Saturday, September 06, 2008
NASCAR pushes drive-for-diversity into overdrive: this weekend it’s Marc Davis, in a Chevy-Toyota!
Marc Davis, NASCAR’ newest star diversity driver, making his Truck tour debut at St. Louis’ Gateway Saturday (Photo by Brian Cleary/Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
RICHMOND, Va.
NASCAR’s search for its own Lewis Hamilton continues wide-open, its Tiger Wood, its Michael Jordan, its Danica Patrick, its Ashley Force. And this weekend it’s Marc Davis’ moment in the spotlight, the man at the plate looking to hit a long ball.
This vast, wide-ranging NASCAR marketing machine is – if you can find time just to stand still for a moment and watch it work – is like some marvelous perpetual motion machine…or maybe a roulette wheel with so many of those little ivory balls that something is always hitting.
NASCAR is not just Sunday afternoon racing in circles. It’s a spider-web of businesses and opportunities, with, yes, a high-profile for three or four or five hours on-the-track each week, but with much, much more.
NASCAR execs are always making something happen, or trying to make something happen. Maybe something good, maybe something so-so, maybe something ‘Ugh,’ like this car-of-tomorrow.
But there is always something going on….and sometimes even bizarre: Take Marc Davis this weekend, for example.
“This is a big day for me….I have been preparing for it all my life—a chance to race in NASCAR on a national level,” the 18-year-old racer says.
Not here in Richmond, though, but out there in St. Louis.
Davis is only the newest diversity project in the Joe/J.D. Gibbs camp. The Gibbs have been NASCAR’s leaders in the diversity game for many years now, while most of their Sprint Cup rivals have only toyed with the program.
Marc Davis, one of NASCAR’s so-patient drive-for-diversity racers, patiently waits to qualify in Saturday’s Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis. It was Davis’ Truck series debut, in Randy Moss’ Chevy. (Photo Credit: Ronda Greer/NASCAR)
Davis qualified 12th and finished 16th, on the lead lap: “It’s definitely a big accomplishment, and a relief. We had never really been in the Trucks before, never been to Gateway before. Gateway was a really tough track. And the Trucks were a whole lot different.
“Learned a whole lot. Initially our lap times were all right, but really couldn’t hang with the people, couldn’t really hang with the other cars in traffic. But then the car started coming in, and I was able to run people down.
“We were really good on long runs, but I got schooled on the restarts. It definitely gives us something to go back and learn on—and be a little more aggressive on the restarts.”
Marc Davis, NASCAR’s newest diversity driver, at 18: the next Joey Logano? (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images for NASCAR)
And, on a different level, up in Philadelphia, depending on the weather, the NASCAR-backed Urban Youth Racing School is to hold its annual kart Grand Prix in the center city this weekend, with some two dozen inner-city youths, 13-19. The school, 10 years running now, is an intriguing inner-city project.
To keep up with things in this sport better not be wearing soggy old running shoes….
This sport rarely sits idle, except for a few weeks around Christmas, between the early December banquet in New York City and early January Daytona 500 testing.
So while Saturday here was a rare day off for the sport, with tropical storm Hanna swirling through Richmond International Raceway and stock car teams briefly idled, it was likely the calm before the storm, because Sunday’s 400 here could well be one of the wildest events of the season.
This track itself is fast and exciting, which is why NASCAR execs have been trying to build copies in New York City and Seattle of this design, created 20 years ago by legendary promoter Paul Sawyer. And all but one of the playoff spots have been filled, so those 11 guys can play it fast and loose, and the three going for that last spot – Clint Bowyer, David Ragan and Kasey Kahne – can’t afford to play it conservatively.
Chrissy Wallace makes St. Louis’ Truck race a NASCAR diversity hit (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
But while NASCAR men here spent Saturday bowling in the rain and waiting for the fireworks to begin, out in St. Louis NASCAR marketers were busy promoting Marc Davis’ Truck tour debut in Saturday afternoon’s Truck tour event at Gateway – Davis, the just-turned-18 African-American racer who could be this sport’s next ‘Joey Logano.’
Davis, who two years ago became the second black racer to win at venerable Hickory Speedway, in the Late Model stage of his slow climb up the NASCAR ladder, is, like Logano, in the Toyota camp, part of Joe and J. D. Gibbs’ long-running diversity program, kicked off several years ago by the late Reggie White. On the quarterpanel of his Truck this weekend: Howard University’s WHUR 96.3 Radio. NASCAR marketing at its finest.
Here’s the kicker: Toyota’s Davis this weekend is running a factory-backed Chevy Silverado…for a team now owned by Randy Moss, the New England Patriots’ wide receiver whose new NASCAR operation is a GM-backed venture. (So those doom-and-gloomers wondering what struggling Detroit may think about its massive investment in NASCAR racing can put this in their pipes and smoke it.)
Indeed, considering the constant bickering between Toyota and General Motors racing men this season over engines and such, and not at a very low decibel level either, it is rather remarkable that the two rivals have managed to pull together to get Davis in this historic start – he’ll be the first black racer this season to run in one of NASCAR’s three national touring series.
Davis’ next step is still unsettled, though he could well be back in Randy Moss’ Truck this week at Loudon, N.H., a no-brainer considering that track is less than 90 minutes from the Patriots’ Gillette Stadium (though Moss will be in New York City next Sunday).
Davis has been in the Gibbs’ diversity farm system for several years now, and there have been not-so-kind comparisons between Logano’s faster track and Davis’. Now Davis gets a chance to show that he should be on a faster track.
Perhaps NASCAR’s best boot-strapper has been Aric Almirola, whose father was born in Cuba and fled Castro, has made it to NASCAR’s Cup series, as one of its promising diversity stars, with Chevrolet’s Dale Earnhardt Inc. Almirola ironically also comes out of the Gibbs’ diversity program. Where Almirola winds up next season is still unclear, but DEI wants him running Cup full-time, if there’s sponsorship. This season Almirola has been sharing a ride with Mark Martin (who starts 17th in the 400).
Davis wants to follow suit.
And then so does Chrissy Wallace, yet another NASCAR diversity driver in the St. Louis field. She’s the daughter of veteran NASCAR racer Mike Wallace.
Do you have what it takes to make it in NASCAR? Each fall NASCAR holds a major two-day test at South Boston Speedway, for ‘scholarships’ (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Malcolm Calhoun helps runs the Montgomery, Ala., company that has been working hard behind the scenes on NASCAR’s diversity program for more than five years now, as an agency, recruiting talent and making things happen.
Calhoun’s next big thing is NASCAR’s annual mid-October driver shootout at South Boston Speedway – billed as ‘American Idol on Wheels,’ with 24 promising drivers getting two days of testing, with the promise of eight NASCAR one-year ‘scholarships’ on the one. Eight get a ride, 16 go home. Gentlemen, start your stop-watches.
But Calhoun’s NASCAR projects are much more widespread: “We have a crewmember program, working with race teams, helping minorities find jobs, help them with training, getting them up to speed.
“And we work with the drivers and crewmembers off the track too, spending time to get to know them…and if it’s a good fit, we try to match them up with teams.”
With so much focus on drivers, it’s sometimes easy to forget there are more people in the trenches than at the wheel, Calhoun says.
“And Tiger Wood and Michael Jordan, you just don’t find them popping up every year, and it takes time for a driver to develop,” he says.
“Marc Davis is a great example. He has grown tremendous from when he first came in the program to where he is now. He’s done extremely well in the Camping World series (two years now), and his next step is in the Trucks series and ARCA.”
Calhoun is not just a talent scout, but he’s a match-maker and sponsor-hunter…and in a sense sometimes a ‘dorm mother,’ baby-sitting newcomers who might not understand all the nuances – up and down—of this sports-business. This season’s ‘scholarship’ drivers include Kristin Bumbera, Michael Cherry, Mike Gallegos, Katie Hagar, Paul Harraka, Jesus Hernandez, Lindsey King, Lloyd Mack and Jonathan Smith.
“It is interesting at times,” Calhoun says with a laugh. “But the group of kids we have right now are just a great group of kids. Jesus Hernandez, for example, is doing extremely well; he’s really just down to earth. And Jonathan Smith….just a class act…
“We are just very fortunately to have good kids to work with.”
Of course that’s part of the trick, not just finding talent but finding user-friendly talent, people who can work well with others, and present a good corporate image. Tim Richmond and Dale Earnhardt Sr. might not have made the cut.
The Wallaces, Mike and daughter Chrissy (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
And Calhoun also works at finding sponsors to pair with these projects….which is not the easiest thing to do, considering the costs involved and how much ‘now’ that companies demand, with such little patience.
“It is extremely tough, with the economic climate the way it is,” Calhoun says. “But you do the best you can….and have a little faith.
“And we have a lot to offer.”
Because NASCAR has a lot of synergies to work, a lot of companies, and sports, to piggy-back with.
So, despite their seeming intransigence on any changes for the still controversial car-of-tomorrow (or maybe it’s the CORN, car-of-right-now), NASCAR execs certainly aren’t sitting idle just watching things swirl around them.
No, the people running this sport, while they might not be making all great decisions or moves, are indeed trying to make things happen.
And sometimes it can be dizzying simply trying to keep up with NASCAR’s next marketing play.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at . And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/
Darrell Waltrip (L) chats it up with two of NASCAR’s newest hotshots, Joey Logano (C) and Marc Davis (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
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