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NASCAR CEO Brian France cuts off reporter's Donald Trump question
In a Sunday morning press conference at Homestead-Miami Speedway, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France cut off a reporter’s question about his support of Donald Trump, who was publicly endorsed by France earlier this year.
France was asked by Dustin Long of NBC Sports, “As you celebrate your first foreign driver winning a NASCAR championship (Daniel Suarez in the NASCAR XFINITY Series), certainly there will be those who raise questions about your support earlier this year of President-Elect Donald Trump and certainly …”
“Stop you right there,” France said. “Nobody wants to hear my political views. Not one person on this stage wants to hear from me politically. And so I won’t be talking about that other than that, but on my diversity — nobody, nobody in this company has worked harder, done more and resourced it better than me.
“I founded the Diversity Council,” France said. “I fought for every single thing that makes sense, because that’s my core belief: Diversity is very, very important. I talk about it frequently. And my efforts there should never be challenged, no matter what my political views might be. That’s a ridiculous thing to do.”
On other topics, France also weighed in.
He argued that the sport is healthy, even though Sprint is ending its 13-year association as title sponsor after Sunday's race. NASCAR has had nearly two years to replace Sprint, but no sponsor has been named. In recent days, Monster Energy has emerged as a possible front-runner for the title rights.
"It's taken a little longer than I thought, but it's also a big agreement and an important agreement," France said. "It's not just dollars and cents, but it's a fit for us. We don't want to announce anything certainly around this weekend. We're in a good spot with that, I believe, but we'll have to see how it finally plays out."
France said the Chase format, which was added for the NASCAR XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series for the first time this year, is working as intended.
"We're very pleased with the formats. Wouldn't change a thing," he said. "Go back a year ago for the Xfinity Series ... you had the winner and the champion and a couple others talk about all they needed to do was finish the race. `If I ran 30th, I'll be OK.' Well, that's not really great for great competition.
"Speed it up to this year, you had all four thinking they've got to win the race. That's a big deal for auto racing. We're bold enough to do that."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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