O’Donnell at the wheel and aiming for a united NASCAR

Steve O’Donnell was officially handed the NASCAR reins by Jim France on Saturday in the media center at Talladega Superspeedway.

The proceedings started with NASCAR playing a short video reflecting on France’s tenure and impact on racing before the 81-year-old son of the sport’s founder addressed the room. In speaking highly of the team he has been part of, France, while deflecting credit for everyone’s input and hard work, stated that he believes the current regime is the finest to ever guide the sport. Then he looked at O’Donnell and Ben Kennedy, the latter the new COO, and said, “They’ve got a great team, and they’re going to take this thing even farther. So, Steve, you’ve got the wheel, partner.”

The new NASCAR CEO wasted no time in seemingly laying out how things will go from here on out. O’Donnell spent much of his opening remarks addressing the future, some of which included saying:

“When we’re at our best at a sport, the teams, the tracks, the manufacturers, television partners, drivers, we’re all working together, and we’re aligned to making each other better,” he said. “So, the first goal that we’ve got is to really unite our industry. We want to create a culture where there is collaboration, it’s genuine collaboration where everybody wins. And the great news, I think, for us is that we’re not starting from scratch.

“We’re close to 80 years of building a foundation. We’ve got racing series, not just Cup, but a portfolio of racing series that’s unrivaled in all of motorsports. We’ve got a solid charter foundation. A great broadcast agreement. We’ve got tracks that are putting on the best fan experiences in the world. A schedule, led by Ben, that continues to evolve. An incredible amount of talented people within NASCAR, and then when you look at the team ownership group, you’ve got racers, titans of business, and titans in the sports industry. All that we can tap into to really grow into the future. So, a lot of opportunities as we go forward.

“To start out, we’re going to be listening, and that means genuinely listening before making any decisions. So, I know there will be a lot of questions about where you’re going, what you’re doing, but I think it’s important for us to go out there and spend the time listening to everyone in this industry. Team owners, team principals, drivers, tracks, manufacturers, and, probably most importantly for us, all the talented employees that we have at NASCAR. not just the leadership team but those who are out selling the tickets, those who are out interacting with the fans and can tell you what’s really happening and where we need the sport to go.

“I know we have a number of areas we need to address, and we’re going to move with urgency, but what we’re going to need from this industry, and I’m talking to everyone in this industry, is their collective intelligence because we’ve got some of the brightest minds in all of motorsports each and every weekend in the garage. We have to tap into that, be united, and work together.”

It was not the first time that O’Donnell had spoken about the industry uniting. In January, during the announcement that NASCAR was reintroducing the Chase, he specifically mentioned that relationships in the garage needed to be better and that it would be a focus. Admittedly, there were multiple islands that had formed.

Those comments came a month after NASCAR settled its antitrust lawsuit with 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. A terse 14-month battle that aired dirty laundry, slung mud, and dominated the headlines.

But the industry's collaboration on the decision about the Chase is an example O’Donnell uses to illustrate what can happen when everyone is united. Going forward, he wants to see more of it.

“We need that tenfold,” O’Donnell said. “We need to do that with creating new businesses, what’s the future product we’re going to race, all of those things, just getting ahead of it. I think we do the day to day well, but where do we want to be five years from now and getting that input from everybody in the industry, working closely with Ben on that, and then setting a plan that if you were to go interview any owner, driver, track about what’s the plan for the next five years or where do you want to be they could all answer that somewhat similarly.

“That’s the goal.”

But the idea that O’Donnell’s statements were a call to action is only partially true. While there is work to be done, it has also already started. O’Donnell isn’t new to the garage, and some drivers don’t believe there will be an immediate noticeable change. The biggest question is what the sport will look like in the future.

It’s a two-fold goal for O’Donnell in that regard.

“We’re going to make some moves and we’re going to have some fun,” he said. “I think we lost that over the last couple of years.”