David Poole's 'state of the sport'

On "The Morning Drive," the Sirius Satellite NASCAR Radio show he co-hosts, David Poole played the role of NASCAR chairman Brian France and gave the following speech as what he would say in the "state of the sport" speech that France will give this afternoon in Daytona:

Good afternoon and thanks for coming.
Today I want put aside the normal platitudes and doublespeak you might expect and speak honestly. Our sport faces too many critical issues for today. We are at a cross roads, and beginning today we will chart a new and, I believe, proper path that will buttress our foundation and allow us once again to start growing a sport that, today, faces a number of crises.
We face, for starters, a crisis of integrity.
For too long, we’ve asked our fans to swallow inconsistent officiating and capricious enforcement of rules that seem to shift like sand on the beach where cars once raced under my grandfather’s aegis.
We’ve treated cheating like a family might treat weird Uncle Fred – pretending like everything’s OK because nobody’s really getting hurt. That’s not how a professional sport should be run.
If we are to have any integrity at all, we have to establish a system of rules that can be followed by teams who are eager for a chance to compete fairly and evenly. We have to enforce those rules fairly and without regard to the economic impact of sanctions or other actions on our part.
Every team, no matter how many T-shirts its driver sells, must be treated the same way. It’s hard for us to do that when we have people in our tower on race day who’re also involved with the marketing of our sport. Even if they intend to be fair in every instance, they’re human beings. They can’t help but be influenced by what their actions might mean in the marketplace, not when our company has made that the over-riding priority in how they’re judged in terms of how well they do their jobs.
We’re taking those people out of that impossible situation. Beginning today, we will spend whatever money we have to recruit and hire independent officials with experience at race tracks all across this country to come in and join our officials in forming an independent agency to officiate our races. NASCAR will pay this agency a lump sum each year to pay salaries and expenses and keep these officials trained. This agency will write our rulebook and enforce it and NASCAR will have no influence on that process.
We will, however, insist that beginning with the 2008 Daytona 500 any team caught with a major rules violation before qualifying will be denied the right to race in that week’s event. Any team found to have committed a major rules violation in postrace inspection will lose all points and money earned in that event and will be prohibited from entering the next event on the schedule. This rule will apply evenly, to all teams.
Earlier today, I ordered the creation of a traveling medical team that will attend all of our events and co-ordinate care center operations with local personnel retained by each track. We actually will have two teams, with each team alternating at a given track for a given race. While one team is at a track, the other team will be at the next venue coordinating with local personnel and conducting extensive safety and medical meetings with the people they will be working with when our competitors arrive.
Our sport also faces a crisis in competition.
Let’s be honest with one another. Side-by-side racing has largely become a cherished memory in our sport. We have to get that back. So I have ordered our competition department to call a meeting in Charlotte at which every team member interested in attending can sit down and hear the following message. Beginning in the 2008 season, we will run 10 to 15 percent slower at every track where our cars compete in Nextel Cup, Busch and Truck series events. On July 1 of this year, we will have another meeting at which our teams will present to us their plan for slowing the cars down. If the teams are unable to agree on such a plan by that date, we will formulate our own plan and deliver it to the teams by Oct. 1. But hear this and hear it now, we will go slower in 2008. We can do it the way the teams want us to, or we’ll do it the way we decide to do. But we will do it.
We also have a crisis of emphasis on our hands.
For too long, we’ve been obsessed with television ratings and the image that our sport has with people who don’t even care about it. We’ve tried to cater to people who don’t care about us long enough. That stops, today.
We will no longer, as a company, talk about the championship 365 days a year. We will still crown champions in our top series each year. But the champions will receive trophies and checks for $1 million in Nextel Cup and $500,000 each in the Busch and Truck Series. Money now earmarked for points funds will be redistributed as part of a new formula for determining purses. Television money will also be reallocated in this formula in such a way that performance on the track each week determines how much money a race team and its drivers win.
The minimum purse for every Nextel Cup race, beginning in 2008, will be $7.5 million. No Nextel Cup race winner will be paid less than $1 million for winning any Cup race. The winner of the Daytona 500 next year will earn $5 million, and several other major events on our schedule will pay $2.5 million for first place. There are no more car owner plans or winner circle plans that subsidize the haves at the expense of the have nots. You want to make money in racing?
Race for it.
We face a crisis today, as well, in diversity. Our sport does not look like America, and we know that. We’ve known it for years, and so far we’ve made only pitiably token efforts to change that. Again, that stops today. Beginning in 2008, 5 percent of every purse will be designated to go to fund a program that provides opportunities and, most importantly, a clear pathway of progress for people of color and female drivers to be supported as they move steadily toward competing at the sport’s top levels. We hope our current fans will embrace these efforts, but we say here and now to those who don’t that we will sorely miss them but that we will go on without them.
And finally, but most importantly, we face the crisis of losing the most valuable asset we’ve ever had – our connection to our fans. We’ve stopped thinking about them. We talk about them a lot, but we don’t do much for them – not for the people who support us.
Increasingly, we’ve taken the access to our competitors that once served as our greatest attribute and turned it into a revenue stream. You want to meet a driver or even see one up close? Come on down to the Fan Zone, but it’s gonna cost you an extra $75 bucks. No more. We can’t "upsell" what our fans are entitled to, but at the same time we can’t simply throw open the gates to all fans while our competitors are trying to work.
So, beginning Thursday when Daytona International Speedway opens for the Gatorade Duels, no track will be allowed to sell garage passes. Only people who are working in our garage will have access to this area during times the track is hot. But, beginning one hour after the end of every qualifying session, each track will be allowed to sell for $10 per ticket a pass that entitles any fan access to a two-hour autograph session in the garage. All proceeds from the sale of these tickets will go to create a disability fund to benefit former NASCAR competitors who need financial assistance because of sickness or other hardship. Every driver entered in each week’s race will be required to remain in the garage for this autograph session. This will be the only time during a race weekend when a driver is allowed to sign autographs.
We have a great sport, and it has grown to a point where there is plenty of money to go around. We just need to stop trying to see how much money there could possibly be to make and start trying to see what would make our sport better. That’s how we got as far as we have today, and there’s no reason to go backward any further than we’ve already let things slip.
Today is a new day in NASCAR. I am happy you where here to see this new day come.

• Sirius radio's "Morning Drive" forum