NASCAR Chair & CEO Brian France "seems stimulated by the prospect" of finding the balance between being "celebrated and chided," according to Brant James of USA TODAY. France "has more ideas" to modernize and change the sport. James: "Some will be popular. Some will not." France said, "It’s understandable, because we are making structural changes in the sport. And I get that that is unsettling even for people who think I can do no wrong, those 10 people out there that think that." James notes with more initiatives coming, including what "would be a major shift in the series’ business model with a possible new chartering system for ownership," France "doesn’t seem like he is going or wants to go anywhere." France: "I’m having more fun than I’ve had in a long time, even though it’s hard. But we’re making a lot of progress on things, and I’m able to get a lot of things through a complicated business industry. And that’s rewarding." France recently discussed a proposal "designed to create material equity" for ownership and "standardize the cost of participation." He believes the proposal would "drive greater competition among current and potential new teams." For a sport "raised from a regional passion to a major league on the labor of drivers and owners under the independent contractor relationship, such a change would be seismic." France, NASCAR COO Brent Dewar and incoming Chip Ganassi Racing co-Owner Rob Kauffman said that it "could be in place" for '16. Meanwhile, NASCAR stakeholders "seem pleased" with France's tenure "in a macro sense, even if they have at times disagreed with the micro." Team Owner Rick Hendrick said, "He can see things that the rest of us don’t see, and he has a vision to change things for the better." James writes if France "helps develop a new ownership structure, it would be the next big grab for a chairman whose tenure has been full of them, popular initially, eventually or never" (USA TODAY, 12/3).
