Calling the Confederate flag an “insensitive symbol” he personally finds offensive, NASCAR chairman Brian France said on Saturuday the motor racing organisation will be aggressive in disassociating the symbol from its events.

“We want to go as far as we can to eliminate the presence of that flag,” France told The Associated Press on Saturday. “I personally find it an offensive symbol, so there is no daylight how we feel about it, and our sensitivity to others who feel the same way.

“Obviously, we have our roots in the South, there are events in the South, it’s part of our history like it is for the country. But it needs to be just that, part of our history. It isn’t part of our future.

“We want everybody in this country to be a NASCAR fan, and you can’t do that by being insensitive in any one area.”

The flag issue was heightened last week after nine black churchgoers were slain in Charleston, South Carolina. The suspect in the case, Dylann Roof, embraced Confederate symbols before the attack, posing with the rebel battle flag. That revelation prompted a reappraisal of the role such symbols play in the South.

The flag won’t be in any official NASCAR material.

But banning it from race tracks is a much larger task for NASCAR, which began as a Southern sport, and many of its fans still embrace the flag. It flies atop campers and at camp sites at many races, as fans spend entire weekends in either the infield or surrounding areas of track property.

The size of the crowd, and NASCAR’s own acknowledgment that fans have a right to freedom of expression, would make it difficult to police the presence of the flag.

But France insisted NASCAR is exploring its options.

“That’s what we’re working on – working on how far can we go,” he said.

Brad Daugherty, the lone black team owner in NASCAR, told SiruisXM NASCAR Radio this week that seeing the Confederate flag at races “does make my skin crawl.”