Suit doesn't spur N.C. A&T students to rethink racing

BROOKLYN, MICH.

Joshua Lewis still aspires to obtain a job in NASCAR.

Yes, the 20-year-old in North Carolina A&T 's motorsports program has heard about this week's lawsuit that alleges racist and sexist allegations against NASCAR.

No, he won't abandon his goal. Instead the lawsuit motivates him to help change the stock-car racing series.

"I want to be one to bring about more diversity," he said.

Other classmates echoed his comments. Even Mauricia Grant, the woman who cites racial, sexual and gender discrimination in her suit against NASCAR, says she would recommend that minorities be a part of the sport.

"We have to work together to change the racist culture and, anyone who has an interest in motorsports, they should be allowed to work in that environment without having to deal with racism or sexism or racially ignorant people," Grant said this week.

She alleges that fellow series officials called her "Nappy Headed Mo," that two co-workers repeatedly used a racist epithet and that one co-worker often made references to the Ku Klux Klan. NASCAR chairman Brian France said Grant did not report the incidents to the proper officials; NASCAR is conducting an investigation into her claims.

What Grant alleges doesn't scare Johnnie Wade, who graduated from A&T's motorsports program last year.

"It does raise the awareness of who I am and what industry I want to belong in," he says.

Wade admits he has heard comments similar to what Grant alleges at race tracks and elsewhere in the racing business. He says he's " not surprised at all" about the claims.

Neither is Thurman Exum, the director of A&T's motorsports program, which provides the most comprehensive racing curriculum at a historically black college. He teaches his students about NASCAR's checkered history. Wendell Scott is the only black to win a NASCAR race. He did that in 1963, but he was not declared the winner until a few hours after the race.

"Everybody in the place knew I had won the race," a NASCAR.com story quoted Scott as saying years earlier. "But the promoters and NASCAR officials didn't want me out there kissing any beauty queens or accepting any awards."

NASCAR, an organization that is predominately white, has faced questions about racial attitudes for years. NASCAR supports a driver diversity program, has a diversity council and provides internships to minority students.

Those programs are not as visible as the sport's problems. In 1999, David Scott, a black motorcoach driver, said he was the victim of a racial prank. He said he was subjected to racial slurs from white motorcoach drivers and was confronted by one at a race track who wore a white pillowcase over his head.

Such incidents are why Exum says the need for a program like the one at N.C. A&T "to develop African-Americans to be involved in... NASCAR is even greater today than it has been."

The allegations in Grant's lawsuit raise questions of how far NASCAR has come.

"This is, in some ways, an exclamation point for those who want to think what NASCAR is," said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

Lapchick noted that if Grant's allegations are found to be true, NASCAR needs to take action.

Lapchick said he's encouraged to hear that students aren't dissuaded from a possible racing career because of this latest incident.

Dula, a motorsports major, said change will come to NASCAR.

"It's always going to be a Southern sport," he said. "But times are changing and it's going to be either... they are willing to accept changes or they go the way of the dinosaur."