Business is good, France says in annual address (cont'd)

The international aspects of NASCAR's future business are a potential gold mine -- if there's interest in it. After all, there won't be many RVs making the trip to China, but they can go to Montreal and Mexico City.

"We'll be careful of how we proceed, but we'll be looking at building our international platform with our event now coming up next month in Montreal, and of course having competed with the Busch Series south of the border in Mexico City," France said. "Both of those events, one we've already run a couple of years, but we're very optimistic about the Busch event. There's lots of interest in Canada. We knew there was a big fan base that was already there. Now taking a live event to that historic road course, we're all excited, lots of interest, and we'll see how that goes."

As for the Busch Series sponsor, France reported that the deal was in the works but some weeks off.

One of the biggest items that France addressed was a pair of lawsuits the sanctioning body is involved in, one with AT&T and the other with Kentucky Speedway. While not strictly business, the outcome could affect the way NASCAR does business, so it counts.

There wasn't much France could or would say about the AT&T case; it's in the courts and the wheels of justice grind slowly. The anti-trust implications of the Kentucky suit, however, are major.

"...That would have a very big impact on the entire industry," he said. "[It] is going down the road of the court system, as well. That will get concluded sometime early next year, if what our legal counsel tells us happens, in terms of staying on schedule. We're very adamant about our position. We look forward to defending ourselves at the appropriate time."

France sees the Kentucky case as a watershed for the industry, not just NASCAR.

"Well, we're just defending the whole industry's rights," France said. "We created an industry that a lot of people eat out of, that we're all proud of, that people are reliant on and count on how NASCAR does business.

"They would like to rewrite all that and benefit themselves. That's wrong. That's wrong to think that. We're going to hold up our end of the bargain and defend ourselves and defend everybody's right to manage the industry the way we have for the last, you know, 50 years, which has an undeniable success story anywhere you look. So that's what we're going to do and that's what we got to do."

Any time you can get the CEO to sit down and go over, point by point and topic by topic, the news of the day and how it affects the business of the sport, it's a good thing. France has made this "State of the Sport" trip since he took over as CEO in 2003, and it serves as a barometer for the next year or so.