AUTO RACING | NASCAR
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. | NASCAR stars paid respects to former chairman Bill France Jr. on Thursday in a short, simple funeral service that was far more fuss than he would have wanted.
About 2,000 people filled the Performing Arts Center at Bethune-Cookman University to say goodbye to France in a send-off for a man who loved hot dogs, fishing and, more than anything else, NASCAR.
"That's enough -- let's go. You're burning daylight," Daytona Mayor Glenn Ritchey said as he wrapped up his remarks in a service that ran less than an hour. "That's what he would probably say to us."
France, who spent 31 years running NASCAR, died Monday at his home after nearly a decade of declining health.
"He was our mentor," NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick said. "He was our leader. He was a great friend, and we're all going to miss him. He was a bear of a man, but he really had a teddy bear of a heart."
Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Ned Jarrett, and Bobby and Donnie Allison were among the retired drivers on hand, while active stars Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Dale Jarrett, Michael Waltrip and Kurt Busch joined the gathering.
Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Bill Elliott, who all raced late into Wednesday night in a charity event in Ohio, trickled in right before the start.
"Sitting there during the service, I thought about all those people who get to (race NASCAR), and it's because of him," said Edwards, who was passing out business cards and placing ads in trade magazines just five years ago in his bid to break into the sport.
France devoted his life to the family business, working at every level of the industry as he moved his way up from selling concessions and parking cars to running all of NASCAR. He replaced his father, NASCAR founder William Henry Getty France, in 1972 and pushed NASCAR beyond its small-time Southern roots into a nationwide billion-dollar conglomerate.
He was considered a benevolent dictator during his reign, and he ruled with an iron fist and a sharp tongue.
Hendrick opened his remarks by introducing himself as a a "fishing buddy of Bill France." He recalled when he and driver Geoff Bodine were summoned to Daytona Beach headquarters to meet with Richard Childress and driver Dale Earnhardt because of run-ins Bodine and Earnhardt had on the track.
France made it clear that day that the drivers would learn to get along in a meeting that was immortalized on the big screen in "Days of Thunder." Fred Thompson, the actor-politician, played a characterization of France in the movie.
"He told us 'NASCAR's been here a long time ... you're not going to mess up the show,'" Hendrick said.
