NASCAR president Steve Phelps provided positive bookends to his state-of-the sport press conference on Friday morning at Phoenix Raceway.
In the preamble to questions from reporters, Phelps described NASCAR racing as “resilient and growing,” citing a welcome recovery from adverse weather that affected television ratings for several of the Cup Series’ most import events.
To end the news conference on the dais he shared with NASCAR chief operating officer Steve O’Donnell, Phelps delivered a message familiar to those who have covered the sport for the past six years.
“I’ve said this at every single one of these states-of-the-sport,” Phelps said. “This is my seventh year saying this, and I will say it this year, next year and the following years, which is: The best days of NASCAR are not behind us. They are ahead of us, and I believe that to be true.”
As Phelps pointed out, aggregate television ratings as well as attendance improved year-over-year despite the ill-timed challenges presented by the weather.
“We had an event, the Clash at the Coliseum, and we were looking at an historic atmospheric river for our event—that’s what they called it—just a lot of rain. I think we’ll go with that. So, we did something we had never done before. We pulled a race up a day and we raced on Saturday night.
“Got crushed in the ratings. Fans didn’t know when it was, how they were going to get there… Saturday’s the lowest-rated day of the week. But it was the right thing to do. It was a financial bath for us, but it was the right thing to do for the industry.
“Go two weeks down the road, and we had more rain. So, we delayed the start of the (Daytona 500) a full day, and we took a ratings bath. So, we were down minus-27. Then we had a rain-shortened race at the Coca-Cola 600, a rain-interrupted event at the Chicago Street Race, so three of your biggest races—down double digits.”
Despite the hardships caused by weather, NASCAR’s rating numbers have reached positive territory entering the season finale at Phoenix.
“What does that say to me?” Phelps asked rhetorically. “It says to me that the sport is resilient, and the sport is growing.”
Phelps took umbrage at the suggestion amplified by social media that the drivers competing for series championships at Phoenix this weekend weren’t worthy of their positions in the respective Championship 4 races.
“What I would say is that all of our drivers knew the format,” Phelps said. “And these drivers in all three national series competed and went to the highest level, and they deserve to be here.
“So just take the Cup race. You have a former champion who won to get in, as he did last year (Ryan Blaney); a Regular Season Champion who won to get in here (Tyler Reddick); and you have a two-time Cup champion who won to get here (Joey Logano). And then the young man who pointed his way through, William Byron, is an incredible talent.
“So, all four of these drivers deserve to be here. Full stop.”
O’Donnell addressed the recent controversy in the Round of 8 elimination NASCAR Cup race at Martinsville Speedway that resulted in stiff penalties to 23XI Racing, Trackhouse Racing and Richard Childress Racing for manipulating the outcome with Championship 4 spots on the line.
“What I saw at Martinsville pissed me off, and it pissed everyone off at NASCAR,” O’Donnell said. “Because we all know better, and we know what happened. We do have rules in the rule book where we can address it, and we did. We had a call with our OEMs where we were very clear what our intentions are going forward.
“Will we have a rule next year (addressing the OEMs’ role)? One thousand percent, and they know that.”
O’Donnell also said that NASCAR will always look at potential tweaks to the postseason format, but that Playoffs are here to stay.
Because of ongoing litigation pitting NASCAR against 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, Phelps declined to discuss the status of charters, pointing to a long-standing policy on the part of the sanctioning body not to negotiate in the media about the Charters. Phelps expressed that NASCAR was “very happy that 32 of our 36 charters were extended…” and Phelps noted that that amount of the money paid to the teams “now puts the race teams starting in ’25 as the single largest beneficiary of our media deal.”
He also stressed other ways that NASCAR and the teams will work together to help drive new sponsorship dollars and work on ways to cut costs to ensure that the new monies “provides for healthy race teams, and that’s our expectation moving forward that the race teams are going to be financially healthy.”
Coincidentally, during the question-and-answer session, U.S. district judge Frank D. Whitney ruled in NASCAR’s favor in denying a motion for preliminary injunction filed by 23XI and Front Row.
The teams sought to continue to operate as chartered teams while continuing their anti-trust litigation.
“You can’t make it up with timing, right?” O’Donnell quipped.
Phelps also had high praise for the production facility opened this year in Concord, N.C., citing the volume of high-qualify, targeted content produced for a wide array of platforms.
“What we’ve done so far in that building is nothing short of extraordinary,” he said.
Other topics included in the discussion included recognition of Martin Truex Jr., who is retiring from full-time competition at the end of the season; a nod to Tony Stewart, co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, which is selling its charters and will leave the sport; NASCAR’s promise to continue its innovations with a vibrant schedule; and progress with partner Goodyear in the production of softer tires for short tracks and road courses.
“We are going to continue to be bold and innovative in everything that we do,” Phelps said. “Not just the race schedule, but everything that we do to drive this sport forward. It’s the only way you will grow is to be bold and innovative in the decisions that are made, and we’re going to do that.”
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