If you were asked to talk about LGBT-friendly sports, NASCAR might not be the first to come to mind. The stereotypical NASCAR fan is, after all, conservative, Christian, and straight. But rest assured, there are thousands of LGBT NASCAR fans across the U.S. and around the world.

And that may be one reason that NASCAR chair Brian France has expressed the organization’s opposition to North Carolina’s hateful, homophobic HB2.

“We take the position that any discrimination, unintended or not, we do not like that and we are working behind the scenes, and we are not a political institution,” France said. “We don’t set agendas or write laws but we express our values to policy makers. We will and we do. We are real clear about that.”

On the one hand, France’s statement isn’t especially surprising. Last year, NASCAR slammed Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was criticized for many of the same reasons as North Carolina’s HB2.

On the other hand, given NASCAR’s rainbow-flag-ish logo, the statement could have been a lot more forceful — perhaps as forceful as France’s endorsement of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. It could also have come much sooner and in the form of an official statement from the organization, not as an unplanned remark to a bunch of reporters.

In fact, the Associated Press published a pretty rough takedown of France’s softball approach to HB2 on Friday. Is it too harsh? Not harsh enough? We’ll let you decide.

[h/t John Voelcker]