ISC CEO and NASCAR Vice Chair LESA FRANCE KENNEDY was profiled on CBS’ “Sunday Morning," and she talked about her son racing in NASCAR and the legacy of her grandfather, NASCAR Founder BILL FRANCE SR. France Kennedy said of her grandfather, “He just had this amazing vision. He said, ‘If we can just put some organization around this it can really be something.’” She said her grandfather "taught me sometimes you have to go with your gut and sometimes you have to take on a little risk.” CBS’ Michelle Miller noted France Kennedy’s father, BILL FRANCE JR., “took stock car racing international and helped his dad build Daytona Speedway, and now she’s rebuilding it.” Miller noted ISC is spending $400M on the Daytona Rising project to help a track that lost "thousands of fans ... during the recession years, and she hopes to change NASCAR’s white, Southern male image and bring in more African-Americans, Hispanics and women to stock car racing.” She said, “Our grandstands need to look like America, and I find that the way people become fans the quickest is if they connect with a driver. When you look out at the sea of people and you take a look at all the T-shirts, you’ll know they’re connected with their driver.” Kennedy said of her son, BEN KENNEDY, possibly winning as a driver in the Camping World Truck Series, “You could not script it any better than that. That would really carry it into the next generation” (“Sunday Morning,” CBS, 5/10).
