Hall Of Fame Profile: Bill France Jr., Part 4 Of 5

Sprint Cup

Hall Of Fame Profile: Bill France Jr., Part 4 Of 5

The 1979 agreement with CBS to broadcast the Daytona 500 live from start to finish was one the major moves of Bill France, Jr's NASCAR presidency...

Mike Hembree | Posted April 22, 2010 Charlotte, NC

The agreement Bill France, Jr. made with CBS in 1979 to broadcast the Daytona 500 live from start to finish was the first time a 500-mile NASCAR race had been covered by television from green to checkered flag. (Photo: France Family)

The NASCAR Hall of Fame will induct the five members of its inaugural class May 23. Leading up to the hall’s induction ceremony, SPEEDtv.com is profiling the first five racing legends chosen for this unique honor.

In 1979, Bill France Jr. made one of the major moves of his NASCAR presidency, signing an agreement with CBS for the network to broadcast the Daytona 500 live from start to finish, marking the first time a 500-mile NASCAR race had been covered by television from green to checkered flag.

Previously, networks had been reluctant to devote the excessive amounts of airtime necessary to broadcast a complete race, showing bits and pieces here and there – often on tape-delay – and sometimes joining races in progress to show the conclusions.

It was somewhat of a gamble for all concerned. CBS wasn’t sure how its rating numbers would hold up for a long Sunday afternoon of racing, and France couldn’t be sure how a live television broadcast would impact attendance at his sport’s biggest race.

As matters developed, no one could have been happier.

Much of the East Coast was pounded by a snowstorm that weekend, significantly increasing the number of people who were available for television viewing on the afternoon of the 500. What they saw was nothing short of remarkable, and it became a large chunk of NASCAR history.

On the last lap, in the next-to-last turn, leaders Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed, leaving the lead to Richard Petty, who won the 500 for the sixth time. While Petty was celebrating his great fortune, Yarborough engaged in a brief scuffle with Donnie Allison and Allison’s brother, Bobby, who had stopped in the third-turn area to check on Donnie. The tussle wasn’t long or particularly violent, but CBS sent it across the nation, and suddenly people who had only a marginal interest in NASCAR wanted to know more.

Donnie Allison and Yarborough were fined by NASCAR, and the controversy was lead news in the sports world for days. It was great publicity for NASCAR.

France continued to talk to the networks (he was known to negotiate contracts at a Daytona Beach Steak ’n Shake restaurant, a favorite haunt), and, in 1981, NASCAR entered a mutually beneficial relationship with a young 24-hour all-sports network named ESPN. NASCAR needed television, and ESPN, looking for events to fill its schedules, needed NASCAR.

A powerful partnership was born, and ESPN elevated the sport by providing consistent, professional coverage at the same spot on the TV landscape.

France arranged to move NASCAR’s end-of-season Cup awards banquet, mostly an afterthought in Daytona Beach, to New York City in 1981, pushing the sport into a more prominent place in the nation’s media capital. It was the sort of step his father probably would have been reluctant to make, but France was looking at the bigger picture.

He expanded NASCAR’s reach to new parts of the country by adding new tracks to the schedule. Nothing in that realm made more news that the announcement that the Cup series would race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, motorsports’ most important venue, beginning in 1994.

France’s father had long seen himself as being in a battle of sorts with the IMS hierarchy. His decision to build the huge track in Daytona Beach in 1959 was in part inspired by his thirst to “out-Indy” Indy.
His drive also was fueled by the fact that he was once escorted out of the IMS garage.

The racing world had changed dramatically by the 1990s, however, and marrying NASCAR and Indianapolis was a no-brainer for both sides. While not typically a great artistic success – Indy’s flat track is not made for the big stock cars, NASCAR’s annual visit to IMS is one of the highlights of every season and a major financial boon for both parties.

Although France Jr. was not known to dwell on successes – he was much more concerned with whatever was next on his to-do list, insiders say the arrival at Indy was one of his proudest moments.

Chances are France Jr. had studied the potential pros and cons of the Indy move in the early-morning hours. He was known as an early riser and typically beat most of the rest of his crew to the NASCAR offices in Daytona Beach.

“Before the rest of us would even think about being in gear, he was wide open,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said. “That gave him the opportunity to think about things. He got a head start. I would sit there sometimes early in the morning talking to him, and you understood how he would digest everything that was going through his head and think about why things are and what they could be. Then, from the list of what could be, he would go to what’s realistic, then to how do you get to that point. He was very organized and methodical about those things. He knew more about more things than any person I’ve ever known.”

Although France Sr. by necessity handled a lot of NASCAR’s business on his own, France Jr. progressively depended on a bigger and wider net of executives. Still, though, the final decision often was made behind his desk.

“When it came to the specific topics that were relative to NASCAR, I think what he did was sort them through his head first,” Helton said. “He might reject or discount something that he didn’t think would make any sense. The ones that had a chance – then he would get other people involved in it. He was always reminding us not to go along with him, to be candid about what we thought about things. If collectively we ended up thinking it was a good idea, we’d figure out how to get there.

“If he was committed to doing something, he’d figure out how to get there. If he wanted to grow the awareness of the sport either by exposure or whatever element would make that happen, he’d figure out how to go about it. It might take a while or you might have to build layers to get to it, but he was very methodical about it and kept that big picture out there to where all the stairways led to it. Most all the time, things would work. Every now and then we’d get off on something that didn’t work. And that was OK. ‘Let’s go on,’ he’d say.
‘Don’t sit around and brood about it.’ ”

Helton said France was not intimidated by big decisions.

“He was a student of the issues,” Helton said. “He had relationships with business leaders that he would use to help him make decisions. He would pick their brains for information relative to what he needed to decide without being really clear on what he was asking. He was a master of pulling the information from areas that he might not have felt like he was as confident in to gain that confidence and then make the decisions as correctly as he could.”

FRIDAY: A Battle For Life

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

The NASCAR Hall of Fame Grand Opening is set for May 11, 2010. Outdoor Opening Ceremonies are May 11th from 9 to 10 am ET free of charge, open to the public. Outdoor festivities including driver appearances and concerts May 11th from 10 am until 8 pm ET open to the public, free of charge. Tickets to enter the NASCAR Hall of Fame are on sale now at www.NASCARHall.com or by calling 877-231-2010. The countdown to the NASCAR Hall of Fame is on! Visit www.NASCARHall.com/50days for daily updates about the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR

CUP: Johnson Destroys Another Format
For a record fourth time, Jimmie Johnson rolls home first in Sprint…
CUP: Busches Falter In Final Shootout
Kyle, Kurt Busch lose top spots on pit road prior to 10-lap finale……
CUP: McMurray, Stenhouse Advance To All-Star
Jamie McMurray dominates Showdown to move into All-Star field with…