Second Ideas: What’s Subsequent for NASCAR After Steve Phelps Resignation?

[ad_1] Steve Phelps couldn’t proceed as the general public face of NASCAR. Many within the sport will view the exit of the favored Phelps as a essential however unlucky actuality.

If Phelps was nonetheless Chief Advertising Officer or Chief Working Officer, he may nonetheless do the job. However as president (a task he assumed in 2018) or as a commissioner (a task he started in 2025), he wanted confidence and belief from the fan base.

He didn’t want approval from that base for every part he did. No chief goes to have that.

Steve Phelps is out as NASCAR commissioner after 10 months within the position and 20 years within the sport.

Nevertheless, the pinnacle of a sport should converse to the followers by at the very least giving the looks that he listens to the stakeholders and that he respects them.

That's the reason Phelps’ texts that turned public throughout the latest antitrust litigation doomed him. And it’s why present NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell has some work to do.

Phelps, indignant over an interview Richard Childress did on SiriusXM in 2023 the place he questioned who would profit from the potential new media rights deal, texted a colleague, saying: "Childress must be taken out again and flogged. He’s a silly redneck who owes his whole fortune to nascar,"

Later within the chain, Phelps wrote: "If he’s that indignant (and apparently he's) signal your constitution extension and promote. He’s not sensible — is a dinosaur — and a malcontent. ... Complete ass-clown."

Phelps was indignant, fearful that Childress’ feedback may harm the tense media rights negotiations. The frustration is comprehensible, however the venom in these texts concerning a revered proprietor of the game elicited a just-as-understandable indignant response from followers and at the very least one RCR sponsor (Bass Professional Outlets founder Johnny Morris).

The ironic factor in all of that is that Phelps was the one who almost brokered a settlement earlier than a few of the nasty texts got here out. Each Phelps and O’Donnell tried to discover a path within the constitution negotiations that might make each the staff homeowners and NASCAR proprietor Jim France comfortable. As a substitute, with France not eager to grant evergreen charters and Phelps understanding the deal wanted to get carried out, they tried to push by a deal that two groups did not signal and as a substitute pursued a lawsuit.

Former NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps presents the Invoice France NASCAR Cup Collection Championship trophy to Kyle Larson final season.

Phelps was not the goal within the lawsuit. He's properly revered within the business. That’s why the PGA needed him as its commissioner lower than a yr in the past.

He can deal with issues. He guided NASCAR again to racing after simply a few months off throughout the COVID pandemic.

He may deal with tense negotiations. He helped get a brand new media rights deal for 2025-31 that elevated revenues.

He had imaginative and prescient. Occasions comparable to those on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Chicago avenue race helped appeal to new eyeballs to the game.

He wasn’t excellent and at occasions didn’t seem to understand the severity — or did not talk that NASCAR grasped the severity — of competitors challenges, particularly when it got here to the hits of the Subsequent Gen automobile that brought on concussions.

However few would contemplate the Phelps-O’Donnell regime a catastrophe. It’s O’Donnell’s job now to information the game. Ben Kennedy is seemingly a CEO-in-training, awaiting the time when his uncle Jim and his mother, Lesa France Kennedy, resolve he can take over the corporate.

O’Donnell is predicted to be the stabilizing power in all this.

He actually had his share of fiery texts, together with these essential of drivers competing in SRX, which didn’t seem like a serious competitor to NASCAR. Via his testimony throughout the trial, it confirmed O’Donnell appeared harm that drivers and homeowners participated in a sequence in a method he thought may harm the NASCAR model (or others thought may harm the NASCAR model).

O’Donnell reiterated a number of occasions that he felt the 2016 constitution settlement was designed to unite the game and to have everybody pulling one rope, which by no means occurred.

Steve Phelps greets drivers previous to the NASCAR Cup Collection Straight Speak Wi-fi 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2025.

It appears a little bit naïve and time will inform whether or not O’Donnell can deal with any blowback from his public texts.

Within the early days of social media, he participated in hopes that engagement and dialogue would assist followers perceive his choices. He later deserted it, feeling that the negativity and vitriol wasn’t productive.

Contemplating he got here up by the ranks on the competitors aspect (in comparison with Phelps on the enterprise aspect), O’Donnell has already needed to make extra front-facing, polarizing choices inside the storage. He has a popularity of being somebody who can have a dialog, albeit somebody who's not simply swayed. And that may include its personal set of frustrations.

However for probably the most half, O'Donnell is thought to be a pacesetter who cares concerning the sport. At occasions, possibly an excessive amount of — very similar to Phelps.

And that's the reason followers shouldn’t anticipate a lot change with the exit of Phelps. Nobody is coming in from the surface to rock the boat.

So what does NASCAR want most in the mean time, particularly after the lawsuit confirmed simply how little belief there's internally?

It wants a pacesetter who can comfortably articulate the imaginative and prescient of the game and one who can put definitive motion behind these phrases. That is what O’Donnell did when the Subsequent Gen automobile was launched. He stated they'd rule with harsh penalties for damaged guidelines when it got here to the technical aspect of the automobile, and he adopted by with that promise.

Phelps wasn’t going to be that particular person.

Phelps was all the time extra snug within the boardroom and hatching plans for others to execute. And the texts from the lawsuit eroded any means for the fan base to place confidence in the phrases he spoke, regardless of how heartfelt. Irrespective of how trustworthy.

In sports activities, we reside by the speculation of "subsequent man up." Who steps in when somebody is knocked out of the sport?

On this case, O’Donnell is that subsequent man, in what may very well be considered as a twin position as GM and coach. Kennedy is his quarterback. NASCAR must be on offense.

We’ll see how they transfer the chains.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent many years protecting motorsports, together with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting Information, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seaside) Information-Journal. Observe him on Twitter @bobpockrass.