NASCAR president Steve Phelps: NASCAR is 'absolutely not' for sale
According to NASCAR president Steve Phelps, the France family is not looking to sell NASCAR.
Phelps did an interview on Fox Business Wednesday morning ahead of the Daytona 500 and said that he didn’t see NASCAR being sold anytime soon.
“Absolutely not, the France family is not interested in selling NASCAR at all,” Phelps said. “I don’t foresee that in the short term, I don’t see it in the long term. This is their legacy. It’s going to continue.”
CNBC and Reuters reported in May of 2018 that NASCAR’s founding family was exploring at least a partial sale of the series and spokesperson for NASCAR didn’t deny the report.
After that report emerged, the Frances said in a letter to NASCAR employees that it was committed to the long-term growth of the series which is now primarily run by CEO Jim France and his niece Lesa France Kennedy. Former CEO Brian France, Lesa’s brother, resigned in 2019 after his arrest on DWI and drug possession charges.
NASCAR has made a lot of significant changes since that report emerged. Most notably, the series bought spinoff company International Speedway Corporation and made it private. ISC was founded by the France family and was a publicly-owned company that owned and operated numerous tracks on the NASCAR schedule including Daytona and Talladega.
A merger of NASCAR and ISC would, in theory, make the series more attractive to an investor with tracks and the series both available in one purchase.
Phelps said that merger “was done for all the right strategic reasons” and said that NASCAR saw growth opportunities in the years ahead. The series is looking at a potential overhaul of the schedule in 2021 and the Cup Series will feature a new car designed to cut costs for teams.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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