But look at new technologies that would allow us to really change the sport in order to race much more quickly in the circumstance of rain.

"Evolving our actual racing particularly on intermediate tracks - how we can constantly improve on those tracks? We're looking at our 'B' and 'C' class cars -- huge interest from the manufacturers going forward in terms of being in that space and the relevancy particularly to younger buyers. We obviously want to be a part of that. We think the manufacturers obviously buy into NASCAR. We've seen that with the 2013 car bodies for the Cup cars. So how can we help them and also help ourselves and our teams by being in that space with the smaller-class cars?

"Another focus is technology, integration really throughout everything we do in competition, be it officiating, dashboards on the cars, the technology that we put in the cars. Who knows what's out there? Things change almost weekly in the technology space, so we want to be relevant there and bring in and work with current partners and new partners to really showcase NASCAR as the place to be."

Having studied abroad for six years in Egypt and traveled throughout the world, O'Donnell said his experiences helps break cultural barriers for him as he explores new locales and expands existing series outside of the United States. O'Donnell, who oversees the touring series in Mexico and Canada, has watched those programs expand as well as NASCAR-style racing taking off in Europe.

"The initiative in Europe with stock cars has been great," O'Donnell said. "It's given us a footprint with our style of racing, which has been hugely popular. We've seen their competitors come over and compete in the U.S. and vice versa. And we're sending folks over there.

"It's been a building process where we want to do it smartly. You've seen in the past we might have run an exhibition race in Japan kind of as a one- or two-off. But our goal now is we're not going to do that unless we can build a series and a stock-car culture like you've seen in Mexico and Canada. The series in France is a younger series. If we can help built it, we're going to do that.