Bill France Jr Died (NASCAR)

[RubHer Yellow Ducky]

Former NASCAR chief Bill France Jr. dies

By Ed Hinton, Special to The Times
12:58 PM PDT, June 4, 2007

Bill France Jr., who steered NASCAR for 31 years through its strongest growth era, died Monday in Daytona Beach, Fla. He was 74.

France took over as NASCAR president from his father, founder "Big Bill" France, in 1972. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1999, but the cancer was in remission when he handed control of NASCAR to his son, Brian Z. France, in 2003.

When France Jr. took control, NASCAR was still a struggling sanctioning body whose races were televised only occasionally and in part, mainly on ABC's "Wide World of Sports."

By the time France had relinquished the helm to his son, NASCAR had long-term contracts with major networks so that all races in its top three divisions -- Nextel Cup, Busch Series and Craftsman Trucks -- were televised. NASCAR had risen to the second-highest TV ratings in sports, behind only the National Football League.

France Jr. began his reign with drivers mainly from the Carolinas, Virginia and Alabama. He ended it with the majority of drivers hailing from the West Coast, Midwest and Northeast.

He was diagnosed with cancer in late 1999, but never revealed the nature and location of the disease. Rumors arose but were never substantiated that a diagnosis of lung cancer was being concealed because of NASCAR's longtime sponsorship agreement with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and its Winston cigarette brand. A longtime smoker, France quit on doctors' orders in 1997 after suffering a mild heart attack in Japan.

"Big Bill" France founded NASCAR in 1947 and ruled with an iron fist until he handed authority to his elder son. Skeptics doubted that "Billy," as he was known in 1972, could be as tough and wily as his visionary father. Time and again he proved up to the task, though never with the relish and passion his father had shown.

"Big Bill" faded from public view in the 1980s after he developed Alzheimer's disease. He died in 1992, leaving his son as the monarch of NASCAR. The France family owns NASCAR outright.

France Jr. didn't mind reference to his and his father's autocratic reigns as dictatorship -- "just call it a benign dictatorship," he once said. But toward the end of his rule, he often repeated the mantra of his mature years, that "NASCAR is bigger than any one person."

That applied to drivers too, he believed, and would occasionally remind individual troublemakers privately but sternly that NASCAR could go on just fine without them.

In 2000, he named a non-family member, Mike Helton, president of NASCAR. But few insiders doubted that France, as chairman, had final say in all major matters.

France Jr. became president the same year that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. began its lucrative sponsorship of NASCAR's top series. With an enormous cigarette advertising industry just banned from television by federal law, RJR brought its Madison Avenue marketing savvy to a sport that was barely out of the backwaters.

RJR found some NASCAR tracks in financial trouble and disrepair, with poor attendance, and began to infuse money to improve facilities and promote ticket sales. Together, RJR and France Jr. decided to expand NASCAR from a mainly Southeastern sport into a national one.

"To expand nationally, we had to make sure our name drivers would compete" at far-flung tracks, France once recalled.

So they developed the Winston Cup season championship, with a point system that essentially forced star drivers to compete in every race in order to win the title. The Winston Cup became the overriding goal for all drivers -- more than individual wins -- and remains so.

"When RJR started putting up a lot of bonus money, and we went to New York for the [annual] banquet, the points became important, and all the drivers were in every race," France said.

Under his leadership, the France family's track-owning arm, International Speedway Corp., grew from a two-speedway company (Daytona International Speedway and Talladega, Ala., Superspeedway) in 1972 into a 12-track conglomerate that now holds 19 of the 36 Nextel Cup races.

At the time of his death, France still served as chairman of the board of ISC, and vice chairman of NASCAR.

Never showing the flamboyance or the visionary knack for change of either his father or his son, the second czar of NASCAR was known more as a low-key figure in public and a tough businessman in private.

Richard Petty, NASCAR's all-time winningest driver with 200 victories and seven season championships, once differentiated between "Big Bill," the visionary founder, and "Bill Jr.," the methodical businessman who moved cautiously.

[K9sH3]

Yeah that sucks, what a great man for FL, Daytona and Nascar.

RIP

[KenP]

He single-handidly brought NASCAR to National and International attention.

RIP