H. A. Branham - Bill France Jr.

Copyright 2010 by H.A. Branham

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Branham, H. A.

Bill France Jr. : the man who made NASCAR / H.A. Branham.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-60078-340-1

1. France, Bill Jr., 1933-1970. 2. NASCAR (AssociationOfficials and employeesBiography. 3. Stock car racingUnited States. 4. NASCAR (Association). I. Title.

GV1032.F73B73 2009

796.72092dc22

[B]

2010001798

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ISBN: 978-1-60078-340-1

Design by Patricia Frey

All photos courtesy of ISC Archives unless otherwise noted.

Index

Bill France Jr. was my kind of man.

He was equally at ease behind the wheel rocketing around a NASCAR track or atop a speeding motorcycle or at the gears of a backhoe. He was a marketing genius who turned a regional sport into a national passion and while he raced from track to track in a private jet, when he got back home to Daytona Beach, Florida, his idea of a four-star meal was a hamburger at a tiny cookout stand just off the Daytona International Speedway frontstretch.

Bill and I first met in the Seventies, when he was taking over NASCAR from his father, Bill Sr. I was visiting Daytona for the first time with my daughters, and I spent part of a memorable day with the two Bills.

They immediately strapped us into a pace car for a high-speed ride around the steeply banked oval while we talked racing and cars. I remember Bill Sr. suggesting we pool our money and buy several of the first generation Pontiac Firebirds that GM was phasing out. He said, Well just put them up on blocks and wait a few years, and theyll be worth a lot more.

I didnt follow up with him, but I came away impressed by the ease of the relationship between father and son, their common touch and common-sense approach to promoting Americas longstanding love affair with cars and going fast.

When Bill Jr. took NASCAR to heights not even Big Bill could have imagined, I watched carefully to see if the son had been changed by his new fame and success.

He was still the same Bill Jr., a man of machines and simple tastes, a shrewd entrepreneur who understood that those fans in cut-offs and T-shirts crowding the infield were just as important to him, if not more so, than sponsors in the expensive suits and gold jewelry.

In fact, I once heard him speak disdainfully of a major sponsor who came to Daytona only to check on whether his product was getting the appropriate attention he felt it deserved. For Bill, NASCAR was first and last about the fans, the drivers, the cars, and the race.

When he was ill with what turned out to be terminal cancer, I called to ask a favor:

Could I bring a friend, a NASCAR fanatic, to Daytona for my friends 40th birthday?

I fully expected Bill to turn us over to his staff, but there he was at the track, looking weary and a bit frail, the perfect host.

My friend was as thrilled with being a guest of Bill at Daytona as a golfer would have been to have Tiger Woods show him around Augusta.

We took a spin around the track, toured the fan attraction called the DAYTONA 500 Experience, looked at the statue of Dale Earnhardt, then retired for the birthday lunch to that tiny cookout stand and hamburgers on paper plates.

For my friend, it was the American dream come true, all arranged by a gifted and generous man who gave untold millions of Americans so much pleasure over so many years.

Tom Brokaw

I got to know Bill France Jr. in the last five years of his life. In many ways he seemed to me a contrast to the man who had ruled NASCAR as a sometimes-benevolent dictator since the early 1970s. Age and illness had taken their respective, inevitable tolls. The Lion in Winter roared not nearly as often nor as loudly as in years past. That said, there were still plenty of vocal reminders of the good ol days when NASCARs drivers were still called the good ol boys.

Suffice to say, then, that it was a different time in Bills life. I was extremely lucky to be part of it, which my boss at NASCAR, Jim Hunter, reminded me one late-summer afternoon as we worked together on a draft of a speech Bill would be giving, a draft that Bill would of course partially rewrite to apply his own stamp on the finished product.

Technically, I was his speechwriter from 2002-07, but I am reluctant to use that title because when it came to those speeches, it most certainly was a collaboration. And so, lets just say that Bill and I collaborated on numerous speeches prior to his death. We worked closely, which helped me to understand a man who, for some, was hard to understand.

He also was a great help to me personally in the preparation and the promotion of two previous books I was fortunate enough to authorThe NASCAR Vault and The NASCAR Family Albumeven joining me for autograph signings, to the absolute surprise and delight of bookstore customers who were also NASCAR fans.

Now I wonder what he would say about this book. In writing it, I have tried to imagine he was still right down the hall from my office, that he might again appear in my doorway, holding a speech draft in his hands, not completely pleased with what he had read.

So many people have made this work possible, starting first and foremost with his wife of 50 years, Betty Jane France, who gave graciously of her time and memories.

There are many more to thank:

Bills younger brother Jim, who relished the notion of Bill posthumously having the last word regarding a number of old issues and adversaries;

Bill and Betty Janes children, Brian France and Lesa France Kennedy, now embellishing the family legacy as respective leaders of NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation;

NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter, who worked for Bill as both a NASCAR and ISC employee for more than 30 years and served as one of Bills closest advisors right up until his final days;

Geri McMullin, Bills secretary for 24 years who became in time more like a family member than an employee;

NASCAR Senior Vice President Paul Brooks, who initiated this project, and NASCAR Managing Director of Communications Ramsey Poston, who championed it;

Gary Smith, NASCARs Managing Director of Event Logistics, who went from being Bill Jr.s boat captain to one of his closest personal friends;

Tom Brokaw, who wrote a foreword that came from personal experience and conveyed a personal side of Bill France Jr.;

Many others throughout the NASCAR industry granted interviews and submitted anecdotesa group that included Rusty Wallace, Ken Clapp, Humpy Wheeler, Raymond Mason, Edsel Ford, and Dick Ebersol.

And of course the heartiest thanks go to Bill France Jr., thanks that must now be offered silently in the sincere hope that somewhere, somehow, he is hearing them.