The fan sentiment against Steve O’Donnell and Steve Phelps reached a breaking point after the antitrust case earlier this year. Various texts were unearthed, Phelps resigned, and the distance between NASCAR leadership and its fans was greater than ever. However, Mike Helton wants to bridge that gap.

Mike Helton candidly assesses the current NASCAR leadership

One of the most beloved and legendary figures in the history of NASCAR leadership, Helton recently appeared on Kevin Harvick’s podcast. The current Vice Chairman of NASCAR spoke about a variety of subjects, one of which was his views on the current leadership of the sport.

It’s worth mentioning that after Phelps’ resignation, Steve O’Donnell took over the position to become the President of NASCAR. Other notable executives include Ben Kennedy, the Executive Vice President and Chief Venue & Racing Innovations Officer, and Elton Sawyer, Senior Vice President of Competition. Despite all the recent controversy surrounding the leadership of NASCAR, Mike Helton believes that the reign of the sport is in great hands with this group.

“I would tell you that that in my 40-year career with the France family, 80-year history of this sport, I think personally the leadership for the next 15-20 years with through Steve O’Donnell, Ben Kennedy, the support that they have from other really qualified individuals, all of them working side by side with each other to do the right thing for the right reasons. I think today’s leadership in NASCAR is as good as it’s ever been,” Helton claimed.

He mentioned that he is ‘the luckiest fan’ in all of NASCAR because of the nature of his work. Helton extended the same for O’Donnell, Kennedy, and others, despite the difficulties.

“That’s priceless for a company that has all the different stakeholders and personalities and characters that it needs to be the government of, and it’s not easy,” Helton claimed.

With the new changes being introduced, the NASCAR leadership group aims at focusing their attention on the essentials and giving the fans the best viewing experience.

Steve O’Donnell wants to focus on the essentials from now on

In the past few years, NASCAR remained bullish on the controversial playoff format despite fans’ and insiders’ criticism of it. But for this season, they changed the format to the Chase format.

This one instance encapsulates what Steve O’Donnell envisions would be the approach and case for the future of the sport. He claimed in an interview with SBJ that in the past few years, NASCAR tried to follow suit with other sports and betrayed hardcore fans in pursuit of a new fan group.

But now, NASCAR would make decisions in favor of retaining the old fans now that they’ve put everything behind them, including the COVID hit, the antitrust lawsuit, and the outcry from fans. “Now what you’re seeing us do is … yes, we can introduce the sport to new fans, but here’s how we got here. We had a difficult 18 months. We came out of that in a good place … the opportunity now is we’re going into this season really with no contractual obligations out in front of us, no lawsuits, no COVID. We can just talk about how cool NASCAR racing is,” O’Donnell said.

It’s worth mentioning that O’Donnell has previously spoken about the importance and intentions of a ‘reset’ for the sport.

With that said, it’ll be interesting to see how NASCAR fares in the coming years under the current set of leadership. Do you think it could thrive with O’Donnell at the helm?

Let us know in the comments below.