DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France believes the sanctioning body was right to hold the line on rule changes to its new racecar.
In a question-and-answer session with reporters Friday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway, France asserted that the quality of racing in 2008 has validated NASCAR’s stance in the face of concerns expressed by competitors in the Sprint Cup Series.
“I know that there’s been a lot of debate about, ‘We should do this’ or, ‘We should do that’ to make the car more raceable,” France said. “And various drivers have voiced their concerns over the many weeks and events (read more), but I’m comfortable to tell you today that the decision that we made, which was not to move the goalposts around and not to move the rules around and let [teams] catch up to the car, is really paying off. …
“Every week, more and more teams get comfortable, are running up front that were struggling earlier. There’ll be still a few that haven’t quite figured it out, but we’re very confident that the teams are going to figure this car out, and the racing action — which is the most important thing that we do — is going to continue to be terrific, is going to continue to be safe and, of course, competitive.”
France acknowledged that the sluggish economy has presented challenges to the sport, from the cost of attending races to the current financial difficulties of American auto manufacturers.
“As I’ve said to many of you in the past, we’re not immune to a difficult economy,” France said. “We’re certainly not immune to high energy costs, and that’s why the tracks and ourselves are working very hard to ensure that our fans get as much value as they can in coming to our events, because we know the hardship. We know how much it costs to fill the tank up, to stay in the hotel rooms and all the things that go on in getting to a NASCAR race.”
France also asserted that NASCAR would continue to defend itself against the $225 million race and gender discrimination lawsuit filed last month by former Nationwide Series official Mauricia Grant (read more). On Thursday night, ESPN began airing an interview in which Grant discussed the details of her complaint.
France said NASCAR has been conducting a vigorous investigation of the facts in the case through in-depth conversations with “25 or 30 people.”
“Naturally, we would like to not have to be dealing with it,” France said. “There’s a lot of other things that we need to deal with, but we will [deal with it]. It’s a lawsuit, as I’ve said, and lawsuits take on a life of their own, and it’s going through the court system as we speak.
“My own experience with lawsuits over many years is [that], by the time the facts ultimately catch up to the actual lawsuit, they’re usually a whole lot different than the claims that are made on the front end when you’re after a lot of money. We’ll have to see what happens through the court system. … We’ll be defending ourselves very vigorously, and we’ll just have to see.”
France also indicated the sanctioning body is nearing completion of its examination of its drug-testing policy, which allows NASCAR to test at any time for cause.
“We have a long-standing policy that we think works well,” he said. “You can have any policy you want, but if the punishments aren’t tough — that’s the ultimate deterrent. If you look at lifetime suspensions, which we have several out there today, if you look at what happens on a first infraction, in our sport it’s very severe. It probably means your career will be over. Certainly, a second infraction probably will end a career. A third will get you a lifetime suspension.”
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