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NASCAR is looking to its future in the sport and business of auto racing and has taken the major step of appointing Steve O\u2019Donnell as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) while elevating Ben Kennedy to Chief Operating Officer (COO). While current boss Jim France retains his title as chairman of the board and Lesa France Kennedy serves as executive vice chair, the fact that someone not named \u201cFrance\u201d will be in charge of Big Bill France\u2019s operation is a sea change.<\/p>\n
These corporate adjustments had been planned and take effect immediately, NASCAR revealed. The sanctioning group is acknowledging its 78th year in operation and, for the first time in its history, NASCAR has elected not to have a France family member atop its business model.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Steve O\u2019Donnell, who has, in essence been training for this position, now becomes the fifth CEO in NASCAR\u2019s history, after being named president in March of last year. Prior to that he was the Chief Operating Officer of the company and remains responsible for the day-to-day leadership of all NASCAR and IMSA Series, handling commercial, media and track operations in addition to NASCAR\u2019s four international series and its multiple regional and grassroots properties.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donnell has been in the NASCAR community since 1996 and has risen through the ranks to achieve his current position. He began in marketing as a service rep, was promoted to manage the marketing group and to work on NASCAR\u2019s 50th anniversary project. From the marketing department, O\u2019Donnell moved to Competition as was managing director of events and operations, heading the All-American Series and Touring Series before being named vice president of racing operations, and being placed in charge of the three national series. Over the years he has directed innovative advancements in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series, including the introduction of the Gen-^ Cup Series car, the current 7th generation Next Gen car and the implementation of\u00a0 <\/span>case playoff formats for all three of NASCAR\u2019s national touring series.<\/p>\n Ben Kennedy, the son of NASCAR executive vice chair Lesa France Kennedy, is a fourth-generation member of the France family and has earned his position by growing up in the sport and immersing himself as both a driver and team owner. He\u2019s come up through the ranks and was the architect behind NASCAR\u2019s 2021 Cup Series race schedule, which changed NASCAR\u2019s manner of scheduling to a more dynamic mode, bringing the sport to city centers. Some of the events he has championed over the past decade include the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the first-ever Chicago street race, the Cup Series\u2019 first international event in Mexico City and this year\u2019s Sa n Diego street race at Naval Base Coronado – all firsts for the sport.<\/p>\n Kennedy began his racing career in 2009 in a four-horsepower quarter midget and most recently raced in the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series with Richard Childress RAcing and GMS Racing. Kennedy\u2019s education in the sport included racing in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series from 2014-2016, earning a first victory and series playoff berth in his final 2016 go-round. The great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., Kennedy was honored as a Sports Business Journal \u201c40 Under 40\u201d in 2023 and was inducted into the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame with the Award of Distinction, given for his work in bringing NASCAR to Chicago.<\/p>\n Jim France, 81, has been part of the motorsports community for nearly his entire life, growing up in the early years of stock car racing and learning about the sport from his own experiences and from those of his father. He joined International Speedway Corporation (ISC) in 1959 and has worked in all phases of operations, particularly in his youth. France joined ISC\u2019s board of directors in 1970 and was that company\u2019s secretary, assistant treasurer, vice president, chief operating officer, executive vice president, president and chairman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In addition to his professional role in stock car racing, Jim France has always been a strong supporter of both sports cars and motorcycle racing in the U.S. In 1999, France founded GRAND-AM Road Racing and in 2012 he was the driving force behind the merger of GRAND-AM and the American Le Mans Series, combining them as a single entity in 2014 as the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), which brought sports car racing back to its roots.<\/p>\n Keeping his hand in, Jim France was a starter for the U.S. Motorcycle Grand Prix in the late 1960s. He raced on dirt tracks for nearly five years and prides himself for being a member of the American Motorcyclist Association for nearly 26 years. He\u2019s raced karts on both dirt and asphalt and has served as a board member for ACCUS (Automobile Competition Committee of the United States. France retains his chairman\u2019s role and his 54 percent ownership stake in NASCAR; Les France Kennedy holds the remaining 46 percent, so NASCAR, while not headed by someone named France, remains wholly owned by the family.<\/p>\n Drivers were made known about the changes prior to the start of practice at Talladega Superspeedway, where the Cup Series has been racing this weekend. Most members of the NASCAR community don\u2019t believe the change of management will amount to wholesale adjustments –\u00a0 <\/span>at least not at first. While there were changes when Jim France took over the family\u2019s business in 2018, assuming the role after his nephew, Brian France, had personal issues resulting in a DWI arrest in New York, it was always assumed that his stay at the helm of the company would not be a long-distance event. And so it is not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am incredibly proud of the strength and stability we\u2019ve achieved across the sport, which gives me tremendous confidence in our plan to transition leadership to Steve and NASCAR\u2019s next CEO and Ben as COO,\u201d Jim France acknowledged. \u201cTogether they represent the future of the sport, and along with our world-class executive team nd race teams partners in the garage, they will guide NASCAR into its exciting new era.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASCAR is looking to its future in the sport and business of auto racing and has taken the major step of appointing Steve O\u2019Donnell as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) while elevating Ben Kennedy to Chief Operating Officer (COO).<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":105757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[772,3424,3470,5029],"tags":[3047,9992,5352,127,4437,12944,13266],"class_list":["post-105756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circle-track-racing","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","tag-ben-kennedy","tag-bill-france","tag-jim-france","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-nascar-oreilly-auto-parts-series","tag-steve-odonnell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2244358751-e1777389669917.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-rvK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105771,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105756\/revisions\/105771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2244358751-300x200.jpg\")
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