Nascar Turning Its Attention To Improving Fan Experience At Tracks

Two NASCAR executives who helped in the sport’s transformation in the last few years have been rewarded for their efforts.

NASCAR announced Thursday that Steve O’Donnell has been promoted to chief operating officer, and Ben Kennedy has been named senior vice president of racing development and strategy.

Both O’Donnell and Kennedy have been instrumental in the leadership of NASCAR in the last few years with the development of NASCAR’s newest racecar for its top tier Cup series, the navigation of the sport through the pandemic, and unprecedented changes to the schedule.

And it appears their work is far from over.

O’Donnell joined NASCAR in 1996 as a marketing services representative and has been the chief racing development officer since 2014. The 30-year-old Kennedy is the grandson of Bill France Jr. and great-grandson or NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. He is a former racer who has competed in the ARCA Menards Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series levels. He’s worked in several areas in NASCAR since he stopped racing in 2017 starting as the general manager of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series before moving up to managing director, racing operations and international development.

NASCAR’s Next Gen racecar made its competitive debut at the season opening Clash exhibition race at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum in February racing on a track build atop a field where college football is normally played. The debut of the car was delayed a year by the pandemic and was held in front of an estimated crowd of over 50,000.

Since then, the car has raced at Daytona, California, and Las Vegas with very few issues. The races were widely viewed as successful with close finishes and great racing throughout the field.

In 2020 when the world shutdown due to Covid, O’Donnell and Kennedy were front and center of the efforts to get cars racing again. They did so and NASCAR became the first professional sports league to return to competition with a schedule that included midweek and doubleheader races. In the end, the sport completed its full scheduled number of races.

In 2021 NASCAR’s schedule saw extraordinary, and what many felt were revolutionary, changes. Among the highlights: NASCAR made its stock-car debut at Circuit of The America’s in Texas, the Cup series raced on dirt for the first time since 1970 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, and the Cup series returned to Road America in Wisconsin after 65 years.

While the focus has been on the on-track product and the tracks where that product races, one area that’s also seeing change is what those attending the race in-person experience. In their new positions, Kennedy will be spending his time focusing on the competition side of the sport, while O’Donnell will be working closely with the tracks.

“It’s going to be crucial for us to really look at the fan experience going forward,” O’Donnell said. “We all know there’s a lot of challenges out there. It’s harder and harder with people spending hard earned money and gas prices and different things that are happening to get them to the track.

“We want to make sure when they get there, they have an incredible experience because those fans are usually fans for life.”

That effort on the fan experience was on display in L.A. in February. There was a pre-race concert from Grammy Award winning artist Pitbull; world renowned entertainer DJ Skee entertained fans during driver introductions and rapper Ice Cube performed during a planned “half-time” period during the race.

“We learned a lot around that,” O’Donnell said. “Not just necessarily where could you, or potentially could you race, but what could a race weekend look like?”

O’Donnell said seeing a DJ at a NASCAR race energizing thousands of fans was something different to him. But he took notice.

“That’s a new way to look at things,” he said. “But just incorporating that sort of entertainment around an event around driver intros. You know, what happens during long caution flags? There’s a lot of different things we can do to support the competition on track and learn from different aspects. “

This season while fans watching on TV will see the new car racing at different tracks, those attending the race will also be seeing, and experiencing, new things as well.

“We’ve got a lot of smart people at the tracks who are looking at this each and every day,” O’Donnell said. “(L.A.) certainly opened up some ideas and concepts that we could use and test our way to some successes, and we’ll have some failures along the way too, but it won’t be from a lack of trying.

“We’re going to be really aggressive in this space and there’s a lot of cool things that we can look at.”