News Analysis: Brian France arrested for DWI, possession of controlled substance

What happened: NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France was jailed overnight after police in Sag Harbor, N.Y. pulled him over and arrested him for aggravated driving while intoxicated and criminal possession of a controlled substance (oxycodone pills), according to a press release from the Sag Harbor Village Police Department. The news was first reported by TMZ and more details are available there through TMZ’s sources.

What it means: Two hours after Chase Elliott crossed the finish line at Watkins Glen, giving NASCAR a massive boost of much-needed positive momentum, NASCAR’s leader was getting arrested for DWI and criminal oxycodone possession in the Hamptons. As if France hasn’t done enough damage to NASCAR during his time in charge, this is a major black eye for the sport.

Instead of a feel-good, racing-related storyline that seemed to give NASCAR momentum on Sunday, all the talk nationally will be about France’s arrest. Additionally, this comes while NASCAR is up for sale — so having the chairman and CEO conduct himself this way only serves to devalue the sport. France has been at the helm since 2003, a 15-year stretch in which he has made highly questionable decisions and statements, oversaw a sharp decline in his company’s fortunes and acted oddly during his all-too-rare public appearances.

France has no ownership stake in NASCAR and serves at the pleasure of his uncle, Jim France, and sister, Lesa France Kennedy. Perhaps this is the catalyst in having Brian France step aside for someone who is more engaged and capable of guiding the biggest racing series in the United States through turbulent times.

News value (scale of 1-10): Ten. Despite his lack of presence at the races and having other executives run the sport on a day-to-day basis, France is still the chairman and CEO of NASCAR — a sport with a strict drug-testing policy and public “Road to Recovery” procedure. Whether or not this is an isolated incident or a symptom of larger substance abuse issues, let’s hope France follows the example set by drivers and crew members and takes the time he needs to avoid such situations in the future.

Three questions: Is there further embarrassment to come from this situation, such as a video of the arrest or mug shot? Update: The mug shot has been released. If this incident doesn’t result in France leaving his role as head of NASCAR, what would? Given France’s close friendship with President Trump (whose name France dropped during the arrest, per TMZ), could he simply be pardoned for any charges that result from this? Update: Many of you tweeted to say the president cannot pardon someone for state charges, only federal; so this doesn’t apply. 

Brian France speaks at Daytona 500 drivers meeting

NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France opened the Daytona 500 drivers meeting on Sunday with some remarks.

Here is a transcript of his comments:

“Another amazing event. Weather is perfect. We are so excited to kick our NASCAR Monster season off in a big way. Looking forward to a great event. So thankful everybody is here today and we’re going to do this in a big way. Thanks, guys, and look forward to an unbelievable Daytona 500 today. You bet.”

Previous Brian France coverage: Should Brian France still be in charge?

The Top Five: Breaking down the Richmond race

Five thoughts on Sunday’s NASCAR race at Richmond International Raceway…

1. Back it down, Joey

Joey Logano won on a day when he had to start in the back, and the performance was helped by some gentle reminders from crew chief Todd Gordon.

Gordon began the day by texting Logano at 9 a.m., telling him to run 80 percent. The crew chief then repeated it in their pre-race meeting: Go 80 percent, go 80 percent.

Why? Because with Logano starting in the back of the 38-car field due to a transmission change (the team discovered debris in the transmission on Saturday), Gordon knew his driver might try to go all-out in getting back to the front; and that probably wouldn’t be a good thing at a place where tires and equipment seem to get used up.

Logano turned to Penske executive Walt Czarnecki and said, “You pay me to run 100 percent.”

“Today will be a little different,” Czarnecki replied.

As it turned out, Logano listened to Gordon — albeit reluctantly.

“I did (listen),” Logano said afterward with a brief tone of disappointment. “I hate it, too. I am not wired that way. I’m a balls to the wall type of guy, all the time. That’s what’s proven to be successful at certain racetracks.”

But not Richmond. Running consistent, smooth times and saving his stuff allowed him to get in position for Todd Gordon’s strategy gamble, which put Logano off sequence from the rest of the field (along with Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski, who ultimately finished second).

Logano said his mindset changed at the end of the race (“Take that 80 percent thing and throw it out the window”), but it helped put him in position to overcome a bad starting spot on a day when he didn’t have the fastest car.

The best drivers and teams end up winning on days when they aren’t supposed to, and that was Logano on Sunday.

2. Why not Logano?

It’s interesting Joey Logano won the first race after Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced his retirement, because it comes at a time when many in the NASCAR world are talking about the next face of the sport.

Names like Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson keep popping up, but Logano would be a good candidate if fans gave him a chance. After all, he’s only 26 years old — two years older than Larson.

I know I just lost most of the people reading this story, so you probably won’t even see the rest of this item. In that case, I guess it’s OK to tell you I am secretly a CIA spy pretending to be a NASCAR journalist and my real job is to gather intelligence on everyone who tweets questions to Bob Pockrass.

But for those of you still with me, I’m serious: Logano would seem to check a lot of boxes for fans looking for a new driver. He wins a lot (18 career wins, including 15 in the last four seasons), is a very aggressive racer (one reason some fans dislike him) and is one of NASCAR’s nicest guys off the track.

The silver-spoon stigma has hurt him, though, along with the amount of times he’s clashed with popular drivers. So Logano might end up going through his career hearing loud boos instead of cheers, which seems like a huge missed opportunity for both fans and NASCAR.

I mean, even Brian France’s six-year-old son, Luke, picked Logano as his favorite driver. Although I guess that’s another reason for some people not to root for him, so forget I mentioned that part (along with the whole CIA spy thing, please).

3. Dale Jr.’s secret pet?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. often shows animals on his social media accounts, including his dogs and pet bison.

What he’s apparently not been showing is the black cat that surely walks in front of his path every day.

How else to explain the rotten luck he’s had in the first nine races?

“This luck this year is just awful,” he said after finishing 30th. “I don’t know what else we need to do. We’re just out there taking care of ourselves and running along, and something always seems to bite us.”

This time, it was his friend and teammate Jimmie Johnson — of all people! — who came out of nowhere to take him out with 42 laps to go.

Johnson obviously felt terrible and said he had no idea Earnhardt was outside him when he came off the corner and bashed the 88 car into the wall.

“I just have to try to figure out if I just didn’t hear it being told to me (from spotter Earl Barban) or if it wasn’t told to me,” Johnson said. “I’m surprised our cars even kept rolling after that because I just body-slammed him into the wall and I could have easily not heard the ‘clear’ or something else happened.”

Immediately after saying that, Johnson went down pit road to find Earnhardt and the two talked for a couple minutes before Johnson huddled with Barban to go over what happened.

Either way, though, it’s just another weird incident to add to Earnhardt’s list this year. As a result, he’s now 24th in the point standings — 60 points out of a playoff spot.

But Earnhardt said he’s not even looking at points for now.

“We’re sitting so far back, we’ve just got to get this thing to where we can finish,” he said. “I’m just going to concentrate on getting about five or six races put together in a row, top-15s, and see what the points look like after that.”

Clearly, though, the 88 team has work to do. As was the case last week at Bristol, Earnhardt wasn’t going to have an amazing finish even before the incident. Things have to turn around at some point, right?

“Racing’s more frustrating than it is joy,” he said. “But the joy is worth hanging around for.”

4. Commitment issues

The commitment box rule nailed six different drivers, including Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer. Each of them expressed disagreement with the call (“They have the wrong guy,” Busch said after being told of the penalty) and Danica Patrick accused NASCAR of not being clear enough about the rule in the drivers meeting after she was penalized.

Unfortunately for those drivers, it’s a black and white — or orange — issue. The drivers meeting video clearly said to have all four tires below the orange box (not on, but completely below) and then NASCAR’s Richard Buck echoed the rule after the video played.

It might be dumb to have a driver lose a race that way, but NASCAR has to set the line somewhere, right? If a football player is out of bounds by a toe, he’s still out of bounds.

Anyway, the rule especially stunk for Busch, who was behind Logano entering pit road and probably couldn’t see the box at all. Some people wondered if Logano purposefully tried to get close to the box in hopes Busch would follow, but nah.

“There was no strategy behind it, just a late call to pit,” Logano said. “It’s a very late call that Todd said, ‘Pit,’ and I said, ‘OK,’ and I took a hard left and was able to get down. But when you’re the trailing car, you’re looking at a rear spoiler so you’re not 100 percent sure where that box is. It’s a tough situation.”

Busch felt he was inside Logano’s line, but if he was, it wasn’t enough.

The whole situation might be unfortunate for the drivers who got caught, but there’s really no arguing it.

5. Kinder, gentler BZF?

The last time NASCAR reporters got a chance to speak with Brian France at a racetrack, the NASCAR chairman and CEO was combative, defensive and defiant in his answers. That was at Homestead last season.

He answered some sponsor-related questions at a December news conference in Las Vegas introducing Monster Energy, then opened the stage format news conference in January with a few remarks before quickly ducking out.

Other than that, France hadn’t spoken to reporters at any race this season — including Daytona.

So it was quite a surprise, then, when word suddenly trickled in following the drivers meeting that France wanted to come in and address the media at Richmond.

In the wake of Earnhardt’s retirement announcement, there wasn’t really anything newsworthy to come out of his remarks; France basically said all sports go in cycles when it comes to stars and NASCAR will be just fine with the next generation.

But it was notable France was there in the first place. Under the direction of new NASCAR communications chief Eric Nyquist, NASCAR officials seem to be taking a softer approach to the media this year. So far, putting media on blast — even for critical stories — has been much less prevalent (or at least from what I’ve seen), which is a nice change.

France looked comfortable in stating his opinions Sunday, with son Luke at his side. He even took a moment to thank reporters for being there — which is at least a gesture to potentially thaw a frosty relationship with the media.

“I want to thank you guys and gals,” he said. “This is a tough sport to cover. It’s multiple days away (from home), it’s not one game. It’s a lot of work to cover this sport. I know…our entire team thanks each and every one of you for helping tell the NASCAR story. Thank you.”

Brian France shows up at Daytona drivers meeting, makes weird comment

Brian France, who is the HEAD OF NASCAR, made a strange comment prior at the start of the sport’s biggest race on Sunday.

Standing in front of all the drivers and VIPs at the pre-race drivers meeting, France announced he was about to speak on a competition topic — “which I don’t normally do.” (And there’s a reason for that, one would think.)

France began by saying NASCAR accepts blocking and understands it. BUT…

“Do not look for NASCAR,” he said. “When you block somebody out there — and it’s going to happen today — it causes almost all the big incidents — do not look for NASCAR. You’d better hope there’s a Good Samaritan behind you who is going to accept that block, because they have that lane.”

Dude, what are you even talking about? Unless I’m mistaken, the only wreck caused by blocking during Speedweeks was the Denny Hamlin/Brad Keselowski battle for the lead during the Clash. Otherwise, the Big Ones (like in the Truck and Xfinity races) have been caused by ill-timed bump-drafts or just mistakes in tight pack racing.

But…blocking?

Huh?

In the current package for Cup restrictor-plate races, blocking is HOW YOU WIN THE RACE. Brad Keselowski, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano are masters at blocking (alternate word: “defending”) their positions out front, nullifying the runs that come behind them.

No one disputes this or has a problem with it. All 40 drivers in today’s race understand if they get out front they MUST block.

So I honestly have no idea what France was getting at, or why he said that, but I guarantee you it didn’t help his credibility in the garage.

Analysis: Wall Street Journal report raises questions about NASCAR leadership

A well-reported story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal raises interesting questions about NASCAR’s leadership.

Mainly, should Brian France still be in charge?

Using four sources, the WSJ reported France, NASCAR’s chairman and CEO, sold his stake in NASCAR to other family members “more than a decade ago.”

“As a result, these people say, Mr. France essentially works for his sister (Lesa France Kennedy) and uncle (Jim France) even though he is NASCAR’s chief executive,” the WSJ reported. “That means he runs the sport on a day-to-day basis but is supposed to seek approval from Ms. Kennedy and their uncle for major changes.”

The WSJ said Brian France did not inform his sister — who is in charge of International Speedway Corp. — before enacting a policy against Confederate flags in the infield. The story also said Kennedy learned of her brother’s public endorsement of Donald Trump by watching the news.

By his own admission in the story, France said he only attended roughly half of the Cup races last season.

In addition, the WSJ reported France did not attend a crucial December meeting between “racing-team executives, drivers, track operators and TV executives” in Las Vegas.

So based on this reporting, we know NASCAR’s CEO makes rogue decisions, does not show up to the majority of the races and is not very engaged in key planning for the future — all while presiding over the biggest decline in the sport’s history (the WSJ said TV viewership is down 45%).

After the WSJ report, it also appears confirmed France does not own a stake in NASCAR.

Kind of crazy, huh?