NASCAR executive addresses drivers’ council timing, overseas races
RELATED: NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France addresses drivers’ council
NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell returned to America on Monday from a visit to a NASCAR Whelen Euro Series race in England, and he returned to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday to tackle hot topics, including the state of the 2016 rules package, the scheduling of drivers’ council meetings and where in the world NASCAR wants to race.
O’Donnell addressed the goal of creating better racing with the 2016 package by referencing how NASCAR races every weekend with stars like Martin Truex Jr., and his popular win for Furniture Row Racing are like the NBA Finals between LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors.
“It’s a big front-burner,” O’Donnell said of work on the 2016 rules. “A lot of conversations going on, not only from the driver council, but also with the teams, so you’ll see us do some things here and ratchet up those conversations in the next 30 days. It’s important though to really look at what we’re all striving for.
“We talked about Martin Truex Jr. …. These guys are the best in the world so it’s tough to continue to make it better. That’s what we want to do. You’ve got, in our case, LeBron and Steph Curry are out on the race track every single race.
“So how do you continue to make that better? How do you continue to allow for more passing? That’s the goal. Everybody understands that. The good news is that the entire industry is aligned for what makes the best racing and how do we get there. So I think you’ll see some good things continue to develop in terms of what you see on the race track.”
As NASCAR discusses the state of the sport with the best racers in the world, O’Donnell praised the initial get-together at Dover last month and looked ahead to future sessions.
“The drivers’ council, the first one, I thought was terrific,” O’Donnell said. “Again, we’re not always going to agree, but you get some really good input. And you can decipher where you want to go and how that will affect certain teams.
“We’ll probably have a pretty good cadence going forward. Obviously we talk to the drivers, owners or whomever every weekend, but kind of the more formal ones I’d say we’d look at more on a quarterly basis and see how that works because it is new, but I think that’s the plan right now.”
The sanctioning body heads to Michigan International Speedway, the closest track to the auto manufacturers, and O’Donnell talked about the importance of racing in the region for all three companies supporting cars in NASCAR’s national series. He also noted it could be a turnaround weekend for the Sprint Cup teams of Jack Roush, who leads all owners with 13 victories at the track.
“It’s really important for us; it’s a great facility,” O’Donnell said. “… Chevy and Ford right there but certainly Toyota likes coming in and mixing it up a little bit on the track (near Detroit). From a competition standpoint for us, you look at the race, and Roush historically has been really strong at that race track.”
As NASCAR considers places to race outside the United States, manufacturer growth areas come to mind for O’Donnell.
“Where we’ve been successful is really starting from a grassroots effort, like you’ve seen in Mexico, where we have a successful tour and we can see some drivers come up through the system similarly in Canada,” O’Donnell said. “Now that’s what’s happening in Europe as well. I’d say maybe taking some of our national series drivers over from time to time to help seed those series and the growth would be important for us.”
O’Donnell noted that national series driver Jeffrey Earnhardt traveled to last weekend’s event at Brands Hatch in England to share some of his expertise behind the wheel at American Speedfest. He also mentioned other countries on NASCAR’s radar going forward.
Here is a great recap of this weekends events @EuroNASCAR @BrandsSpeedFest https://t.co/AK5aaA2GiC
— Steve O’Donnell (@odsteve) June 8, 2015
“South America is certainly an area where we’d like to emerge, China, India, not necessarily right away, but when you look at a lot of the partners and especially the OEMs, (those countries) are certainly growth areas so we’ll take a look at those as well,” O’Donnell said. “First and foremost for us, it’s concentrating on the U.S. and making sure we’ve got the best thing going every Sunday here in the United States.”
The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobil 1 celebrates its 100th race under the NASCAR umbrella on Saturday at Autodrome Chaudiere in Valle-Jonction, Quebec.