France: Safety, performance are NASCAR hallmarks

"Everybody gets an opportunity on equal footing to compete, and that's a very hard task for us because we have 43 teams, three manufacturers and a lot of smart people trying to game any rules package that we put forward," France said. "To get an advantage, that's what they do. That's what they should do.

"When we're able to boil through all that and make sure that everybody is on equal footing, that's when we win, and if we do that in a safe way, then we really win."

NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett called Sunday's Daytona 500 "the most competitive Daytona 500 I have ever watched" on NBC Sports Network's "NASCAR America," and a new track-best 12,677 green flag passes prove he's right.

"Those are our goals, and it's not always easy to achieve. But you saw that on display at Daytona for the 500 and you'll see that going forward. That is what our guys live for," France said.

"What's often lost is everybody that works in NASCAR, they're bigger race fans than anybody else. They want to see what everybody wants to see: a fair shot, a great, super-competitive race. Everybody has an opportunity.

"The best teams and the best drivers (compete) at the end, and it always comes down to that. It always gets back to the best teams figure it out and have the most success, and that's exciting for us, too."

France addressed the caution flag that ended the Great American Race with a multi-car wreck on the backstretch at the World Center of Racing.

"We obviously err on the side of safety," France said of the yellow flag that ended the race after the field received the white flag on the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. "That's of course what we're going to do. In this case, (NASCAR officials) believed that they couldn't clear it off, and it was just too dramatic.

"We would have loved to finish it perfectly under green, but that wasn't the case. I don't think it really would have changed anything in this case. Joey (Logano) had broken out and established himself. It would have been very difficult to overcome him under any situation."

The 24-year-old Logano became the second youngest driver to win the Daytona 500 behind only Trevor Bayne, who triumphed in 2011 at age 20. France noted how Logano will be a force in the sport for years to come.

"Joey is a guy that everybody is going to have to reckon with for a long time," France said. "He's very young and very talented. We've got a lot of those guys coming so that's good for the sport."

France also addressed Kyle Busch's crash in Saturday's XFINITY Series race and Daytona International Speedway President Joie Chitwood III's pledge to ring the track with SAFER barriers.

"Joie Chitwood said it best that, 'hey, look, that's unacceptable,'" France said of not having a SAFER barrier on the frontstretch where Busch crashed. "We're going to own that and move forward. That's how we're wired. That's a cornerstone of what we do. Safety and performance are the hallmarks of NASCAR."

He added, "If we don't get safety right, then nothing else really matters."

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