BEN KENNEDY

'I' IS FOR INNOVATE.

- John Pearley Huffman

BIG-LEAGUE STOCK-CAR RACING is being revived by a burst of creativity. From dirt covering Bristol's concrete and an oval inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the announcement of the first NASCAR street-circuit race next year in Chicago, a staggering amount of change has already occurred. New cars, new rules, and a whole new corporate structure indicate that the pace of this evolution is unlikely to slow soon.

"It's not just to say that we need to do things differently," explains Ben Kennedy, NASCAR's senior vice president of racing development and strategy [fig. 1]. "But we do need to be constantly asking ourselves whether it makes sense to continue to do things the way we have been. And in many instances it does. But maybe there's a new technology or new way to be better in certain areas."

Kennedy, 30, is the son of Lesa France Kennedy, grandson of Bill France Jr., and great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France. It's presumptuous to foresee him inevitably leading the company, but he's likely to be a big part of the racing brain trust for several decades. Though NASCAR isn't the strictly family-run business it once was, he is the fourth generation to take up its management. And increasingly, this former racer, University of Florida graduate, and occasional triathlete is the public face of NASCAR management.