In creating the modern era, France saw beyond himself

He had relinquished his role as president, forged on as cancer invaded his body, and was eight months away from bequeathing ultimate power in NASCAR to his son. But the influence Bill France Jr. wielded in the sport his father founded became plainly evident on one winter day in 2003. He asked for a microphone, and a very politically correct announcement on schedule realignment suddenly veered off the script.

He sat not on stage with the rest of the circuit's brass, but in the first row of spectator seats. He watched as his son, Brian, who soon would take the mantle as the sport's chief executive, awkwardly attempted to explain NASCAR's plans for expansion into larger markets. By then the cancer and the treatment for it had taken its toll on Bill Jr., who stood slightly hunched, with only wisps of hair on his head. But his voice, and the opinions it carried, were loud and strong. And when he spoke, everyone listened.

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These were not times to be vague. Bill Jr. did what his son wouldn't, naming names -- Darlington, Rockingham, Atlanta, even Charlotte. They were all, in parlance that would soon become common in the sport, "on notice." They had to start selling more tickets or worry about losing their races. Using the sometimes startling frankness that helped define him, he needed only a few minutes and a few words to convey what so many slide shows and video presentations could not.

Bill France Jr., who died Monday at age 74, was never one for ambiguity. The man who will be remembered Thursday at Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Fla., brought NASCAR into the modern era by grabbing it by the collar and forcibly dragging it out of a past defined by dirt tracks and small towns. Every driver who sleeps each weekend night in a Prevost motor coach and flies home in a Learjet owes France a debt of gratitude. More than driving skill, more than trips to Victory Lane, it was the former series chairman who made them rich.

And he did it by somehow reconciling his blunt, often uncompromising personal nature with his vision for the sport. France was a tough man born of a tough father, chairman at a time when the sport was populated by burly, grease-stained competitors who still settled scores with their fists. He could be jarringly candid, as he was in one of his final public appearances, when he told reporters inquiring about his health that he was still "sucking air." This was his world. He ruled over it with unquestioned authority. And he changed it. (Continued)