DriverÂ’s Seat Elusive for Black Racers
Kristian Dowling/BET Networks, via PR Newswire
Darrell Wallace Jr., 18, is scheduled to make his Nascar debut Sunday in a Nationwide Series race at Iowa Speedway.
By VIV BERNSTEIN
Published: May 19, 2012
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HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — Darrell Wallace Jr. was playing Amateur Athletic Union basketball at 8 and perhaps on a path to college ball when his father bought him a go-kart after a trip to a local track.
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Associated Press
Wendell Scott was the only black driver to win a Nascar race, in 1964.
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Darryl Graham/Associated Press
Marc Davis raced in the Nationwide Series after being signed by Joe Gibbs Racing.
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Paul Sancya/Associated Press
Bill Lester is the only black driver to start a Sprint Cup race since 1986.
“He was good right off the bat,” Darrell Wallace Sr. said. “But at 8 years old, do you think your son’s going to be the next Dale Earnhardt, or the next Joe Montana or Brett Favre?”
How about the next Wendell Scott?
Scott competed in 495 races in
Nascar’s premier series — now Sprint Cup — in the 1960s and ‘70s and was the only black driver to
win a race. Only five other blacks have started a handful of races in the 64-year history of Nascar and only one did so since 1986 — Bill Lester, who entered two Cup events in 2006.
Nearly every major American sport has black stars, including Tiger Woods, LeBron James and Serena Williams, but the top three Nascar national series have none. It is a glaring absence in a sport desperate to attract new fans and diversify its audience.
Wallace, 18, who is scheduled to
make his debut in the lower-level Nationwide Series on Sunday at Iowa Speedway, just might be the one to finally break through.
“We really feel that Darrell is a guy that has a gift behind the wheel,” said J. D. Gibbs, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing, one of the top teams in Nascar.
Gibbs has been searching for NascarÂ’s first black star for nearly a decade, beginning with a collaboration with Reggie White before he died in 2004, and signed Wallace in 2009, when he was 15.
“I think it’s a real value to this sport if you can kind of have that piece fit in,” Gibbs said. “Other sports, it kind of happens naturally. This sport’s hard because of the barriers to entry because of the cost standpoint.”
Darrell Wallace Sr., who owns an industrial cleaning business, has spent nearly $1 million to support his sonÂ’s racing. Now Gibbs has taken over. The plan is to have Wallace race in four Nationwide events this year, with the possibility of a full schedule in 2013.
Nascar officials will be among those watching closely on Sunday.
“What he potentially could do for the sport, it is an extremely important debut,” said Steve Phelps, Nascar’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.
Wallace, known to all as Bubba, qualified to start eighth among 43 drivers in the Iowa field on Sunday, one spot better than NascarÂ’s other much followed diversity driver: Danica Patrick. Even Brian France, chairman and chief executive of Nascar, is watching.
“He’s somebody with the most promising talent who is an African-American come through our diversity program,” France said Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Look, that’s a breakthrough if it materializes, and if not him, there’ll be somebody who’s going to walk in the door and be a star and it’s going to be good for us.”
Indeed, Nascar needs that breakthrough.
According to Nielsen research, the median age of Nascar fans is 51.6, older than fans of every other major sport in the United States. So Nascar has created an “industry action plan” to attract a multicultural audience, youths under 18 and the 18-to-34 demographic.
“Darrell can help us with all three,” Phelps said.
A few years ago, Marc Davis was the great black hope. He won in the lower levels of the sport and was signed by Gibbs. But Davis raced in only 10 Nationwide Series events from 2008 to ‘11. The opportunities were few and the results less than needed to prove himself.
Wallace says he knows Davis and makes no assumptions
Heres some
