Modern NASCAR a testament to France Jr.'s work

	While fans grew deep-seated attachments to the likes of Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Junior, it was Bill France Jr. who helped make them and other drivers household names. AP
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When Bill France Sr. founded NASCAR in 1948, he had a dream of turning a grassroots movement of stock car racing into a unified sport worth watching. By '72, he had done just that, having brought the sport from its early rough-and-tumble infancy into a regional curiosity that was gaining steam. He had accomplished more with his dream than almost anyone would have imagined.

Anyone but his son.

Bill France Jr.'s passing Monday didn't just leave the sport with a void; it left it with a hole the size of a small meteorite. While his father spent his life building what at first was an impossible dream, France Jr. made his father's aspirations look restrictive by comparison.

Over three decades as NASCAR president and then as trusted adviser to the sport, France Jr. was the person solely responsible for moving NASCAR into the forefront of American sports.

It's not often that only two people have held the leadership post of a sport in 52 years. In fact, it's unprecedented. Of the four so-called American major sports (NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB), the closest any of them come to that record is the 47 consecutive years the NFL enjoyed under the leadership of both Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue. Last I checked, though, those two men weren't related. To have a sport as big as NASCAR run by the same family -- passed down from father to son -- and to still experience the level of popularity achieved during the process may never be topped in my lifetime.

To understand the true impact of what France Jr. accomplished, you have to take a journey back to 1972. France Sr.'s passing of the NASCAR torch at the time had actually left a lot of question marks as to the sport's future. France's forceful presence in the garage area had kept drivers in line and NASCAR in check amid the creation of driver unions, rival leagues, cheating scandals and manufacturer defections.

Through Bill Sr.'s leadership, the sport had seen the building of 2.5-mile speedways at both Daytona and Talladega, a gradual transition from dirt track bullrings to asphalt ovals, and a slow but steady stream of open-wheel stars occasionally trying their hand at the sport through events like the Great American Race, the Daytona 500. At the time of the leadership transition, the sport had even taken on a title sponsor for the first time, as R.J. Reynolds tobacco agreed to sponsor the top-level series that would eventually be known as Winston Cup. Additionally, the schedule had been downsized, from the days of racing three times in a week to a mere 31 races on the schedule in '72.