Chairman Brian France says NASCAR to explore Xfinity, Truck series shifting to Chase format

Highlights of NASCAR Chairman Brian France’s end-of-season news conference Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway:

On the possibilities of the Xfinity and Truck series moving to a Chase-like championship system in 2016:

“It won’t be exact, that’s for sure. But (the Chase) has been successful. Our (series sponsors) would like for us to explore what’s possible to have their own version of it. We’re going to look at that in the offseason. We have looked at that before, haven’t quite found the perfect thing for each one of those divisions. But we’ll work at it. It’s worth looking at.”

On working with a consultant to address domestic violence issues in the sport:

“We have a lot of people that we either formally consult with, or sometimes informally. It goes all the way down our organization with anything that’s as important as domestic violence. We’re going to seek input and information from a lot of different places, including Jane (Randel of NO MORE). I’ve met with her myself. She’s been helpful. And we’ll continue, that’s an evolving issue in sports and our society and we’ll continue to be really, really careful of how we look at that.

“She’s given us some really good input on how to look at things, about how do you prioritize certain circumstances that we might think are not important. But they’re very sensitive in the scheme of domestic violence. So she’s got us to look through a different lens.”

On finding a new title sponsor for the Cup series for the 2017 season:

“The Sprint replacement (search) is ongoing. We’re being careful, and it’s a big, big commitment for us. It’s a big commitment for somebody else to be partners with us. It’s not the normal marketing partnership. This is actually somebody who is entitled into your sport. And so we’re going to be careful to get the right partner and we have got to work through next year, it doesn’t hit us until 2017.”

On how NASCAR’s “Industry Action Plan” of 2011 (a five-year plan that would address the sport’s communications, fan experience and drivers’ star power) has worked:

“The Industry Action Plan was always a floor to let everybody else stand on top of and do a lot within the industry – drivers, teams, tracks and so forth. We were coming in and out of the big hard recession in 2009 and 2010. So, they have all done what we have hoped that they would do on the end. We’ll see where – a lot of them have gotten legs beyond what we could have even wanted or not wanted, we could have foreseen.”　

On what NASCAR is continuing to look at for driver and fan safety:

“I’m a big believer in innovation. The tracks are working on different technology that would support the fence. We feel pretty good about the technology, although it’s a work in progress with the race cars themselves. But it’s true that the fence can be improved. And it’s always evolving and I suspect the tracks will come with technology as soon as they can that will be an asset there. They’re working on that.”

On whether Cup fields will shrink, like Xfinity and Truck fields have:

“Not right at this moment. But anything that we do to reduce a field is designed to make racing better in some form or fashion. We don’t have a plan yet, but we’ll always look at that. That’s smart.”

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 8:01 PM with the headline "Chairman Brian France says NASCAR to explore Xfinity, Truck series shifting to Chase format."