France, terminally ill at the time, was the president of NASCAR, the stock car racing series his iron-fisted father founded in 1948. Helton was the first non-family member at the time to rise to series president and was very much in the inner circle of the France family.
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The duo represented the top of NASCAR and Hendrick was his team’s biggest owner.
France had a question:
“Are you OK?” France asked the grieving Hendrick, who had lost his namesake son, brother and twin nieces in the accident.
“And I said, ‘I’ll be fine,’” Hendrick recalled during an interview with The Associated Press. “And he said, ‘Anything you need, anything we can do, I just came here to tell you that we’re here to help you.’ And he turned around and went home.”
A different image of NASCAR
That’s the story Hendrick decided to tell when asked if there was a counter-narrative to the France family image that emerged during December’s federal antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and current president Jim France brought by two teams, one of them owned by Michael Jordan.
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The lawsuit took its toll on the family, which settled the case after eight days of testimony that portrayed them as money-grabbing dictators who enriched themselves while their teams bled money.
“I felt bad for all of them,” said Brian France, grandson of founder Bill France Sr., who spent 15 years as president before stepping down in 2018. “A lot of what happened is the nature of lawsuits; lawsuits are never pretty. But for over 75 years, someone has had to balance what’s good for everyone, for all the stakeholders and certainly for the fans. Our record in doing that, while not perfect, is that we’ve actually done an incredible job.”
The negative image of the France family presented at trial stands in stark contrast to the personal experiences of many in the motorsports industry, including Michael Shank, who launched a winning racing program by mortgaging his home to get a start in the French-owned IMSA sports car series.
Shank told the AP that Jim France personally backed his loan, helping Meyer Shank Racing get off the ground.
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“These are good people who care about the industry and built it on their backs, and it made me angry to see how it went wrong,” said Shank, who now fields cars in several series and won the 2021 Indianapolis 500.
Hendrick called the entire dispute avoidable and said he believes the case would never have come to court under Bill France Jr. or Brian France. Before the settlement, he was set to testify on behalf of NASCAR, although he told the AP he was prepared to note how often NASCAR’s winningest team has been punished by the series.
“When I went private, I made the decision to stay private because I didn’t want the pressure of a board of directors or shareholders telling me how to run my company,” Hendrick said. “And I say that because the Frances sacrificed. They built it and made a lot of drivers very rich.”
“They built a great business. They gave a lot of people the opportunity to be racers and make a living doing it. They’re good people and what they stood for, greed, I feel like they got cheated.”
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The lawsuit got ugly quickly
At 81 and 11 years younger than his brother, the soft-spoken Jim France is the only surviving son of the NASCAR founder.
The lawsuit was largely based on the valuable bylaws that each team needs to survive financially in NASCAR, as they provide guaranteed access to racing and therefore a stable stream of income. The teams wanted them to be permanent, not subject to cancellation by the series, but France held firm and negotiations went nowhere for two years.
In late 2024, it gave the 15 charter-holding organizations a 112-page take-it-or-leave-it offer, with a tight deadline to sign. According to testimony, that night he went to bed ready to move forward with the person he had signed when he woke up.
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Jordan refused and sued on behalf of the 23XI Racing team he co-owns. He was joined by Bob Jenkins, a fast food franchisor willing to risk the future of Front Row Motorsports to fight for better terms. The mediation failed and the parties ended up in court, and the details were not flattering.
Testimony showed the French family trust received more than $400 million between 2021 and 2024, as teams begged for financial help. Evidence also showed that Steve Phelps, NASCAR’s first commissioner, sent text messages during negotiations calling Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress a “stupid redneck.”
Phelps really wanted more for the teams, the evidence showed, but ultimately had to align with Jim France’s wishes. Phelps left the company at the beginning of the year.
The France family relented on the ninth day of the trial and accepted a settlement that made the statutes permanent: the terms would be renegotiated with each new media rights deal. Evergreen status alone doubled the value of a charter overnight from $45 million (the price of the last one sold in 2025) to nearly $100 million. There are 36 cards for 40 spots on the field in each race.
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From his place on the bench, Brian France cried for his family during the trial.
Jim France is his uncle and was forced to leave his preferred behind-the-scenes roles at the company to replace his nephew as president following Brian’s 2018 arrest for drunk driving. Lesa France Kennedy is Brian’s sister. A Duke graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics, she is executive vice president of NASCAR, but prefers her role to run family-owned racetracks and focus on the fan experience.
His son, Ben Kennedy, is the heir apparent. He is 34 years old and working his way to the top. According to Family Business Consulting Group, less than 5% of family businesses make it to the fourth generation, but NASCAR emerged from the lawsuit intact and in position to become an outlier and give Ben Kennedy his chance.
Ben Kennedy, who works primarily in operations and competition, is the only member of the family who conducts routine interviews. Jim France and Lesa France Kennedy typically do not speak to the media.
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“One of the challenges you have now with the family is that they’re not self-promoters. Jim certainly isn’t, and Lesa isn’t either, unlike me, where I would be more promoting broader, different things,” Brian France said. “They really don’t like that and don’t feel the need. I don’t blame them for having to defend themselves with some of the things that were circulated in that lawsuit that were completely inaccurate or certainly out of context.”
The consequences of the lawsuit
When 23XI and Front Row signed the new charter agreement, the case was officially dismissed last week as the series prepares for the season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday. A sport that fractured during negotiations and lawsuits now appears united again and ready to focus squarely on racing.
Gary Nelson, who won a Cup championship as Bobby Allison’s crew chief, acknowledged having negative thoughts about NASCAR when he worked in the garage. He later took a leadership role in the competing company and today is general manager of Action Express.
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To this day he rides motorcycles with Jim France, and yet Action Express was the first car punished this season by failing inspection after winning the pole for the 24 Hours of Daytona. The car started last in its class and recovered to finish second; He arguably would have won the most prestigious sports car race in North America if the inspectors employed by NASCAR had let the car through.
“NASCAR has always had an us-versus-them feeling, but when I started working for them, one of the main things the family made clear to me was, ‘You have to treat everyone equally and fairly,'” Nelson said. “It is not a charity. You have to work hard to achieve it, and we have seen many people accumulate enormous wealth, millionaires created many, many, many times by the France family.
“And the Jim France I know has helped so many people without any desire for recognition. The way the lawsuit portrayed them is simply not the people I know.”
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AP Auto Racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing