SPEED BUMP: NASCAR chief Brian France shakes up a tradition-bound sport, hoping to reverse a slowdown.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Cover story

Glasses clink as tuxedoed Brian France grips a banquet lectern. Parked to the right of the CEO of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a car with the number 78, but otherwise, this December gathering at the Wynn Las Vegas resort hotel could be any of the city's 20,000 annual conventions and shows--except for this one's backstory.

In 15 seasons, Martin Truex Jr. won occasionally but always finished just short of superstardom. In 2017, the remissive cancer of Sherry Pollex, whom he describes as his life partner, returned. His team owner suffered a heart attack, and a crew member died unexpectedly. Still, Truex, 37, won eight races.

Tonight, his doggedness will be rewarded. Brian France will crown him champion of NASCAR, the pinnacle of stock-car racing. The driver stands waiting in the wings.

France pivots from the lectern, strides sharply toward Truex and brusquely thrusts the championship ring at him, bolting offstage without a handshake or congratulations. The startled driver arches his eyebrows, flashes a quizzical grin and lifts his hands in a puzzled, palms-up gesture. He glances over his shoulder at where France exited.

"I've been in a hurry the whole damned year, haven't I?" he quips.

Racing is a $6.2 billion segment of North Carolina's annual economy. Most can be traced directly or indirectly to Charlotte Motor Speedway and surrounding towns and counties where more than 20,000 men and women work for nearly 30 race teams and hundreds of supporting spinoffs. Some call it NASCAR Valley, and three out of four motorsports employees in the nation work here.

"When the racing environment is healthy, that makes the general economy healthy," says David Miller, executive director of Concord-based North Carolina Motorsports Association. Members include race teams and suppliers but also universities, tourism bureaus and banks, underscoring racing's reach.

Now, seven decades after stock cars first circled a red-clay track near today's Charlotte airport, the uneasy future of that business rests largely in the hands of family-owned NASCAR's third-generation scion.

Brian Zachary France, 55, is an enigmatic figure who's steering stock-car racing full throttle away from its deep Southern roots. Supporters say that's the solution to NASCAR's malaise. Critics say it's the cause. France might be better known in New York City, where he lives part time in an Upper East Side apartment, than in Charlotte, Daytona or Darlington.

He has ditched his grandfather's greasy coveralls --mechanic and racer William "Big Bill" France Sr. founded NASCAR in 1948--for custom-tailored suits, frequently skips races and sometimes draws disapproval for being more attuned to Wall Street and Hollywood than pit road and the grandstands.

Nevertheless, he has been named one of the nation's top five sports executives by prominent trade journals. North Carolina has a huge stake in Brian France. Some credit him with keeping NASCAR's demographically gray hair and blue collar above the rising waters of generational change. Richard Petty, probably racing's most renowned figure, praises his bottom line.

"Young people today have a lot of choices for entertainment, and how they view that with phones and computers," he told Business North Carolina. "We're looking to stay on top of that, and maybe we're ahead of other folks in that part."

Others praise France for bringing 21st-century credentials to a hidebound 20th-century sport that's struggling for its share of limited disposable income, particularly among its prime blue-collar audience with an average household income of $70,000. To attract interest, NASCAR has ardently recruited and groomed diverse young guns, some still in their teens, as marketing bait for a more diverse crowd. It was unclear why France cold-shouldered Truex at the banquet, but the veteran driver is not part of the NASCAR youth movement.

"There's a sense of teamwork and collaboration between drivers, teams, promoters and NASCAR we didn't have 20 or 30 years ago," says Marcus Smith, CEO of Charlotte Motor Speedway and corporate parent Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns eight tracks nationwide. "Brian deserves a lot of credit for that."

Young or old, France faces a race for fans. In the last decade, tracks nationwide such as his family's Daytona International Speedway shrunk capacity by about one-fourth to conceal vacant grandstands. Daytona, one of the 13 tracks of the France family's publicly traded International Speedway Corp., removed 45,000 seats as part of a $400 million renovation in 2016 that improved sightlines and added restrooms, concession stands and luxury suites.

February's Daytona 500, which NASCAR calls the "Super Bowl of stock-car racing," had a Nielsen rating of 5.3, the lowest since coverage began in 1979. The race's 9.3 million viewers compared with the National Football League Super Bowl's 103.3 million. Ratings for subsequent 2018 races were down by as much as a third from 2017.

France also is confronting the loss of corporate sponsors such as telecommunications giant Sprint and Mooresville-based Lowe's Cos. They're not only abandoning teams--after 17 years, Lowe's booted superstar Jimmie Johnson in March--but the racing circuit itself. Other corporations that have dropped out include retailer Target and Lowe's prime competitor, Atlanta-based The Home Depot Corp. Lowe's ended its $35 million naming rights deal with Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2010.

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