up around NASCAR, growing up in the industry, and then becoming the head. of the industry as a CEO and making all those decisions that were made over those years. We're going to talk about the good and the bad, and I think Brian's going to be interesting.

Yeah, yeah, I look forward to this. And yeah, we haven't heard his name mentioned a whole lot. I mean, he's sort of been laying low. I'll be curious to know if that's intentional or what, you know, what's going on there. So I'm looking forward to it. We're not going to do a dirty air today because we just want to get right to the Brian France interview.

Well, let's just get started, get Brian in the room. Brian France on the Dale Jr. Download. He wants to touch on a couple things related. But we never thought you'd want to come on. Why not? Brian France is on the download. You mentioned mistakes. Would you say that the car of tomorrow was one of those?

We'll make tough decisions. But there's going to be more pushing and shoving now. Where there are moments when you had a hard time not letting it get personal. It's my profession. It's what we do, and it affects it. You haven't seen Brian in a long time. There's a selfish motivation to doing all this stuff and growing the pie for everyone. There were some good things.

What if you were presented with an opportunity to work in the industry again? August 5th, 2018. August 15th. Okay. Yeah, that was a tough day. I needed dinner. Mike. Hey, Mike.

Brian, France. Welcome. You got some coffee, you're ready. I'm ready. I've been watching you guys. Maybe. I've got to get ready for this show. Got to get some energy.

Yeah. So how's it going? It's going great. Yeah. It's going really good. It's been a long time. It has been a while. Yeah.

I'm able to watch you every week on NBC and all that. So congratulations. Thanks. Not to mention what the, I was just talking to Kelly out there and 15 wins and everything you've done and good. Yeah, this year's good. Yeah. That's one for the ages.

Yeah, yeah, we get lucky every once in a while. You know, you kind of, we've been doing this a long time. You figure you're going to have a year like this eventually. Yeah, yeah. And plus all our resources and everything. So, man, thanks for coming. We had you on our list. We got this long list of people that we want to have on the show,

but we never thought you'd want to come on. Why not? I don't know, you're busy. You're moving on with your life and wasn't sure exactly, you know, how you'd want to revisit your, you know, because we're going to talk about NASCAR and all the things you did. Yeah. Wasn't sure where you were with all that and how comfortable you were with, because you hadn't done much media. No, I've done a little bit, but not much.

No, not much, but I'm real comfortable with everything, so there's no issue there. Where did you come from today? I was in New York last night, and so I was in Charlotte, where I've got my investment. stuff that we do is all based in Charlotte. So I'm here a lot. Yeah, here in North Carolina, so it's easy for me to do. Okay. I got to admit, man, like you have lost a lot of way. How much weight have you lost? I lost 20-something pounds, 25 pounds. I needed to, though. Yeah. I needed to, so. Yeah. Well, man, interesting. So you look great. 60 years old. 60 years, can you believe that? I mean, yeah. I know. You feel good? They keep coming.

I feel good. I do feel good. But that's also motivated me to getting better shape. Getting older, yeah. My kids are even, you know, all that stuff. I turned 48, man, and it just doesn't feel real. Because it, like 15 years just went somewhere. Well, I got to tell you, they tell you 50, that's going to be one.

60, though. What the? Really? 60? That one, I can't get my head around it. Yeah. Do you get, do you look forward? or do you dread birthdays?

I'm now dreading them. Okay. Again, I just turned 60 in August. And, you know, of course, I'm 50. I'm coming up on it. I know it's coming. But you just don't think of yourself in life going by that quick. But it does.

It does. It does. So let's talk about your childhood, man. What was that like? So I knew your dad a little bit. very hands-on, very, it seemed like he wouldn't have, I can't imagine what kind of dad he might have been probably similar to mine, not around to throw ball, not taking any trick-or-treating. I'm not sure, right?

But he just, they seem similar in a sense that they were really married to their job. I think right. Right. Absolutely. Tough guy. Yeah. There would be a lot of similarities with your dad. He'd gone on the weekend, so worked, came home, you know, six, seven o'clock at night,

every night. So you're right. He, he, that wasn't going to be my dad, but, uh, but you knew he was there for you. But, you know, it's probably, you know, I thought about this interview because we haven't been that close through the years. Right. And no particular reason. Sure.

Just because we were, you know, going to different directions. but we had a lot of similarities. Our dads were really good friends. And frankly, your dad was my dad's ally in NASCAR. He really was. And trusted him, liked him. It was one of those kind of relationships. And then they were this kind of similar guys on different sides of the sport, of course.

but, you know, tough, fair. You knew where they stood. They're going to lead. They're going to move and all that stuff. And so we had a group. There was a lot of things that we had in common. Had we ever sat in and talked, we would have had a lot more in common. Right.

We thought we would have. Yeah. So what was it like growing up, you know, with him gone so much? Where was your direction? What was your, what was motivating you? It was cool. I have to say, I mean, we had. Some of my great memories, we had so, you don't know this when it's happening, right?

You're a teenager, you're a kid, and you're growing up, and it's, you know, everybody came to Daytona for in February or July, and we didn't think a lot of it at the time. But I'll tell you some really cool stuff. One, when Bo Derek and the movie 10 came out, Bo Derek's dad was the president of Kalsaki. And he came down in March and brought his family. So you can imagine, I'm a teenager. I'm going, what? Bo Derek's coming and we're going to go all have dinner with her? Well, she didn't actually come, but her sister came and her brother came, but it was fun.

But we had like James Garner when he was hot, you know, over for dinner. And again, I'm like thinking, well, this is kind of how everybody rolls, right? James Garner's coming in. And, yeah, I'll bring my friends by. And, you know, it was that kind of thing. And it was fun. But you don't know how special that is when it's happening, but you do when you get a chance to sit back and look at it now. Where did you go to school and what were you into as a kid?

I was into a lot of stuff. I went to public schools in Daytona, UCF in Orlando. It was the traditional stuff. Sports? Sports. I played a lot of stuff. wasn't good at anything particular, but we played a lot. That was also when you could take off on your bike and be gone for the whole day.

You can't do anything like that now. So you could ride all over Daytona and be gone all, you know, just out. And at 15 or 12 or 14, whatever it was. And, you know, so those times have all changed and everything has changed. But it was fun growing up in Daytona. Yeah. Your first job was a janitor at Talladega? Yeah. I did everything you could do. And the reason that that was the case was the way we had it set up was you were going to always – you're going to have opportunities. But my dad had a thing about performance. You're going to have to perform. And whatever you're doing, and you're not above anybody and you're not below anybody.

And he was real clear about that. And he said, that said, you're going to get opportunities. So whatever you're doing, you got to be good enough at it, whatever it is. But did you go, Dad, what about, why a janitor, though? I mean, like, in there, like, what is the janitor job at Telethaget? Well, I actually picked up the track. I actually was, you know, going. Just on race weekend?

I did everything. And the reason I did it wasn't just because I was climbing. So I was climbing a ladder. at 15 years old. It was to earn money. It was to earn money on the weekends. And, you know, my dad kept telling me, you know, I'm doing okay, but you're broke. So I listened to them.

And so I would, newspaper job, you know, I delivered newspaper. Whatever it was, I was always doing something to earn money. Yeah. Nice. And so what was your interest in racing? I mean, you're obviously your dad, your family and all that. in your, it's, it's, it's part of your life. But were you interested in it?

Were you curious about following in the family business? Yeah, sure. But, you know, it's also trying to match up where you can contribute. So, and that was the cool part of, and still is the cool part of NASCAR, because you can make a, if, and you also have to, if you're me, make contributions hopefully where other people aren't making them. So there's some space. So if you're running along, my dad was incredible on operations.

He was incredible in the garage area, right? He was actually a great generalist. He was great in a lot of things. But he focused on that because he liked that. And so I had to focus on things I had an opportunity to do, happened to be the business side, happened to be bringing in revenue growing. The other thing that was always told and instilled in me is, hey, you know, this is a big privilege. And it's not about me.

When we own NASCAR, that's terrific. That's what a neat thing. But it's, you know, we're just custodians of this thing. We've got to make it bigger and better for everyone. That's the whole idea. how can you do that? Where would you fit in to make that kind of impact? If you can't, that's okay too.

We can, because there was no pressure on me to do anything within the family business. Never has been. Where were you for the Daytona 500 and 79? In 79. I was there. What were you doing? What was I doing? You know, they had the rain delay and they had your grandfather.

on camera, talking about, you know, how, you know, how their progress and through the, through the rain delay and whatnot. And there was a national televised flag-to-flag audience on a major network. I mean, in my opinion, so I ask you about the specific day because I feel like that this was like a massive moment in the sport in terms of really making us, you know, a mid-Atlantic regional sport to a national sport. We were broadcast to everyone. that was this unique weather system on the East Coast. It had everybody snowed in and in their homes watching TV. And your family was kind of orchestrating this moment.

Yeah, well, right. And that was my dad. And that was my dad and my uncle and others taking risk. Because at that time, going to network television with CBS, you know, that had some risk to it. You could flop out and do poorly, right? And so when do you do that? How do you do that? Do you do that?

Now, you know, it's different. But back then that was a risk. And then a fight breaks out, and you couldn't have had a better situation, a snowstorm, as you mentioned. I don't remember that real well in terms of that was early on for me. But the significance of that is correct. That was a very significant thing. with the sport.

It says here that you manage some short tracks in your time. Yeah. Tuscan Raceway Park. So what was the, you know, did that, did somebody call you and say, hey, man? No, that was all me wanted to operate something. All me knowing I, you know, I'm not going to operate the Talldega Speedway. Right. So it was a great experience.

I moved to Tucson. People thought I was crazy. But, you know, I had four employees. That includes me, by the way. So we had three. So, yeah, and it was a great experience, a dirt track. You had to do everything. You had to be the race official, the promoter.

And you did? I did. I did. We were financially, made some money with it. At that point, that was going to be where ISC at the time was going to own perhaps a lot of those short tracks. We never worked out for us to do that. Man. But yeah, so we ended up a.

Well, that would be cool. today, like if we were sitting here, you know, I'm still heavily involved in short-track scene. And that would be incredible if I, if you guys owned like, you know, half a dozen short tracks in this area. Had that worked, you know, had that worked out to where? It had it worked out, but it didn't work out for us, but it was a great experience for me. Yeah. Is that the only track you, you had hands on experience with? Yeah, I quick, pretty quickly from there went to the touring divisions and ran those, got some organization to those touring divisions at the time, Northwest Tour at the time, Southwest Tour,

the Modifieds, all that stuff, kind of got some organization to that. On the West Coast. So you spent it. Well, and the East Coast. And East Coast. All right, because I know later you went to the LA office. Yeah, yeah. So you had working in Tucson and all that, you had some experience.

You had, you know, because people have to remember, like, in the 80s and the 70s, yeah, we had some races on the West Coast, but we weren't really that massive, you know, west of the Mississippi. But I think that, you know, did you, were you seeing like, hey, man, like you say, you know, you got to figure out where you can bring something to the table. it's not there. Were you seeing this opportunity for growth? You know, you needed to take NASCAR to introduce it to L.A. Was that part of your initiative? Well, yes. Anything we could do to what we found is, is when we got out of the southeast, we did real well, whether it was going to Phoenix or whether it was going to Fontana or wherever it was. And we didn't just do well.

for live events, but when our events got distributed on Fox or NBC or whatever it was at the time, you know, in those markets, we were doing pretty well. And so we knew we had some pent-up demand for NASCAR. And we also knew that from my time out there, that the touring divisions were always strong. The Winston West, Northwest Tour, Southwest Tour, those touring divisions up and down, California, Oregon. I lived in Portland, Oregon for a little while, worked at the Portland Speedway. And so I knew that the grassroots fan base was always there. And then we were getting drivers from California, Jeff Gordon and others.

So we started to get, you know, get that more national feel. And I wanted to take advantage of that for the sport. Yeah. What else are you picking up other than realizing there's an appetite from coast to coast for racing? What other practical things are you picking up when in terms of managing racetracks facilities that you would then, in looking back, realized that they were kind of beneficial for your management and your leadership styles? Well, remember, mostly I was not on the racetrack side. My sister were all carving out some space, and she did a really good job at ISC at the time.

And, of course, other track drivers. So what I was seeing was that if we could present our product to more people at further distances, we could do well. could do well. And if we presented that, and if we took some ideas from the other leagues that were, that I've gotten criticized for, as you guys know, through the years, but that's okay. But if we took some of the ideas of how to package television, how to package licensing merchandising, how to go to market with corporate America in a smarter way, can we do some of those things? And we did. We did a lot of those things. And a lot of them worked.

Can we create a championship style format? A lot of discussion about that at the time, as you guys know. A lot of people said that can't be done, shouldn't be done. I think we all kind of look at it now and go glad we have that because, man, that's exciting. And everything we were doing, everything we were doing was to create a bigger pie for everyone, a bigger audience. and then eventually, and how do you do that? You don't just do it by marketing gimmicks or repackaging things. You do it because the product itself is on display,

this close, tight racing that we don't always get right, but we're trying, right? And this safe, competitive racing. And if you go through the arc of it, you'll see periods in our history where we're out of balance in some things. One of my least famous moments is, or maybe it is famous, with the new car, the original new car that we had coming out of with safety that the drivers really didn't like.

Yeah, COT. You're sitting at a table with one of them. I know, I know. And I understand that now. I mean, that was, we could have done a better job in a lot of things. but that's an example of trying to move things in a direction. And you don't always get all that, you know, just perfect. Yeah.

You moved to run NASCAR's LA office in the 90s, in 1990, or in the 90s? Late 90s, yeah. So I was reading through that, and I remember going to racetracks, and all of a sudden, you know, there was this sort of flood of, you know, race paint schemes with movies on them. You know, a lot of promotions around movies. And you were part of spearheading that initiative, were you not? I was.

And I think we could still do more of that, truthfully. That made us feel important, you know, for lack of a better way to describe it. When we had like these major films that are coming out, Batman and all these things on the hood of race cars, multiple cars at some tracks you'd have multiple movies on the race track on the race car paint scheme it made the sport feel bigger made the sport feel relevant to to mainstream America right yeah and so um like you say I mean that was that and I didn't have any idea I didn't have any clue that you were part of sort of that brain you know that well it was me you know one of the things in a family business and you know this very well is you have the

this incredible access to people. And I always tell people in family businesses, you know, you got to use that. You got to use that because I could get certain things done. Ben Kennedy can get certain things done that no one else is in the organization, who may be much smarter, have better ideas, but they can't get some of those ideas through, but we can. You've got to, you know, use those carefully. But you've got to use those, use that. Use that. Use that. moment, and that's what I try to do in the family business. So that would be an example of that where, you know, a little controversial, really, do we want to be married with Hollywood and, you know, all of what that could mean? And the answer is, yes, we do. We got to hire, you got to make an

investment because, you know, that's not going to just fall into our lap. We're going to have to put an office out there. We're going to have to hire really good people. We've got to pay them a lot of money. And we're going to present the opportunity. And there goes Talladega nights, which was fun and opened us up and made a little fun at us. We took a little risk there. So you've got to take some creative risk. But in the end of the day, you're back to what you're trying to do, is are we growing the enterprise value in a responsible, smart way for everyone? Knowing there are going to be people along the way that go that's too far that's too much i'd rather get that criticism than then then you're making the sport smaller or you're getting you're not looking at it big enough

or you you know uh i i'd rather take that criticism was that was that our industry's biggest fault is that we weren't giving ourselves enough credit back then like we just whatever the stigma was in nascar before we're trying to go to hollywood or trying to go expand where we're our own worst enemies at that point in terms of expansion or maybe the better way of saying it was we were we were satisfied with where the industry was and you're like no no we could be bigger we just have to take a few more risk right and we'd have to go knock on some doors in hollywood we got to we got to go put planning office in new york yeah i i think it's a a continual um balance that every sport has baseball have having it they have it they have it

all the time. What is balancing your past, your core fan, your core existence versus the fan of the future, and how do you marry those two? It's tough. And some do it better than others and keep expanding and keeping growing. I used to have one simple thought, hey, I want everybody in the country to be a NASCAR fan. So that means I got to market to certain people that are in areas that they may not take a look at us a little differently. That's how a lot of our diversity programs originally happened. They weren't because we had a lot of social pressure on us. We just thought that was an untapped market. We weren't getting in the crews and the teams in the executive offices. We weren't getting as much as we would have liked in terms of

the talent that a more diverse group of people might bring to us. So let's go reach out to them. Let's go reach out to historically black colleges. Let's tell them that not only welcome here, we need them. We need them to be in the stands. We need them to be on the pit crew. We need them to be in the front office. We need to be running racetracks. We need the Hispanic. We've done a lot and NASCAR continues to do that. So it's not, there's a selfish motivation to doing all this stuff and growing the pie for everyone. Is it fair to say, though, that in that expansion effort, some fans felt alienated or that there was an, that the expansion came at the expense of some of the roots? Is it fair to say that? It is. You can make that argument all day long. And then if you make that argument all day long, you also won't go anywhere.

You'll just stay right there. But it is true that North Wilkesboro, congratulations on all that. as an example of, you know, events that got moved to different places at the time. And we tried to do less of that than most of the other auto racing leagues for sure. We wanted historically important events to be on the schedule. We didn't want promoters looking over their shoulder at their dates disappearing where they wouldn't invest in the facilities and the promotion. So we tried to balance that.

But if you're trying to climb the mountain and grow, you're going to have some of that. Speaking of that instance, I mean, there was, you know, having spent some time with Marcus and talked to him about, you know, we've asked him about that, you know, that whole transaction of North Wilsonboro going away. And I think we've kind of changed his opinion about the possibilities for the property and the racetrack. And now it's going to be an all-star event. but you were around and heavily involved in the sport when that when when you know when they did go to Texas and they were trying to you know they did buy you know the dates away from from Wilkesboro and from you know we heard Marcus's opinion about how they wanted to make that happen how did NASCAR feel about what what control they had over that situation and

and and racing going away from Wilkesboro and going to new markets I know that that the markets were exciting, but you also were leaving a historical place that you say, you know, that you like to remain in some of those places that have that historical value. Well, look, NASCAR has a lot of control over the sport. It does not have absolute control, nor should it. And so there are lots of things that NASCAR will try to influence, will hope happens, but for different reasons it doesn't. And that's a good example.

Where that was bought by Bob Bear at the time and others. And there was litigation that was involved and all kinds of things that we would prefer not to see. You'd have preferred that. We would have certainly preferred to have a smoother transition, however it would have been sorted out. however it would have been sorted out. But again, we're not in control of all of that. And some of that stuff needs to just kind of work itself out. When you're watching NASCAR today,

so I always have this conversation come up when there's a lot of collaboration. We're going to talk about the RTA. but there's the RTA now where the teams have sort of formed an alliance. The drivers are now all trying to be a little bit more of a one single voice and have a seat at the table. Obviously, we know that the networks have gained a ton of influence over the last couple of decades. They spend the most money in the sport, which is rightfully for them to have that influence. But, you know, even when the networks were heavily influenced and your dad was at the helm, I really, really admired the way he ran the sport.

And there were moments when he literally would come to the ground floor in front of everyone and say, we're doing it this way. Yeah. And this is, that's the end of the conversation. You know, and I feel like, and I wonder sometimes if I'm just an old timer or, you know, a boomer that, you know, doesn't see really the good in where we are today. But sometimes I miss that. Sometimes I miss there being a one guy at the top that was going to say,

all, yeah, we're not, you know, this is the end of the conversation. This is the decision we're making today and we're moving forward. And nobody had a word to say otherwise. Or they can leave. Yeah, he didn't mind that. He's like, you can leave. You've been, you know that so well. Yeah.

Having, you know, having grew up with him. How much of that. is really necessary today could that you know I mean how do you feel about how it's sort of changed to where we really are now more you know it's more of a committee it's more of a conversation a bigger conversation around things things take a lot longer to sort of get worked out and resolved you know the things move make things moves much slower yeah and so I kind of miss I miss it being you know one guy going you know right here's a set of rules you got today play by them

Well, first of all, at 48, you're not an old-timer. So let's start with that. There you go. You know, a lot of that is that was an error where you could have a John Wayne, my dad, and he could pull that off. And the sport benefited from that. I don't know that, you know, if you go back in any sports history, you'll find people like that in the sport that took them from one place to another, usually up.

But in today's system, that isn't really, that person really couldn't exist even if they were, even if you wanted them to. There's just too many stakeholders that have a very loud and voice. You just can't kind of, believe me, when I was coming through, I would have loved to have had that kind of a platform to run around it. But that just wasn't, it wasn't who I was anyway. But even if it was, we were getting to see, once you bring in people that have a, they're vested in there with you, and their livelihoods are at stake. And these teams get built out to super teams and these sprawling complexes. and network television spending billions of dollars, then you can't just say, well, the wind blew today,

and I'm going this way. You just can't quite do that. You have to have more of a consensus. It doesn't mean that you can't put your foot down, and we do. NASCAR does. And we'll make tough decisions. But there's going to be more pushing and shoving now.

That's just the way it is. What was the time frame like when your dad was having his physical issues? He's, you know, you know that time is limited. You realize how monumental he was as an individual to the sport. You're going to lose your dad. You're going to lose the leadership. And it's going to fall on someone's shoulders. No one, now I wasn't, I probably wasn't privy to some of the conversations that other people in the industry were.

So I didn't know who was going to take over. I didn't assume it was you. I didn't assume it was Jim. Yeah. But how did that process, looking back? Was that a, was that chaotic? Was it very controlled? How are you managing having such a massive responsibility placed on your shirt?

shoulders all during the time when your dad was moving out of that position? Well, it wasn't chaotic, but it wasn't, you know, completely organized either. So it was somewhere in between. I was living in California, and we had just done our media deals, and we were working on the things you talked about. I had a big job, big responsibility. I was really happy with that. You have to remember in a family business, such as the nature of national.

because you've got to give everybody some space. And while my dad and I had a good working relationship, he was incredibly fair with me. I had to say tough, but fair. But I also, you know, he was not going to retire. He wasn't going to be one of those guys. So I had carved out an area of the business where I could make the right contribution

and I could get financially paid for that. I could bring everybody along. I was hiring a lot of good people. I'm so proud of that because they've gone on and do so many good things. So we were hiring talented people growing, and he really appreciated that. My dad did, and so did Jim, so did everybody. And so I was happy. And then my dad got sick, and then that was like a, you know, up and down.

It looked like he was getting better, and then something else would happen. And so I really didn't want to push that because he was so good at what he did that I wanted to, you know, I wasn't going to push that until, you know, his health got to a point where, you know, they came calling as a group to say, hey, you know, you'd be the guy that could make the next, you know, run here as a CEO of the company. It wasn't something I lobbied for or needed to have in my life. Yeah. But I was, it was a great privilege. Sure. and an honor to do it.

And so I, you know, obviously did it. So can I clarify that? Because Dale's question was also sort of the question I was wondering, and that was, is the lane you speak of where you identified this area in which you could really make a difference? Was this the same position when you were named Executive Vice President in 2000? Is that the position in which you were able to then negotiate the new TV package or the media deal? That was that position, right? And at that time, you're saying that there were no.

There were no notions that you were going to be tabbed as a successor to your dad. Like that wasn't on anyone's radar. No, we didn't, we didn't operate that way. You didn't think of that way. It wasn't an anointment or a, got it. There had never even been a conversation of like, hey, man, you know, this, you're, you know, no, no, you know, like you see on TV, like, where the dad says to the son, you know, this is going to be yours one day. There was none of those little moments. No, not like that.

We wouldn't talk that way. We wouldn't have. We would have been, hey, you got to go perform and what you're doing. now. Yeah. And was he, and like you say, when you say he wasn't going to retire, he was hard-headed in a sense of I'm doing this until I'm not doing this. Well, I think that was who he was. Yeah. And I don't think it was hard-headed. I just think that was who he was. And he was one-dimensional in a really good way, because he put everything he had into that. And by the way, that wasn't going to me either. We're different people. I'm not going to have the kind of focus on any one thing

that he did. And I marvel at him because he was able to do that. Yeah. I feel I know what you mean by that, man. I look at my dad the same way. He was, I don't know how he was able to be so so clever in every instance, you know, and so wise to be able to understand. so many different things happening at once. You know, I can succeed in one space focusing on one thing at a time, you know, where he could juggle so many things. He could. So, was, you know, was the passing of your dad a, obviously emotional experience, but, you know,

you kind of had an idea this was coming through his health and his struggles? How, you know, how hard was that for you? You wake up one day, and this whole empire is. without its leader and everybody's looking at you? Did you feel pressure? No, not really. We had a real deep team at the time of really good people that were really talented throughout the organization.

Who is the one person that comes up to you and instantly becomes like your best ally? Yeah. George Pine was a real ally of mine. We built things together a lot of. George was our chief operating officer at the time. He was a close friend, still is. But we had a lot of good people in the organization that were, you know, have gone on to do all these incredible big jobs.

And we were lucky to have them. So we didn't feel pressure like that that we were, because when we had made a transition, my dad had given up responsibility, you know, some responsibility. And he was also good about that. My dad was good about when you, you know, you need to have this responsibility to accomplish this. And he would, you know, do his best to not try to crowd his own view into that. He was a good manager that way, even though he wouldn't be known as that. You wouldn't think he's, you know, Bill France is doing that.

But he was. He was good about, you know, letting you. go out and do it. As an example, when we did the, the first thing we had to do with the television agreements is get all the rights back from the tracks. Well, try that one out when you go flying around the country and talking to Bruton Smith and Tony George and many others about can we pull this together because we need to have a single negotiating framework here. and but that's going to mean you know and it's kind of like buying a car everybody thinks they can buy a car better than somebody else right so they're no one to give up that opportunity of going in the

showroom and doing it so had to give up those negotiations and fall behind us what was the pushback pushback was you know we can do it better than you can the track saying that NASCAR can do it better. Sure. And they had done a very good job, but we thought we could do, you know, together collectively, a lot better job. And that obviously was true. We took it, you know, at the time from like $100 million to $400 million from one moment to the next. That was the original deal in 2001 when we got the rights back. So it worked for everyone in that regard. And that, and that, That's a situation where there's probably no one, and I don't say this because I'm a master negotiator, I'm not.

But that was a good example of me going around to the tracks, first of all going around internally saying I can work with Bruton Smith. He will see what I see and whoever else. And having the confidence from my family to go, okay, you know, that doesn't sound right. We don't get a lot of cooperation on these kind of things generally, but we'll trust you to go do that. If you're anybody but me in the organization, you wouldn't even have the conversation. They say, well, that's not possible. Right.

And it would have just sat there. So, you know, that's how that works. I'm so glad to hear you say this because I was so fascinated, and I still am about that original media deal from 2000, because that felt like a huge milestone, much like the 1979, Daytona 500 is a milestone in our sports history. That big TV package feels like a big milestone, and you were right in the middle of it, and I had a question prepared because I wanted to know

how long that took and what were the biggest hurdles. It sounds like it wasn't the negotiating with the networks. It was getting the track rights and getting the cooperation from all of the different stakeholders involved before you even go negotiate with the television networks. It was getting the tracks to recognize that NASCAR had owned the rights, all along, which we did. And it would work better if we collectively went to the market.

Because at that point, every track would go with their particular rights all the time. There was always somebody selling something, and you had four different networks or five, you know, at the time. And whoever, you know, they were always available. And you couldn't get a cohesive partner in there to promote your sport across their own. other platforms and there are other things, let alone the financial commitment somebody was willing to make. Which was another big change, right? I mean, like, wasn't that a billion or multiple billions?

Well, we did a 400% increase from one moment to the next, one year to the next. And yeah, and we're all proud of that. And then that's been the new floor, and then we took it in there. I think we're just under 16, 18 billion of TV rights that I negotiated and we negotiated. And yeah, we're proud of that. But if we wouldn't have done that now, gosh, you'd never be able to do that again. So there are moments in time when you look back at any part of our sport where there are just big reflection points. You know, people that had, like, obviously, like your dad, who led the way, but who had

magical moments, you know, with us and did something extraordinary that people go, that, that changes things. That's a big deal. Yeah. You know, seven championships. And the way that your dad did that was, you know, the intimidator and that, you know, that he could go, he could go to the national press club in Washington and pull it off and then get on his tractor and be just as comfortable.

And he didn't care what everybody thought all the time, like drivers, I think, today have more of that situation. So we were just lucky that that happened for us as a sport, that kind of thing. was it a big deal you know r j reynolds leaves a sport um in 2002 that was more about um legal you know their ability to really promote yeah they were kind of put in a situation legally where they couldn't no longer support the sport as a fine is a primary sponsor correct right and so um y'all do a negotiate a deal with next tail to replace winston in 2004 um which was great partner. Nextel, you know, as far as I was concerned, Nextel did a lot of amazing things to replace Winston was going to be difficult. Winston was, you know, people knew us as the Winston

Cup series. They might not even know what Winston was, but it was an identity. It was difficult for a lot of people change as you would learn throughout your career was difficult for a lot of fans. But I thought Nextdale did an amazing thing during their time in a sport. They did, but that's a good example, though. That was bittersweet because Winston not only was, as you say, integrated in our name. It was the Winston Cup series. We recognized as that. And then they were also good people, good partners with us.

And they felt like that. They kind of went, it wasn't just a sponsorship, they were part of the deal. So they would paint the facilities and they would invest and they would do things. But there came a point where they just couldn't promote their brand. Yeah. So that was that. Around the same time, Matt Kinsis wins one race, Ryan Newman wins eight in the same season. And Matt wins a championship.

So that in a lot of people's mind is what sort of spurred on this idea that we have to have a different point system or a different way to decide to champion. Was that really what got the ball rolling for that that sparked it in the industry's mind that, man, we need to do something different here? Well, it was certainly a big... Had y'all been talking about, like, changing the system somewhat to where we had a playoff atmosphere for some time?

Well, look, go back to what I originally said. Everything I'm trying to do, and we're trying to do, is to create big moments. to move the sport to more people in further distances. That's what we're trying to do. What accomplishes that? Well, the first thing that accomplishes that is give drivers a moment on a bigger stage where there's more on the line, where it can happen right now, okay, not evolving.

Maybe you get a big moment. Maybe you don't. You know, you're not getting a big moment like you had over the weekend with Ross Chess. sustained. Had we not had to say, you're not getting that moment. And one thing that I'm, you know, proud about with the teams and the drivers is they used to say, I'm giving everything I can give. It doesn't matter what is on the line. Well, that's not true. It's not true because they have dug, and it's cool to watch, truthfully, they're digging deeper, they're doing stuff that you go, wow, and that's what gives you a chance.

Remember something else. I'm trying to take this thing to a bigger place. Grow the pie for everyone. But while we're doing that, and this is the case for Jim and others, when you're not doing those things, your competitors are. College football is doing great now. They're having a big moment. Other leagues, they're all well-promoted.

They're all entrenched in our traditions, and they're getting star power. They're changing some of their stuff around. Their TV packages are bigger and better. So it's not enough to say, you know, if we're trying, if we're just trying to be another auto racing series, there's 30 or 40 of them around the country. If we're trying to make drivers household names or create big opportunities, or have big events, big events, then you've got to figure out what are all the things that are necessary to compete and do those things. At least give yourself an opportunity.

That doesn't mean that it's all going to happen just because you create the opportunities. You still have to have stars. You still have to get the racing right. It has to be safe. It has to be competitive. The networks have to do their part. there's a lot that has to happen that has to come together

but you've got to give yourself an opportunity to let that happen. The only thing that I really ever struggled with and you're right about that Ross Chassane doesn't do what he does at Martinsville without a playoff atmosphere and that elimination moment, those moments aren't created in a traditional format

that we've used for decades without a playoff system. So I like the playoffs. But the only thing that I've kind of struggled with is how we expanded the playoff field. You know, and it's happened at the clash as well, like the eligibility for getting into the clash, change the identity of that race. When the, you know, when the chase was 10 drivers, it was like, damn, that's hard. That's hard to get into.

It's 16 now, which is almost half. half the field of the guys that run every single week. You know, to your point, though, we've seen other series, other sports expand their playoff fields as well. Because the more people you have involved in the playoffs, the more entities that are plugged in and interested, sponsors that are part of it, I feel like that that was kind of the push for the clash,

was like you'd have partners coming up and going, why aren't we in this race? Why can't we be in this race? So I understand the pressure there. So I never loved the fact that the Chase Field grew, because I felt like it really made it difficult to get into and something about it being that difficult when it was limited to 10 or even 12. Something about it being harder made it more prestigious or more powerful,

the moment's more powerful, right? Well, that's a fair point. But remember, when we're doing that, we're also looking at the other leagues. And so I think the NBA is, I want to say, 16 or 18 teams. They grew. Yeah, they've all grown. They've all grown. And so we're proportioned to a 40-car starting field.

We fit in that regard. The other thing that I've struggled with is figuring out, okay, if we like the playoff system, We like the three race round. I think it's compelling. It could be argued that it's relatively fair. Everybody's got the same opportunity. It's three races. You can kind of dig yourself out of a hole.

But I've always kind of struggled with the final race being all or nothing. Yeah. And the reason why I struggle with that is because, well, the venue, may suit a team or a driver, you know, you obviously would probably, I don't want to say never, but you know, you wouldn't ever consider running it at a road course or a super speedway because that track certainly suits some drivers more than others, and you try to have it at a neutral facility, if you will, like a homestead or a Phoenix. But I always had a hard time with saying, okay, it's all boiled down to this one day

where you've got to get it right. And if you don't, you're not a champion today or this year. Even though you've really got this amazing body of work, you can still have that guy that wins one race be the champion and the guy that won six not even make the final round. And so I wish that we could figure out a way to make that championship moment not an all-or-nothing three-hour affair.

you know what I mean? We're going to decide the champion in three hours on Sunday. It's one race, and, you know, if your bolt falls off, too bad. Yeah. You know, so I've always kind of struggled with that. I've really warmed up to everything else that we've done. It took me a long time because I was too much of a traditionalist, but I still feel like there's got to be a better scenario for the final moment.

Well, the reason you feel that way is because those are fair points that you make. They are. And the amount of hours led by Steve O'Donnell that go into that kind of decision, and all of those points are made by a guy like Mike Helton, he'll make those points. And others will make them. I'll make them, too. I'll agree with them. And where you end up with that is, that that's part of the challenge of a playoff format in general with auto racing. And you're just going to have to accept that that's not exactly perfect.

Where the other leagues play on a 100-yard field and a basketball court, it's the same basketball. And that never enters into the discussion. Yeah. But while I're racing, golf to some degree. Yeah. It plays into that. Some courses fit, you know, a golfer different than others and longer, you know, drives and all that stuff. But that's fair.

But you can't, unfortunately, at least that was my decision was that we're not going to hold ourselves back from getting those moments. because auto racing doesn't quite fit perfectly into that. Yeah. We just couldn't do it. That was the judgment. And it probably, even if you tried to, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of scenarios that y'all ran through to try to, you know, come up with other alternatives, it's still going to come down to one, to the final race. Every round does, right?

Every round comes down to what we had at Martinsville. And so even if you said, all right, you know, the final round between the four drivers, three races. That fast race is still going to be the way things get decided. So I don't know how you, I don't know how you could go another route than we have. Or if something breaks, you just said it, if something breaks on the car, and it comes down to that, you know, what's the great term, the, that's racing? I know, I always, I kind of struggle sometimes with the, so the, you know, the guy that's running second, he's 10 car links away going into three. He sees the championship right in front of him and he's you know he came so damn close i guess that's you know as a driver you know we had

gotten so seasoned and comfortable with you know we're going to run the whole year and i'm going to know pretty much where i am in this championship thing before we even get close to the end you know what and it's kind of i'm going to know whether i'm in or out of it and i'm going to have several weeks to really come to terms with that and then get my head wrapped around trying again next year what we have now is definitely more akin to what you see in other sports where it comes down to the final second of the game. It comes down to the final drive. And there is elation and there is massive heartbreak that we really never experienced in a championship format that often until we haven't. Now we, I mean, what the drivers go through emotionally.

I've lived it, but talking to the drivers today. They never, ever feel this level of intensity, anger, frustration, heartbreak, elation, happiness, joy. They never have felt it in their lives until they find themselves in the playoffs. And so, you know, maybe there's something to be said about the way it works. Well, there was conventional wisdom by all teams that it, you know, we're going as hard as we go and we're going to do as best, you know, And the first time we did that in Homestead, and it remained this way, the top four guys were usually, you had to win the race to win the championship.

And the four contenders were at the front, on a mile and a half track, were almost always in the top 10, top five even. That's right. Right? And that told me, I remember going down to see Mike, about the second year into the chase, I went, that's not true. These guys are now, there's more on the line, and they're doing something different,

pushing themselves to a place that they didn't think they could push. That Tony Stewart's epic run back when he won the championship. And I said to our team, I said, the cool thing about this is, you know, over time, we're going to see things that make NASCAR NASCAR because of the heroic of what drivers are able to do. Like, I don't go up there, Ross Chastain was an incredible thing, but there are many, many others were risk-taking just the skill that you don't, it's hard. And that's the other inherent challenge in auto racing is we know that people who love racing get that and they get a lot of everything in between.

But they don't, the more we can show a casual fan something that like you got to be really, you're the best driver in the world to be able to do that. That right there. To win three in a row, four in a row. that people go I may not even be a you know a big huge auto racing fan but I respect that I like that they that's and that's what we're after we're trying to pull that person in to take a look well this spend some time watching but we're doing that and this is what happens that I had to challenge my team all the time because we can get in a real vacuum in Daytona we can be in Daytona, and we think, you know, we are the number one auto racing by a lot in this country

and not think through as much that there is a lot. The other leagues, they are doing these things. They are making their products safer, better. They are taking it to more people. They are making their stadiums bigger, their fan experience better. See, that's all happening. around you. So you don't really have, once you make that decision that we're going to be a major franchise sport in this country, in this country, once you make that deal, be careful what you ask for because it requires you to do a lot of things that, you know, if you're the NHRA or many other series, they're not going to have to worry about some of those things, making some of those decisions, those risks, those expansions, or what, they don't have to do that.

And that's what makes NASCAR great. It also makes it difficult to manage, right, to get everything right, because there's a lot on the line. Can I just add two things on all this to Dale's points about the playoff system? I don't think anybody's ever thought that it was a perfected science. Certainly, and that's not in racing. That's in every sport, which I don't think that this is too dissimilar from other sports. You can easily have a wildcard NFL team catch momentum and get hot at that time and sail all the way to the Super Bowl, whereas the undefeated regular season team gets beat in a divisional playoff or something like that.

That's all still possible and likely. The other thing I wanted to ask you, going back to his point before, that about the expansion of the field. Is it not true that the expansion from 10 to 12 and then therefore was because it increased the chance of getting your stars into the playoffs, to which Dale was one of them? Sure. I mean, I remember the year, it might have been the 2005 or six. Jeff Gordon and Dale Jr. were both at risk of not making the field.

And if I remember it correctly, the field expanded right after that. that? Because I don't think either one have made it. Well, we don't do it for one driver, of course. But the idea that you say to not leave somebody out in a given year, sure. But here's what breaks the tie internally at NASCAR, is how do we stack up with other playoff formats and other league? Do we have too many, is it 50% of the field of the teams in the NFL go to the playoffs? Is it 40? Is it 40? We're right in a good spot. We're right where everybody else is.

We're not overloaded where the whole field goes in and, you know, that kind of thing. We're in a good place. So that allowed us to expand it. But sure, those just, look, everything you're thinking that happens if you're trying to grow the pie, well, why would they do that? You bet we're going to put that on the table. It still has to pass the litmus test of being equitable and reasonable and reasonable and fair. and balance in traditions. But we're taking all of that stuff and putting that on the table.

And that's what gives me the optimism about what's happening now, even though there may be some bumps in the road with NASCAR. They think that way. They're thinking all the time about how do we get this right for everyone. and starting with the product on the track, and I think they've done a really good job with the new car. I know there's always some things they're trying to improve, but compared to how on my watch,

they've done an incredible job through COVID and all the things gives me a lot of optimism that, you know, the sports in, you know, my uncle's doing a great job, and Steve Phelps, they're all doing a really good job. So that was something I wanted to touch on. How old were you when you became a CEO? Oh, man, I was in my 40s. That would have been 2003.

Yeah. And so how was it decided that you would be the CEO and not Jim in that situation? You know, and that you were, how was it decided that, you know, it just seemed like to me in that moment it made the most sense that Jim would be, would run it after your dad, that you would eventually be in that position. It almost seems like it went backwards, whereas now Jim runs it, you know. Yeah. And he is, you know, his, Jim's great. He's amazing. He's still sharp, mentally focused, tons, he's amazing.

Right. But his, you know, his prime as an operator were in the years while you were at the him. And it just seems like to me, and personally, between us, it went backwards. Now, you know, I guess there's probably, you don't have much of a thought to that. But I was just kind of surprised at that. Well, I do. Jim actually is in his prime now. Yeah.

For me watching Jim, he's in his prime now. That's my ages aside and all that stuff. I think he cares more, is focused more than I've ever seen him. So that's number one. And yeah, you know, I don't exactly remember. I know Jim had also had a big focus, you know, on ISC at the time. And there's probably a thought that that might just detract as a publicly traded company. but he's in his prime now, which is good news.

Yeah, I mean, he's plugged in, no doubt. He is. You know, and I, that, you know, how, you know, in talking to Helton and other people about, you know, having you come on the show, Mike's always been really complimentary of you, you know, over the years. I love Mike, trust everything the man tells me. Whatever he says goes. And, you know, we would, I would have conversations. or questions to him about you, and he would say there's a lot of great things that he does that

people don't know about. And there's a lot of things happening in the sport that are, that are, that Brian's fingers are on that he won't get credit for. But I guess, you know, what is your current communication? I hear that, you know, that you and the family are as tight as ever, people want to know. Yeah. You know, like where, how much conversation do you all have about the sport? What's your interest in it these days? Well, I don't have a formal role with NASCAR at all. And so I'm, but I'm helping anybody, I'm helping when I can.

And my relationship, I always say everybody ought to have an uncle like Uncle Jim. He's just been, you know, one of the great people in my life, truthfully. And my sister, she's doing a really. good job. I have a good relationship with her. Ben, I think he has the best temperament of any of the family members to come through. I really do. I think he has, you know, he's got the driver experience and that's going to be helpful. But his temperament of how he goes about what he does and how he thinks about things is so much better than where I was. In what way? Well, he's more measured.

He's more calm. He doesn't get up or down. He's got way more humility than me. But in any 10 people, I know. And I would ask stories about when he would travel with some of our guys. No, he doesn't want to do that. He just wants to be with everybody. He's not doing it that way.

He's doing it with everybody else. and if you just go about that and he cares and he really is into it so that's for me my life has worked out perfectly because I get to watch him help him when I can

and I'm getting the fun part of being a fan and it was a tremendous privilege that I had just to be in our family to have the opportunities that I had. I did a lot with those opportunities. I brought everybody along. Everybody went on to work with me to do really cool stuff and really good things out in sports and business. That's cool for me to see. We had a lot of success. We made mistakes, of course. And at the end of the day, it's not even about me. because whoever after Jim will be somebody else,

you know, whoever that will be. And we're all just, you know, so fortunate to have an institution like NASCAR. We're just making sure we do our part. And that's what was always instilled on me. And I'm sure Ben, I know he feels that way. Jim certainly does. Lisa does. And that's how we, that's how our family looks at owning that.

NASCAR. Yeah. Do you think, looking at the notes about, you know, all the TV deals that you had of part in negotiating, there's a new negotiation coming right around the corner. Yeah. You know, do you feel, do you feel like that your knowledge and your success in those deals in the past will be, you know, that you'll be privy to the conversations and the influence and have some, you know, have some influence on the approach to the new negotiations that will be going on?

Because I would imagine, like, you know, even though you don't have a formal role, knowing everything that you know about the sport, you know enough that I would want you at the, you know, if I was gym, I'd want you in the room or I'd want you understanding, consulting at least. Consulting, yeah, one way or another, about how to get us in the best position possible. Well, nobody has a bigger supporter. than Jim does with me. He knows that. And I'll give him my view.

He'll ask me and I'll give it to him. But they also have to have a management team that operates under his leadership with him. And whether it's, I'm the former CEO. And I have to give, everybody has to understand, that they've got their roles and that mine is to be to help when I can. And we didn't even have to talk about that as a family.

We just, we're professionally run and you just can't have it. Whereas we're let's bring Brian back for this part of it or what. It just can't work that way. And so I got to support them when I can. And not just them, but other people in the industry. and if they do something that I thought was crazy or something, I tell them. We talk about, you know, the highs and lows and the temperament. And, you know, I never, we don't know each other that well.

I never really saw your highs and I never saw your lows. I never saw your angers or frustration. You would hear things about you being angry about this or frustrated with that. Yeah. How did you, you know, how were you with that in truth about, you know, there was a moment in 2012 post-race Talladega. Dale caught a bloodthirsty. I got out of the car and said the sport was bloodthirsty. We had a big crash on the last lap, and I said something.

The rumor gets back to me that that personally pissed you off. And so I guess, you know, not the answer to that, but like were there moments when you had a hard time not taking something personally. You know, if Hamlin Denny complains about the product on the track, you know, and gets a fine behind, you know, under the table penalty or something, you know, we all would just assume, okay, well, that must have made Brian mad and he decided to make a decision on his own to penalize this driver, right? Where there are moments when you had a hard time not letting it get personal because

Because there was some volatile, you know, there was some moments that were volatile. There was a lot of, you know, in 08, 2009, 2010, drivers started talking more. We all started complaining more louder, more publicly. Social media became a thing. Fans. Right. Fans are now chiming into those conversations. You know, you could see the fan and the driver steer the fan, the fan steer the driver.

All this stuff became a bigger challenge for you, you know. Yeah. Well, look, the answer is, of course. I got pissed. Yeah, sure I did. And it was personal. It's my profession. It's what we do.

And it affects it. So it affects other people. So, you know, I had some reaction to that, that kind of thing. I used to say, now, you know, I always put the restaurant analogy out there. Did you can't own a restaurant and go out on the site? walk and say, hey, food's terrible inside. But we'd love to have you. Love to have you. It doesn't work that way. It's got a point. But I also, but I also realize that, you know, drivers have other issues. You know, they're not going to be quiet about safety. That's, that's for sure. They're not going to be

quiet if they think there's a performance thing that they're getting the short end on. And so there could be a fine line about, well, they're not really calling my food terrible. Well, that time they did. So then I'm going to get pissed. But a lot of times, you know, people will try to calm me. Well, I think that was right out of an accident, you know. And Mike was good about that. Mike would be the calming factor in a lot of that stuff.

That's what I heard about that particular incident at Talladega was that when I said that to the broadcast, you got really pissed off and we're like, I don't, you know, I want to send a message to Dale not to say that again. And Mike said, maybe we don't do it this time because I think Mike was privy to some injuries that I had suffered in the crash or whatever. But, well, hold on. Do you remember this? Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So when Dale called the sport bloodthirsty after the Talladega crash, do you remember your specific reaction to that and when it was? Well, it wasn't just him. I mean, we had a bunch of people getting out. screaming and yelling and never going back to Talladega, you know, all of that stuff. And we own Talladega.

So we're like, hold on a minute. And they're telling me, never to go back, not even to come back and try our restaurant. They want us to walk by and close the doors. So, no, look, it just goes to the territory, too. And if you're me, all I'm trying to do is get people to think and do what I need you to do. That's all I'm trying, as the CEO of the company, I'm just trying to get individuals to say the right thing at the right time. And that's not going to happen in a big organization like NASCAR. And by the way, it shouldn't because people, you know, it doesn't work that way.

But generally speaking, I just want, if you're going to complain about it, try to do it in a way that doesn't burn the house down. and sometimes that that wouldn't always get done right and so I'm going to have a reaction to that can I ask how long it would it take and let's just keep using that as an example because it's fun for me to to use Dell as an example here but how long would it take you to typically get over or get past that or did you get past it well some people I didn't uh and yeah no I didn't look those personalities and people didn't like me uh for different reasons didn't we didn't we didn't jive or you know you and I don't didn't really talk that much.

I always had a lot of respect for you, but we didn't, you know, you had a better relationship with Mike, which was great. With some of the other drivers, you know, we just didn't agree on things. And, you know, and then it gets, it can get personal. Sure. I'm not trying to make it personal, because all I want you to do is to get you to a place to help us grow the thing. That's all I want you to do.

And I want you to make a lot of money. I want you to have a great experience. I want you to have all, if you're talented, I want to see you go up to the moon. As a matter of fact, with most drivers, I would have been the other way around. I would have been pushing them to show more emotion. Okay. We're talking about, you know, criticizing the sport or something like that. That's one thing.

But most of the time, I'm on a campaign to bring out Jimmy Johnson's personality or bring out whatever it is to, because all I'm trying to do is grow the sport to more people at further distances. So however you can help me do that, you know, I'm just trying to get you to do that. That's all I'm trying to do. Yeah.

Every day. You mentioned mistakes. Would you say that the car of tomorrow was one of those? Or when you talk about mistakes that were made, what are some of the things that you think you could have? could have done better or would like to have seen done differently? The way we did the car of tomorrow was a mistake. The reason we did it was the right reason.

It was right off of all of the, including your tragic tragedy with your dad, but it came off of all that. So that's why we primarily did it. And it was to be innovative in a safety, good, smart way. But we didn't get the collaboration with the teams that they did the last time, the last number of gen whatever cars are up to now. Yeah. And we were a little cavalier about that.

We did a really good job getting safety collaborations, whether it's a Hans device, safer barriers, crush zones in cars, lots of inputs. We had the first safety summit in Indianapolis at the time. And a lot of great things could tend. The R&D Center was born from that. all great things that continue to today. But in those process of doing that, we could have gotten more collaboration on that, and we paid a price for that.

Yeah. What do you think the price was? I mean, you're talking attendance, TV ratings, all those things? Well, that one was, hey, the cars don't look good. Yeah, yeah. So my restaurant doesn't even look good. Forget the food. I'm going to walk in and I don't even going to like my seat.

So I don't like what they've done. the cars can't keep driven so the racing's going to be bad and you had a number of people saying that. So that's a bad headwin for any sport. And going back to what I always say,

I'm just trying to get you to not say that. I'm trying to you to say something else because that's not going to help us do what we need to do. And so, but that's the tricky part of of the role, and Jim has got that now, or whoever has, whoever is sitting that seed,

has that coming at them as they're going along. Then when you go back and say that y'all got that wrong or maybe whatever. I got that. That was more me. You have to put that one on me. Then what part did you get wrong specifically? Was it the fact that the drivers weren't on board or was there some truth to what they were saying about the car?

No, my job would have been to lead the team at the R&D center to make sure that the drivers have the right amount, and the team owners and everybody else has, you know, that's why driver councils and many other things were born out of that. Do they have the right inputs? Because we were still going off of my dad, who was more of a, you know, we're going this way, right? Yeah. And so we're changing into a different error. I'm now at the helm.

We're coming off big safety challenges that we, a lot of people didn't think we could overcome. at the time. And we're doing all those things. And now we're going to put the most important thing forward, which is the car. Well, you know, you better get a lot of inputs on that. Even though your direction, I always say we've got to be directionally right. That's number one. And we were directionally right. But in this case, it required more inputs. We didn't get them. And that's on me. That's not on a group of people. If you had had, you know, a handful drivers in the room, they feel like they got involved in the development of this car, so they're going to go out and they won't shit all over it because they actually were part of the process.

Yeah. You know, and I agree with that in a sense, like, trying to, you know, anytime you're kind of going to try a new thing, a redesign of a racetrack, or come up with the, you know, the format for an all-star race, you should include the, you. drivers, maybe one of the most opinionated drivers, and allow him some influence so when he can walk out on that media stage and tell everybody that he likes it. And then no one else, no other driver is going to step up to the podium and go, this is bull's shit, because none of them are going to say that to that driver's face or in that, you know, the drivers

won't go at each other in the media about, you know, their opinions of the race car, their opinions of the format. Once you get one driver on your side, you almost have all. You almost have all of them in a sense. And I feel like you're right about that in terms of like if you'd have had, you know, I think if you had more collaboration on the COT, it would have probably looked physically different, but also the drivers and everybody would have felt like, you know, even if it did end poorly, they would have had some involvement and responsibility with that and might not been so vocal about it negatively, was you think?

I do. But again, the, what, what. These are the risk things that you do. We didn't have to do a new car at the time. We weren't in a... Now, safety would have told you that you probably need to do that. But we didn't have to reinvent it the way we fully did it. Yeah.

But that's all part of taking risk, and we're not going to get everything just perfect. And it's also a fragmented industry. And, you know, it was then and it is now. you still have a lot of independent stakeholders. And so getting the right amount of them at the right time, not too much where it slows the process down, but enough to get buy-in, you know, that's not as easy as it looks. Yeah.

None of it is as easy as it looks. Yeah. So we had Jeremy Mayfield on the show earlier this year, and your name came up a lot in that conversation. Yeah. You know, and I guess was that one of the moments that got real personal? We talk about things getting personal. And that drug on and on and on, and that was kind of a problem for NASCAR,

a problem for you that wouldn't go away easily. You know, when you look back on that, Jeremy feels like that it was personal, that it was a one-on-one battle between you and him. he views it as nothing, you know, nothing more than that, that it was orchestrated in a sense. You know, is that something that even crosses your mind today? No. Yeah. I got, I, I, back then and now, I got a lot of things going on my life, and being in a personal duel with Jeremy Mayfield was never one of them.

no that that you know I hope he's doing well but no that was never personal can I ask then with that in mind can I go back just for a second not to go back to Jeremy Mayfield but I do want to ask you about the drug policy implementation of that time because Dale even said during that that interview with Jeremy was that there was anxiety with all the drivers because of the lack of knowing what the banned substances were or anything like that. So my question to you is should NASCAR have been more transparent and at least communicated with the drivers better during that time? Remove Mayfield from in his situation. But I'm just talking about all the drivers and how that whole policy was implemented. No, I think they were appropriate. I think we, you know,

you got people's medical privacy. So that goes on. in that. So, number one. Number two, we were transparent. And it's an evolving, you know, a category of challenges for any sports league. You know, what's performance enhancing,

what's, you know, going to do something on the track that, you know, changes your reaction times, all those things. We were doing best, as we always did, we were doing best practices with with terrific experts in the field.

And it evolved from that, as all policies have in every other sports league. We were consistent with most of the other leagues, and yeah, you can go to the Mayfield thing or whatever, and I know that wasn't your point. But no, I think we got pretty good outcomes and have had very little a problem with that, truthfully,

and I think it's worked out fine. The issue at Richmond in 2013 with the playoffs, everybody points to you as basically being the guy saying, we're going to put Jeff Gordon in the field, in the playoff field. Everybody, you know, they had the,

there was a big mix-up, a couple things going on there. You know, Clint Boyer spins, out brings out a yellow. You got Ty Norris on the radio. Vickers is pitting. All this eventually gets Truex into a wildcard spot. There was a lot of penalties that came from that.

But there was another thing going on at one point in the race where front road motor sports driver Gillen gave a spot to Lugano allows him to get in, knock, scored now, right? And through y'all's investigation of all of this, you decide you're going to plug Gordon back into and make it a 13-man playoff. Yeah. Was that like a group committee decision? Like this is the best thing going forward is we need to add Jeff?

Or was that like something you could make that decision on your own? All decisions like that would be in a group forum. Obviously, I had to be the one that carries the room, if you will. But that was a tough one because we had an unprecedented. thing that occurred with a new format where I think it was Michael Waltrip's team and we're gaming the system. And so we had to send a huge message that that cannot occur. That's our credibility and that's, you know, that's a red flag.

And at the same time, there was a remedy which we ended up doing to put Gordon into his rightful place if that didn't happen because we demonstrated it clearly did. And we had the opportunity to make that right. We knew it would be controversial, but doing the next right thing, sometimes it's just doing the next right thing and then you take the rest of the fallout from that

if you can. Sometimes you want to do the next right thing, but circumstances do not allow you to, we could plug him into the third. and wouldn't have put anyone else out, but it would have put him in. We thought that was the right thing. If anything, you could have just replaced TrueX with Jeff.

Had you ever considered that? Well, that would have gotten even more controversial, you know. So I think we did the least amount of damage to try to reinstate them. So a lot of things that people probably don't realize, there's a lot of, I mean, I'm certain that Michael Walshap Racing is ringing the phone every hour trying to complete their case. You got also, you know, big giant corporations like Napa and, you know, all these other sponsorships that are given the opportunity, you know, pleading their case as well about

how this is unaffected. Yeah, but you've got to remember, once we know you've crossed a line like that, you're not pleading, you're pleading your case for the least penalty. Yeah. You're not pleading your case for anything. because we don't want to hear from you. If you go that far, it's about how hard we're going to hit back

because that can't happen. In hindsight, though, do you wish that had gone differently? Not in terms of how the race unfolded, but how you guys responded? In other words, do you wish you had the Jeff Gordon adding him to the playoffs? Do you wish you would have done that differently? Well, I mean, no.

I mean, I think we did, we're always going to look rank the options. And I'm not saying that we make every selection perfect once, but there's a lot of deliberation. Well, what if we did that? Is that, you know, I always go, well, what's the right thing to do?

Can we do the right thing? Sometimes you can't make things right by doing the next right thing. Sometimes you can. All of it is controversial. It's controversial. Why are we even in this position? Right. And by the way, we're making the nightly,

news with Brian Williams and we're, it's like, you know, is NASCAR, the World Wrestling Federation? Is this going to happen every week? Right. Can we rely on anything? When you get into that ballgame, it's, it's lights out for any league, cannot survive those, too many of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going to come down pretty aggressively, and we did. And we made it right. I think those are important words to hear considering what we went through in the Roval this, you know, a couple weeks, couple of races ago with Cole Custer and them. They came, you know, they, it was, it's a similar sort of manipulation, if you will, and to understand like that, you know, they came down really hard on coal. You know, they didn't alter what benefit it was to Briscoe, which I feel like is the right decision. but this is a good Brian makes a good point as to like man you can't have many of those instances

happen so you have to try to dam up the creek to stop it from happening again you know send the message send a very strong message to teams in the future because like you say you know you risk a lot of credibility issues if you have that occurring all the time that's right

and so it reminds me of I think it was a what was that football team SMU. They got the big penalty. The death penalty? Yes.

Yeah, back in the 80s? Yes. Yeah. So there was a 30 for 30 or something. I watched about that and it really reminded me because it was very similar sort of result in terms of Michael Walter Braising, you know, and how it kind of, you know, failed that team going forward. Yeah.

They didn't recover. They didn't recover. They didn't recover. I mean, listen, this is actually a good point. Richmond is a good example of a conversation that we just had recently, and that is every week it seems like NASCAR gets scrutinized over the severity of reaction, right? Whether it's a penalty or whether it's a response to a driver or whatever it is. And most recently we had Martinsville. We had Ty Gibbs, you know, sending his teammate into a wall.

And then we, on the last lap, and dictating the outcome, not just of a race, but of a championship. Now, that's not NASCAR's place to govern. That almost feels like Joe Gibbs. But then you've also got Ross Chastine, whirling that thing around on the wall. And now we're like, everybody's sort of looking to NASCAR, like, okay, what are you going to do? What are they going to do? You're going to make a rule?

We're going to make a rule for Phoenix, but go make a rule. And every week, there's a reason to scrutinize or wait for a reaction. And so I don't know. Where is that even unfair or fair to the governing body to have. to be involved at every little nitpicky thing of every week. Well, we've been doing this a long time. So Jim, Mike, all those guys, they know where the lines are. And they'll step in when they need to.

It'll be severe if you're going to alter the outcomes of events. That's going to be severe no matter who's in charge. And the rest of it, you know, it's a little bit of auto racing. There's a lot of things that happen and the mechanical and things like riding around the wall like that. No one's ever seen that before. But I don't, I think that was, there's anything to regulate there. I think you applaud that and move on. Is it fair to say that for you, the credibility of your sport was always a determining factor in how you responded personally?

Oh, no doubt about it. And you take that personal, you know, it's, that's, you know, if you're the command, and chief of something that that's like the safety of the of the country you know right and so you're going to take that real real that's in the culture around 2014 LA Times reports that that you're not at the racetrack on the race weekends did you think that you know that was a fair assessment did you feel like that you needed to be at the racetrack what was I have never understood that whole thing in my life. That was a big conversation for a while.

You know, and I don't know how many games any commissioner makes or doesn't make, or I have no idea. I've never heard that complaint until me, but it was always interesting, as if I wasn't engaged. And anybody that was working for us would tell you, if you ever sat in one of our planning meetings or meetings, who was engaged. there would be a there wouldn't be any confusion there but I never understood that you know but so be it Mike Mike I asked Mike one time and this wasn't that long ago but he said that you know even though you might not be physically standing here in the garage that you were more involved than ever and people would be really taken a you know people would be really surprised and and appreciate how plugged in you were

and how aware you were of everything that was happening in the sport. And I think a lot of people, you know, would see your dad was, you know, maybe this isn't entirely true, but it felt like, you know, your dad was always in the garage, always up in the hall, or always somewhere where you could physically reach him, you know, and everybody has a different style of how they do things and manage. And now you're, I'm not my dad, you're not your dad. But you didn't feel like that your interest in physically being there changed at all throughout your time as CEO?

I was never going to be that guy that was there on a Friday and staying all the way through and visible. It wasn't about me. I never looked at that. It wasn't about me. It was about are we doing the things that we need to do as a sport? And if I need to be there seven days a week at the track, sure, if that's what I needed to do for us to be successful, I would have done it. But that isn't what we needed. I know I got a lot of criticism for that.

Yeah. You know, look, everybody's got to balance their personal life and what they're doing. They've got a person. The responsibilities changed in my deal. But look, that's just stuff that, you know, it's going to get some criticism. And, you know, I let our performance, what we got accomplished. I kind of smile about that now, looking back at it now, like, wow, I don't, I judge all the commissioners to myself. I'll look at who I think is doing a really good job.

I never ask. I think games that guy go to. I mean, I just don't even understand. Well, don't you think, though, there might have been, I mean, listen, In 2007 through 2009, the sport sort of started hitting some situations that I think were mostly contributed to the fact that we had a recession. We had an economic recession, right? So now you have teams that are, you know, starting to struggle.

And just basically our foundation that we took for granted for all that time is starting to, you know, have a little bit of crackage, right? And so when that happens, doesn't, you know, people start looking for, Who to blame? Sure, sure. That's part of it. And I was willing to, you know, look, you got to take criticism. If it wasn't going to be that for me, you know, well, he's not, well, he doesn't do that

well, or he's not engaged in this part of the business. To me, I was, you're always going to get that when things go poorly, even when things go well, you know, well, he didn't look after me, you know. He didn't get that right and get me right. So you just got to know, and Jim's getting that now. Almost all of it's unfair. But you'd expect a guy like me to say it's unfair. I would.

Yeah, you would. And it goes, but that goes, I don't really care about any of that. All I want to do when it's me running it is get us to a place, to a better place. So I don't really get too focused on that. Other people do. I just, you know, privileged to be in the spot, trying to hire the best people we can to make an impact on our sport, to manage the complexities that are happening, empower those people, which that's how I managed. And by the way, Mike Helton, who does go to every event, or most of them, and he loves that, he's really good at it. You know, you don't need four Mike Houtons walking around.

Mike Helton's Mike Hilton. And Mike and I, and people don't realize this, they've done it. I used to tell people in our company all the time who weren't getting along, and they were banging in each other and the normal stuff that people have when their careers are going on this. I said, hey, you don't have to have a lot in common with somebody you're working with. I said, take Mike. Mike lives on a farm

I would never live on a farm Mike wears cowboy boots I don't wear cowboy boots Mike goes hunting I don't go hunting Mike and I are really close I have a huge amount of respect for Mike Elton

we have very little in common in those kind of things right and so I always would tell people in words can you be successful by yourself do you need that person

okay can you be and they'd say well No, no, good. Then we're going to work together. We're going to get this. That's how I did things. I manage things that way. I almost think you are damned if you do, damned if you don't in that case.

Because really, again, when the foundation starts to have cracks, you can be accused for just as much the opposite. Oh, Brian just wants to be in front of the camera. You know, he's trying to be a Vince McMahon or he's trying to do this. You're trying to that. Like, you can be damned either way you go do that. And you're just saying, you know, you tried not to let that affect you. Here's a good news. It wasn't about me.

Yeah. It wasn't about me anyway. I know what you're trying to say. I feel like that had every time that Mike, every time I've talked to Mike about, you know, you talk about Mike being great at it, Mike being, you know, able to go to the track and engage and be the guy. I feel like that I want, I can't speak for everybody, but I wanted you to succeed, you know. I don't care who's in charge.

I want it to work and I want it to succeed. And so I wanted that to, and I wanted people to have the opinion of you that you deserved. We've talked about all the things that you've been involved in and how you help move us forward in a lot of different ways. And Mike would share that with me over time. And I just feel like that had I seen you more. standing with Mike in that garage during those times when the floor underneath us was uneven, I would have really liked to have seen that. I would have put a smile on my face to have just physically seen more of you.

I hear you. And, you know, I'm balancing a lot of things at the time. But I get it. Yeah. Makes sense. So race team alliance. Yeah. You know, that's kind of come on and been this big thing.

it's put the teams in a position to have a little bit of leverage how much we're about to find out you know what's your opinion of the teams being organized in a way what's your what's your feeling you know because that I think that that you know you had you'd said things in the past about the the owners being very important yeah you know you'd always valued the teams and the owners in a unique way and understood their value to you and to NASCAR. But I go back and forth with the race team alliance in terms of where I feel like that their lane is, right?

And do you, do you, you know, that also is going to lead us to talk about the charter system and how that's developed and what that's brought to the sport. but race team alliance. I know that you weren't and your dad were never a great fan of the drivers unionizing, the drivers organizing, the drivers organizing in any way. You do like driver councils to be able to have everybody come in the room and talk about safety and how to move competition forward and so forth. The race team alliance to me is sort of a blend of the two.

Well, look, we've always, I've always, and I know. Jim, show, want the drivers and the teams and all the stakeholders to have a very good

big voice at the table. Because that's why we're doing this. We're doing this to grow things for everyone. And the question

is, is there a better way to do things that they have those discussions? And whether you need to do that through the RTA

or individually, or a small group, a big group. It doesn't really, to me, it never really mattered. We need to, if there's a better way to do something, we need to take a good look at that and try to accomplish it together. If you just want to come in and take, you know, a bigger piece of a slice out of that guy's deal

or that guy's deal, and that gets, you know, anybody can do that. There's not much creativity there. Anybody can do that. you don't that doesn't help anyone but what does help everyone is to get all the voices at the table and I think they're at the table yeah so you think that the race team alliance will always serve a positive purpose going forward I mean do you think that there'll ever be a time to where the the disagreements could become pretty personal I mean just you know

I worry about that yeah just you know just Recently, the race team alliance went a little public about some of the discussions and conversations. I hope not. I think there's always going to be a little pushing and shoving in and around TV negotiations, in and around different periods where you're up against the wall a little bit with the economics of – we're in a long you know we look at things out over 10 year horizons and

longer so it's not uncommon every league has you know those voices that come out and say we should do this or that or you know I don't want to put labels on any of it because it doesn't really matter it's just

it it's we've had a good formula that's worked it's the best one in auto racing. And that's the other thing is that people will want to pull other leagues into, well, it should be more like football or more like this. If we could be football, we would be, we're not football. And we're not set up that way.

We don't have public, we don't have cities building stadiums for our teams to race around. We don't have that luxury in that. So the whole model is different. We're more of the golf model, if you will. And it just has to, but the amount of discussion going back and forth, it's generally unhelpful when you do that publicly. I think it's unhelpful. I know that led by Jim,

Jim is an open-minded guy. He will look at a better way to do things, a better way to take care of everyone or move things around. He will look at that. I ask this question as an independent observer like we all are and is a fan of the sport, but also I'd love to just know your perspective on this TV deal. So we can just say you're not in the negotiations.

You're not, you know. No. I'm not. As an independent. observer, though, like we all are, what do you think we should suspect or expect out of the next TV deal? There's going to be something that surprises us or something that's different. Where do you think that could be? Well, I mean, I came to the family four or five years ago and we went through this that was streaming and different platforms that were being created and

that didn't exist. And it was going to, the whole distribution of an inefficient cable model, that exists is going away to a more efficient streaming model and many other things and that was going to that looked like it was going to have a C change and it is. And so

how all that plays out and can you take advantage of those things? Can our sport take advantage of that? I hope so. I'm not in the negotiations so I'm not privy to anything. But

But it is true that there's an enormous amount of change. And the one thing I do tell people in the industry all the time is, you know, while you're doing whatever you're doing, other people around you who are competing for the same amount of rights, we don't tend to think of it that. We just think, well, we're going with our TV rights. Well, guess what? The Big 12 just sold their rights two days ago. The Big Ten just, you know, college football has had a big resurgence, and that good for them. Because we want everybody to do well because we have common partners. And so, but, you know, that changes, you know, commitments that networks make.

They have to make commitments on one sport or another at different levels. The NFL just went through their pricing. The NBA comes a year after we do. They're right behind us. We're sandwiched in there. and some of these guys are doing really well, and that's good. But it does change how we're going to fit in, and we'll have to see how it goes. And I think to Dale's point is that I would assume RTA and the race teams and the owners

are probably just trying to figure out where they're going to get as much as they can get, right? If there's going to be so much change, they're going to try to fight for everything they can. Sure. But they're not the only one's fighting for that. NASCAR's fighting for them. Sure. They are absolutely fighting for them because they're, you know, they have a set percentage of everything that comes in. So they have a reason to be at the table interested, as they were when I was there. There's a lot of interest of, well, what do you think is going to happen? You know, what network are we going to be on? How is that going to be? And so that's not uncommon for that to occur. You just hope that's more private than the, is public.

How you feel about charters? The charter system. So I'm an interested in Xfinity team owner having good success here. I'm considering moving my team up. And for three decades, all I had to do was go buy some equipment. And I could become a cup owner and own a cup team. But now with the way the model changed and how the non-charter teams are paid, it's really not economical to go cup racing unless you have a charter and a charter now is millions of dollars.

I absolutely understand the purpose of them and had I been smart enough several years to go to buy a few, I'd be very happy right now. But it's also made it a difficult barrier of entry for somebody like me that wants to get in. So a little bit of a tough challenge. I don't know, maybe NASCAR doesn't look at that as a tough challenge at all. Maybe it looks as working as design. No, it actually, it was a concern when we started, when we formed the charters, and it was a watchout thing. On one hand, you want to build equity with teams that were already here that didn't have anything to sell but their equipment when they were ready to make a change. And you also wanted to align your interest to give them a bigger seat at the table of influence of what you were. we were trying to get done.

And so those two things, you can debate, did we accomplish those two things correctly, probably partially, are some of them maybe even, even though it's only been a few years, almost outdated a little bit and need to be reformed and refined? Sure, I'm sure that those conversations are taking place now. But I hear your point too. It's a bear an entry for a guy like you. Yeah. Stage racing.

I think that that, you know, I really didn't want to get too deep into that conversation, but it is something new and it's very, very highly debated in the sport. And evolving. I know that there's conversations in the industry now about altering how stages are run. Even in road courses, there's been some debate about not actually having a caution

and just sort of having a lap where everybody gains a certain amount of points but continuing the race. So stage racing, you know, it came along in 2017 right toward the end of your involvement or your position in CEO. It's added a nice component in terms of a bit of a, you know, getting points as the race is happening. It affects that affects fantasy, betting all types of things going. forward in a good way but it's also you know very criticized part of our sport much like the playoffs were when they first came yeah well again I you can hear the same answer for me all we're trying to do is get people to perform at a higher level more intensity during the events more things to watch more things to pay attention to to to draw in the

an audience, do that in an authentic way, of course. And then that stage racing is one way to do that because there were lulls. You know, there's lots of discussion. Are the races too long? Or sporting events too long? You hear that a lot. All sporting events. And how do you make it more exciting between and all of that stuff?

Less timeouts, more of this, more of that. Yeah. So August 5th, 2018. August 50th. Okay. Yeah. It was a tough day. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was. What the hell? Yeah. So, you know, when you, you know, there's a lot of, there's been very little conversation and discussion about this, you know, and what you went through and how difficult that was for you.

Yeah. You know, what was going on in your life that put you in that position? What was happening? What was going on that led to that scenario happening and that playing out the way it did? No, look, nothing good in that regard. Obviously made a mistake on that night or that afternoon, that evening, made a mistake. Can't happen. A mistake like that.

Did happen. It's on me. got that part you know that's just something you can't do and so it happened and life moves on so life moves on

but you know you're there are massive you know you've it's a massive issue for you something bad has happened for you it's happening out it's happening in a very public way yeah

what were you most disappointed in, I suppose, you know, that you had to step away from this role? Was it was, were you kind of like, hey, man, you know, months later, maybe that was a blessing in disguise for me to be removed from this position for me to move on to a new chapter in my life. I needed a change. I wasn't going down a great road. What was, what was? Yeah. Well, look, it turns out, you know, I've got a lot of gratitude in my life because things have really worked out. for me. That obviously was a dark moment. But caused me to look at some things that I was doing

in my life. It could have been done a lot better in my health, number one. It allowed me to leave NASCAR. I think we did that in a really good way with the family that that was a right decision to make on both sides that we needed, I needed to do something different, be more of a supporter. I'd had a 15-year run as the CEO. That's a long time. I don't like a messy ending like that. No one likes that, at least the which is me. But I have to tell you, I couldn't be any happier with what I'm doing now and being able to look back on what we did accomplish. And as I always say, it wasn't about me anyway in terms of, you know, people always say, it's been my legacy and all this other stuff.

I don't really look at it that way. We weren't trained to look at it that way as a family business. But oddly, you know, you learn how to get through some adversity. and that was tough. By the way, that was a tough time in my life. There's no doubt about that. And tough on my family, tough on Jim and Lisa, in that position.

And but, you know, if you do the next right thing, try to be the best version of yourself, which I always, you know, we always, you know, We always talked about at NASCAR. Yeah, you overcome things like that. And right now, I don't think there could be anything better. I've got a cool life. I get to work with only the people I want to work with,

only on the projects I want to work on. We use our own private capital. I get to support NASCAR, which I love, my family, which I love. I get to support them in ways that work for them and work for me. I had a long, long, good run at NASCAR. I don't look at as entitled while I'm in, I'm out, I'm entitled, I'm not, it wasn't about that for me. So I was able to, absent the messy ending, and absent some other decisions that you're going to make in a long run that you'd like to have back, I've had a pretty cool life. Was there a moment, I mean, was there time during the next couple of months where there was sadness about losing that position, though?

Sure, it's your identity. You know, it's like stepping out of the car, but under messy your terms. What was the first thing you did to turn your life around? Well, I had a pretty good life. So I have a great wife. I have great kids. I've got a lot of interest that were always outside of NASCAR, which we always pursued. I got to accelerate those.

So, you know, I worked at some things on my health that I needed to work on. I continued to do that. That's cool for me because it's a different part of, you know, my life's gotten a lot bigger from August 5th, And I had a pretty big life before. It's a lot bigger now. It's more, I'm more doing more things because no matter how great the NASCAR role was, and it was great, there's a whole bunch of obligatory things that we talked about some today. That, you know, over time, you know, crowd other things out that you want to do in your life. And that's all been removed.

and that's cool for me. And I got my health, I got my family. I've got, you know, I'm able to invest and work with a lot of young people in businesses that we buy, that we start and buy. And I'm having fun. I'm getting to be due, because that's the one thing at the end of the last four or five years at NASCAR became one challenge after another. And the teaching, the working, getting in there, you know, this afternoon, I'm going to go back. And we've got three companies we're trying to do, turn to, and we're going to be buried in that for, you know, the better part of today. That's cool for me because we're on the ground floor.

We're doing things. We control it all, too. We're not taking any capital from anybody else. We do our thing. And in an institution like NASCAR, there's a whole lot of things that are out. of your control that you may want to be working on, but you can't because you've got to be dealing with something that's, you know, a media issue or something right in front of you. I don't have to do any of that.

That's for other people. And that's for Ben Kennedy. Have their moment to do that. That's the way it should be. Kind of as messy as it ended, it's actually the way it should be because now I get. That change was inevitable. just at some point you sure it was going to happen i was going to do it myself but it would have you know it's hard to make that change though when you're uh it's it's and part of it's it's it's one of

the greatest jobs uh in sports uh and uh i didn't take that lightly you do take it for granted a little bit over time because you're just kind of doing what you're doing but but i never take it lightly that I, but I always knew, and I got really good advice a long time ago, hey, this is not about you anyway. This is not, this all this stuff you're reading about, that's, you got to do, and my dad was good about this, you got to perform, do your part, help other people be successful, then we'll be successful, grow the pie for everybody, and then, you know, they'll be just result. They'll either be results or there won't be. And by the way if there aren't results you're not going to be here very long regardless of your last thing so i had all

that stuff going for you know i i hear you when you're talking about it's not about you but i i think the one thing that probably is being is missed is that there were i can't speak for everybody but there were a few of us and i think two of us are here at the table is that we were concerned on a personal level and that is about you because if you care for other human beings especially people that have been driving your boat, so to speak. We were concerned. I guess I was curious, was our concern valid? And it sounds to me like you're saying there was validity to it. And it makes me wonder how destructive do you feel like you were being at that time? I'm not going to rank that question. Look, would have liked to have been healthier and better in some areas?

is, but, you know, on the scale of things, you know, I had more bumps than I did, you know, hard knocks, but nonetheless, they're bumps, you go through them in life, you know, it's part of life. You got to, there are just things that come at you and, you know, get them right all the time. And so, you know, you smooth them out. I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a tough one for you can go back and forth. I can say, you know, that was terribly bad in that regard, but you know what? Things are what they are. And I feel great about, you know, getting past that stuff. And it wasn't just my health or, you know, or the DBI or that kind of thing. It wasn't just that. There were a lot of things that were, that I'm trying to balance.

in my life at the time, and I've been able to do that better and more effectively now. You look great. Well, thanks. I mean, yeah, you really do. I mean, I feel like, because we don't get to see you a whole lot, right? I hope you're not seeing me a whole lot. Jesus Christ. I know, but like there have been a couple years so, like the last time we saw you, it was like,

oh my gosh. I mean, I think, again, for people that care about your well-being, we want to know that you're doing well and to see you right now and to also hear you. And also talking about all the cool stuff you got going on, it is refreshing because it sounds like things are good. That's why I want to come on. Look, I, you know, I've been on a few things, but I don't do a lot of media stuff. And there's not really a need for me to do. I get asked from time to time.

But I'm in a support role. It's fun to do. I appreciate the thoughts about, you know, all of that, my personal stuff. But, yeah, your personal stuff, your personal stuff. And, you know, I'm happy how I've overcome a few things. They're not always easy. And getting all this stuff right, life gets a little messy. Yeah.

Yeah, it does. So what if you were presented with an opportunity to work in the industry again in a role? Is there any potential in the future that you would ever get back in the business? No, I have been, but no. So you've been offered some opportunity. Well, I've looked at some things that not seriously. No, once you've done what I've done, there's not really a good role for you. But the other thing is, you know, I'm truly having fun watching Ben Kennedy.

Okay. do what he's doing. And I'll give them some, we'll have lunch here and there. But he's doing his thing. And you've got to let people also, too much of me coming around. I do. I go down to Dayton every, I'll go to the 500. But I'll go down and visit people during the week or something.

And usually in January, I'll do that just to see if I can help anyone or whatever else. but I also realize that once you leave the CEO position, you don't hover around. You need to let people do their thing. That could be problematic for sure. It could be. What is the business? What is this, what is the name of your? Well, what we do is, we do three things.

We do private equity, usually with people we know. We'll buy into companies with groups of people we know. Or we'll launch our own companies. Might be you can get a great chicken sandwich up there at Summerbird. So Summerbird is a new restaurant. Yeah. And we're hoping to take that, you know, a number of stores. That was born from scratch.

You drew that up and created it. We did. We did that. We did that. and it's built to scale, built to go. We'll have locations going up as we go along. We've got a online pet company called Wagwell. What does that do? Well, we're going to sell all kinds of pet products and be innovative.

So it's in different industries. And so we'll do that. We'll do institutional investing in the traditional stuff. So we're doing all that stuff inside of my family office inside of Silver Falcon. and works out. Silver Falcon is the name of the business. Silver Falcon Capital is the name of what we do, and it houses, you know, anywhere, 350 people or something like that.

Really? So, yeah, you know. So wait a minute. So when you're, you know, so when you move on from NASCAR, how long did you, how long before you developed this idea and want to be part of this? Oh, I had some of it going. Already going. But that was a cool thing. We will, our family is entrepreneurial.

It was always encouraged, you know. So this is something, you know, everything's, and we've all had been around for a while. Yeah, I just got to really done. I just accelerated and got some capital freed up and got my attention more importantly to where I could put on it. And we just, we just slowly but surely, I'm working only with people I want to work with, which is really cool. and I'm doing only what I want to do. For me, you know this from your driving days. That, the mode of obligations that you have to do,

and it's not a criticism of the job. It's just the reality. I'm out from under all of that. That's, you know, I've got young kids that are still 16 to, well, going to be 12. next week, my two twins. And so I've got, you know, I've got time to spend with them, which that was always under pressure and got a great wife.

You know, life's good for me. What is parenting Brian France look like? I mean, I'm just trying to imagine this. Like, because you do. You've got young twins, right? In fact, when you have kids, you have them in pairs, right? Isn't that what you're? Yeah, I do.

Two pairs of. Yeah, two pairs. That's right. So, okay, so are you cooking pancakes in the morning? What are you doing? My wife says, Miami says, well, you know, she's the disciplined person in the family. She thinks I'm not tough enough on them. I'm a cream pump with him. I think I'm tough.

I think I'm really tough with them. She's probably right. She's probably right, though. She is right. It's follow through. You're following through. You're follow through. And she's good.

We all get the same thing. But, you know, I, you know. I'm with my kids a lot. I love it. I'm going to take, here's one for you. I'm taking my 16-year-old to an Elton John Conn in Phoenix and to the Grand Canyon. Now,

you think I'm working at NASCAR? That's not happening. No. Okay? That's not going to happen. That's cool for me. I'm able to go to people's weddings and different things. And that,

so I'm, you know, that's all, my kids are still young enough. where, you know, I can make that kind of impact with them and do fun stuff. And I go to a lot of football game. I just went to the Tennessee Alabama game. I'm a huge sporting fan.

You guys know that. So I'm taking my kids, some of my kids, a couple of my boys to that. I'm doing different things. And it's having a lot of fun. Yeah. So it's a good balance for me. Well, man, it's good to hear. And I was excited to have you come.

today because we're all curious. You intentionally hide in the shadows or don't make yourself visible. And we're just curious as we could be about what you've been up to and what's going on in your life. Thanks for coming on here and, you know, letting us go through this timeline of events and everything and get your take on all the things that happened under your watch. And also being, you know, being transparent about your your issues that led to you being removed from the sport.

Thanks for being willing to come here and talk about it. We had debated about whether you would be. I think it shows a lot of character to come here and be willing to share with us. We appreciate that. I talked to a few people in the industry about having you on, wanted to you know and our opinion

and their opinion as well was that you had been a part of a lot of great things that happened in this sport you were a part of a lot of things that we openly criticized as drivers

you know as media members or as owners or what have you but there were a lot of things like Mike told me like he was in the room and very hands on with several amazing things that happened in our sport

and we wanted to give you an opportunity to be celebrated, but appreciate you being honest, too, at the same time. Well, that's great. Look, it was fun. It was the longest interview I've ever done. Is it? Absolutely. It was fun.

We get a plaque or something for that? You know, you get a nice thank you card for me. He comes back. No, I was great. Thank you guys. Okay. Yeah, I appreciate it, Brian. Okay.

Brian, France, on the Dale Jr. Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people.

They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of True Ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support, of the show and the entire dirty moe media team. That's the Bride France interview, man. That was pretty interesting. I enjoyed it, Mike. And honestly, he was pretty transparent on some things. Obviously, he didn't get into details

that I would have liked to have heard about some of the things he went through, particularly, you know, the experience with losing his job as CEO of NASCAR. But I didn't think this conversation would ever happen. So honestly, I thought he did a good job. And, and I don't know, man. I feel like that as I listened to him talk, I was kind of reminded that I mean, everything he did didn't fail.

No, right. Right. It's not this massive, just string of failures. There were some big, big things that just didn't work out. The Carl Tomorrow, he admitted it. Mistake. Obviously, the DUI and massive mistake, right,

put us in all in a bad situation. He's regretful. But I mean, there were some good things, you know, the negotiations with TV partners and so forth. And he played a role in a couple, he played a role in a lot of scenarios that I don't think we realize, you know, where he mattered, right? Right. And there were things that some people will define as a mistake, and he clearly doesn't have regrets on them. Like, I thought he would kind of walk back and go, I wish I hadn't put Jeff Gordon in the playoff. all sat, you know, in hindsight.

I did, nope. He thinks he did the right thing on that. And I thought that was interesting. Yeah, there were a couple things we didn't agree on. And, you know, he, him admitting that he took some of the things personal was a, was an interesting moment. Yeah, it was.

Yeah, I mean, him to be able to admit that, yeah, I took it personal, I would, you know, I'd get angry with certain individuals and, and he just said over and over about the, you know, the restaurant analogy was pretty He goes back to that a good bit. And so I would say this. I think that there's going to be people that may come out of that a little unfulfilled because of whatever expectations they had for us to do that. But let me just say this.

There was no way you and I were going to let one topic hijack the entire episode. There was so much to cover for Brian France that there's no way. Like, could we have spent more time in one area? Sure, but then what gives, right? something's got to give. So, you know, I think that, you know, some people may wish we were done it. We hope that maybe this isn't the last time we talked to Brian France. Maybe we can expand on that. But I was glad to have him at the table. It was good to see him. He looked good. Like, you know, the last times we had seen him, it wasn't so good. But he looked good, and he's

taken care of himself. So I hope that's not the last time, and I've really appreciated the time with him. Well, looking back on this year, it's been pretty exciting. Some of my favorite guests, I'd have to say the Randy Lanier episode was one of my favorites, being able to talk to him after watching his story on Netflix and so forth. Jeremy Mayfield, that episode was highly controversial, a lot of conversation around that one. And it was pretty impressive. The list of people that we had come in here.

Denny was great when he was on the show. Boris said was a lot of fun. Being able to talk to Jeff Bodine and get his feedback on some of the things that Dad and him went through was amazing. Kathy Watkins, my aunt, shared a couple unique perspectives on Ralph Earnhardt and dad. You know, the more human side of how they were as fathers and brothers and so forth. So it's been a great year. Can't wait until next year.

A lot of growth at Dirty Mo Media. Door Bumper Clear had an incredible, you know, very volatile season. We've got some plans about some new projects that I'm excited about. I wish we could be talking about them and telling you what's going on. But we've got some really cool things in the work here, works here at Dirty Mo Media. And 2023 is going to be a fun one. So till then, I mean, we'll talk to you all in and off throughout the off season. I hope you guys have a great week.

Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Until we talk again. on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.