Bill France Sr.
American racing driverWikipedia
28
MENTIONS
9
EPISODES
9
PODCASTS
Search complete. 28 mentions across 9 episodes found for "Bill France Sr.".
Oct 19, 2026
Ken ClappGUEST
But anyway, that's kind of a basic beginning of what led on.
Ken ClappGUEST
And then Big Bill France, who was the founder of NASCAR... got involved in the middle 1930s in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Ken ClappGUEST
Of course, NASCAR wasn't founded until 1948, but he was very involved with the growing of it, and of course it became the biggest giant in motorsports ever in North America.
Ken ClappGUEST
It's even surpassed Indianapolis cars now, even though Indianapolis racing is extremely popular and one of the great organizations in the world.
23 MINS LATER
Ken ClappGUEST
And he had become a NASCAR executive, but not a vice president.
Ken ClappGUEST
And he and I were very close friends, and he was one of the five in that announcement.
Ken ClappGUEST
And it was kind of a cute, funny story because of the five, several of us were tabbed along with Bill France Jr. and a gentleman named John Cooper who was a legend in the administrative end of racing, and myself and Les Richter and a fellow named Jim Hunter, and the media tabbed us the Blue Blazer Mafia.
Ken ClappGUEST
Well, we all wore blue sport coats with gold buttons.
Zach RedpathHOST
Mm-hmm.
James PumphreyHOST
And that is when a local mechanic named Bill France stepped in.
Zach RedpathHOST
Big Bill.
Vin AnatraHOST
Could you just-
James PumphreyHOST
Which in 1935 is, like, being 7'10".
Zach RedpathHOST
[laughs] Yeah.
Zach RedpathHOST
And, like, everything I know about Bill France, who started NASCAR, is he's just this, like, my way or the highway- ... authoritarian dude.
James PumphreyHOST
I think you gotta say authoritative, not authoritarian.
Jim McDowellHOST
Now, like it or lump it, they sold it to essentially NASCAR.
Jim McDowellHOST
They sold it to the Bill France family.
Jim McDowellHOST
So you had people who knew nothing about motorcycles taking over a series of nothing but motorcycles, which you had to think was going to be a problem, which it was.
Richard JowettHOST
[laughs]
J.J. O'MalleyGUEST
I casually knew Jim Foster, the Daytona Speedway president.
J.J. O'MalleyGUEST
He once set up a phone interview with me and Bill France Sr. regarding the possible move of the Firecracker 400 from Daytona to Pocono.
J.J. O'MalleyGUEST
That was quite an exclusive.
J.J. O'MalleyGUEST
The headline story might have helped convince the Daytona business community that ISC was serious about possibly moving the race.
Marcel VenableHOST
Right.
Ed Justice Jr.GUEST
And, I mean, I could show you pictures of them with Bill France.
Ed Justice Jr.GUEST
I mean, when we wrote the book, I was able to get in touch.
Ed Justice Jr.GUEST
She actually called in just out of the blue, our first employee for them in Florida.
John FicarraHOST
Oh.
John FicarraHOST
By this guy named Bill France.
John FicarraHOST
Big Bill France.
John FicarraHOST
Oh, yeah.
John FicarraHOST
And NASCAR, right? The first national commissioner of NASCAR.
John DoonanGUEST
Got tremendous opportunities by guys like Robert Davis and Jim O'Sullivan and ultimately Masahiro Moro, who's now the president of Mazda globally, to pursue it and build out the program.
John DoonanGUEST
Well, the other piece was I had fallen in love with IMSA when Mazda was just having such a good run there and really admired John Bishop, who was the first president of IMSA in 1969 when Bill France Sr. and John and Peggy Bishop established IMSA.
John DoonanGUEST
were competing, it just, you know, I guess call it God's plan, but we were competing in IMSA with Mazda and got to know all the right folks.
John DoonanGUEST
And, you know, Jim France and Ed Bennett called and said, hey, you know, love to have you come to Daytona.
16 MINS LATER
John DoonanGUEST
And this, obviously, the first one was in 1966.
John DoonanGUEST
There was a Daytona Continental that happened a few times before that, the famous image of Dan Gurney going across the starting line and the Arciero brothers climax on the starter button.
John DoonanGUEST
But long story short, Bill France Sr. had this concept of a sports car series like Le Mans in the States.
John DoonanGUEST
And lo and behold, this John Bishop gentleman was at SCCA, and he became available.
Ricky JohnsonHOST
The guy was gnarly.
Ricky JohnsonHOST
Bill France was the same way.
Ricky JohnsonHOST
Go back and I think it's called American Zoom.
Ricky JohnsonHOST
There's a book called American Zoom.
David FreiburgerHOST
That happened in 1948.
David FreiburgerHOST
And because Bill France had organized those bootleggers into circle track racing and into racing on Daytona Beach sort of pretty early, before hot rodding was anything more than just hoodlums, that means that the Southeast was really ahead in car enthusiasm.
David FreiburgerHOST
However, California was the heartbeat of drag racing and pure hot rodding.
David FreiburgerHOST
And later on, custom cars.