Full Throttle

When Willy T. Ribbs qualified for the Indy 500, race fans figured we had seen our Jackie Robinson moment, that the barriers were down and a parade of minority participants would follow close behind. It didn’t happen that way. It hasn’t happened that way for women, either, or for other minorities-Americans of Asian or Hispanic heritage are outnumbered in top-rung American racing by foreign-born Japanese or South American racers. The dearth of blacks at the top rungs of the sport, though, attracts the most attention.

That is the introductory blurb for an AutoWeek magazine article titled: “Where Did All The Progress Go?” Being unsure how long the link will remain valid and as a hedge against this informative piece disappearing into the digital neverland, I have reproduced it (click below the fold) in its entirety, (a long but interesting read) Your also encourged to visit the AutoWeek forum and comment on this subject.

You probably didn’t notice when Miller Racing Group driver Morty Buckles drove a Dr. Pepper-sponsored Pontiac Grand Prix to win a NASCAR Late Model Weekly Series race at Coastal Plains Speedway in Jacksonville, North Carolina, in late 2001. It was just another minor race on a four tenths-mile asphalt oval, the sort of thing that draws local fans but little notice.

Except this time a few things were different. Morty Buckles is African-American, the Dr. Pepper deal was put together as part of NASCAR’s early diversity program, in which the Rev. Jesse Jackson was involved, and the Miller Group team, as it has been more often than not since the 1970s, was all black.

Buckles was the first black driver to win a NASCAR-sanctioned race since Wendell Scott’s 1963 win in a Grand National race. It was a small-time race, but it could have been-should have been-a celebratory opportunity to mark genuine progress for minority participation in motorsports. According to team co-owner Leonard Miller, though, there was a bitter edge to the events in the winner’s circle. Unlike Scott, who wasn’t even shown the checkered flag when he crossed the line, and was forced to wait until all the fans and press had left before race officials acknowledged his victory, Buckles was sent straight to the podium. But he did so, writes Miller in his autobiography, Silent Thunder, as other competitors in pit lane “waved rebel flags at us in defiance,” and a young child-perhaps seven years old-pressed his nose against the catch fence and shouted at the victors, “You people go home!”

That’s not some scene out of a PBS special about racism in the 1950s. It is right out of the 21st century you live in today. This event took place a decade after Willy T. Ribbs qualified for the Indy 500, an event of symbolic importance such that race fans figured we had seen our Jackie Robinson moment, that the barriers were down and a parade of minority participants would follow close behind. It didn’t happen that way. It hasn’t happened that way for women, either, despite the rare achievements of a Lyn St. James or Sarah Fisher, or for other minorities-Americans of Asian or Hispanic heritage are outnumbered in top-rung American racing by foreign-born Japanese or South American racers. The dearth of blacks at the top rungs of the sport, though, attracts the most attention.

Miller recognizes the progress evident between Scott’s experience and that of Buckles, but wonders, too, how such things can still happen after 40 years in the game.

“About every seven years,” Miller says, speaking to a group of racing fans at the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Novi, Michigan, northwest of Detroit, “the press notices that there aren’t blacks in racing and we get a lot of attention and a lot of promises. Then it quiets down and we disappear again.”

By that schedule, this story is a little early. The latest flurry of coverage of black racers surrounded the arrival of George Mack at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 2002 race. The 310 Racing team he drove for disintegrated in the wake of drug charges against one of the owners of the team, touted at the time as the first black-owned team at the Indy 500. True, in a sense, though Miller was there as a co-owner, with a white driver and a white co-owner, way back in 1972.

The impetus for such a story today is that the publication of Miller’s book coincides with what looks like yet another ebb for minority participation, and with the creation of an organization alleging that racist behavior by some NASCAR fans is a deterrent to minority spectators and calling for a boycott of NASCAR sponsors.

Why should we care that racing in general, and NASCAR especially, presents a mostly white face to the world? Why does it matter, we asked Miller, any more than the fact that the face of the NBA is mostly black?

“Because the NBA has a diversity program that works,” he replied. “It recognized the situation, and went out and worked on it. The NBA went to Europe and got white players, went to Asia and got players. And why? Because it knew it needed those markets-it needed a white face, an Asian face, a Hispanic face-to appeal to those fans. It couldn’t just be a black thing.

“Racing needs to step up the same way,” he says. “Look, the fan base is mostly saturated-all the whites who are interested are already watching. If you want growth, if you want to expand, you have to reach out to other fans. They’re out there-about 6 percent of NASCAR’s fan base is black right now. That’s against 11 percent of the population in this country. That’s room for growth.”

That is no new argument. It’s the same one used to advocate for increased black participation in racing in the 1970s. Where is the progress in American auto racing? Is the dearth of blacks and other minorities in auto racing’s grandstands and pit lanes-particularly in NASCAR, far and away the most dominant form of the sport in America-attributable to benign social forces, a consequence of social inequalities that leave minorities out of what is an expensive sport, or old-fashioned good ol’ boy racism and sexism? Or do all those factors contribute?

While overt racism still shows up in places, the core problem for the participants, Miller and others suggest, is that the cost of racing makes it so sponsor-dependent, and sponsors bring two narrow views to the table that work against minority participation. One is that most sponsors want to win races right out of the box, and supporting a minority driver-who perhaps didn’t start racing until young adulthood due to economic or other social impediments-might mean a few years of development and a long-term relationship before a win is posted.

The second is a “target” marketing approach, in which a potential sponsor measures the potential payback on its investment supporting a black racing driver against other means of reaching the black audience, only, rather than the way sponsors approach a deal with a white driver or team owner.

“They say, ‘Look, I’m already marketing to blacks with this program in the NBA or on an urban music scene,’” Miller says. “‘I don’t need your black race driver.’”

In his book Miller recounts how a Pep Boys official told him he wouldn’t sponsor a black driver because blacks who worked on their own cars already shopped at Pep Boys.

“He was so mean-spirited about it-so calculating, as if no one else would see his logo on the car besides black folk-that to this day, I won’t shop there. But you know, I drove by a Pep Boys one Saturday morning and he was right-urban blacks were lined up before the place opened,” Miller says. “They had to go there; that was the place to get the part to keep the car running so you could get to work.”

Except for a few title contenders, sponsors ask all racers a question that boils down to, “If you’re not going to win the first race or the championship, what else do you have to offer?” For white males, the answers are all about corporate entertainment, the value of affiliation with the sport in general, the individual’s skills as a spokesman for the sponsor. For minorities, the calculation is often narrowed, away from those still-legitimate arguments, toward a focus on reaching that one minority audience or making a “hit” with publicity attendant to “breakthroughs,” even though there are few firsts left to be achieved.

“When they think of it that way, as a way to get some good publicity in the minority press and community, sponsors go for one-race deals,” Miller says. “Lyn St. James or, now, Sarah Fisher can always find a sponsor for the Indy 500-but if you don’t participate in the whole series, you don’t do enough learning, you don’t keep your edge. That’s a problem for minorities, too. Most of the good drivers I’ve worked with over the years had the same problem-they get started, then the sponsors don’t step up, and they end up sitting out a season, or two or three. That’s a career killer in any sport.”

One example: Willy T. Ribbs ran two NASCAR Winston Cup races in 1986 before a shortage of sponsorship took him out. There hasn’t been another black driver in NASCAR’s top series since. Ribbs’ successes driving for Jack Roush in Trans-Am in the 1980s remain a high watermark for blacks in racing in America, 20 years after the association began. If “breakthroughs” have any value for those who come behind, it’s not evident in American racing.

Some would say Ribbs’ brash and boastful nature poisoned the well-that corporate America doesn’t want a loose-wheel spokesman, that the ideal would be a Tiger Woods of racing, an undeniable giant talent with the sponsor-pleasing personality. That’s often the way the search is characterized nowadays, by reference to golf’s Woods or tennis’ sisters, Serena and Venus Williams-blacks who reach the pinnacle of previously “white” sports and have a broad appeal, outside the niche market, for sponsors.

“THERE ARE ONLY THREE WAYS A minority can break through the barriers of prejudice,” claims Miller. “You can perform at a superhuman level, such that no one can ignore your ability, or you can have a white angel who champions your cause against the status quo, or you can have a community boycott to bring financial pressure to bear on the situation.

“In all the history of civil rights breakthroughs, especially in professional sports, those are the only things that have worked. Jackie Robinson performed like a superhuman and had a white angel in Branch Rickey. Forty years later, Tiger Woods is a superhuman performer, but also had advocates in the white community. That’s just how it works.”

Who is Miller to say so? His Silent Thunder, a book recounting his 40-year career as a black man in motorsports, makes clear his proclamation is the product of experience. Starting as a street rodder and then as a driver and team owner in professional drag racing, road racing and open-wheel competition, he has met all the players and heard all the debates.

In 1972 he was the first black team owner at the Indy 500; his Vanguard team had a white partner and white driver though, so that most of the press reported in 2002 that 310 Racing with driver George Mack was the first African-American-owned team at the Speedway.

Ironically, Miller himself has devoted many years and “at least $1 million of my own funds” to efforts to create an all-black racing team. Earnings from his D.C.-based business consultancy were often channeled into his racing programs. High points include the Black American Racers team that fielded Benny Scott in Formula Super Vee and Formula 5000, an entry in the first Long Beach Grand Prix of 1975 with Viceroy tobacco sponsorship. Miller, semi-retired and with his team in the hands of his son Len, now styles himself as a historian of blacks in racing.

Since publication of Silent Thunder early in 2004, Miller has been a guest speaker at such venues as the Motorsports Hall of Fame, the Watkins Glen Racing Archive and so on. He is booked to speak at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles in February, Black History Month.

His book, praised by racing insiders and friends like P.L. Newman, Mario Andretti, Janet Guthrie and Skip Barber, details both the good and bad experiences accumulated over those 40 years, always with an eye on the racial climate and what he has learned and observed about it alongside what he learned about auto racing.

Miller’s is one point of view, of course. In the months since the publication of Silent Thunder, AutoWeek has been exploring the questions of diversity in American auto racing, and it didn’t take long to find Miller has made enemies along with friends. Those who would question his version of things include both white and black critics, some of whom remember events reported in the book differently. Over the years, some have wondered at his emphasizing an all-black team in a sport that likes to think of itself as a meritocracy-winners are proven on the track. If the point is diversity, why field a team of only blacks? (Miller would reverse the question, and ask why there are any all-white teams.) Why not hire the best crew chief, the best driver, regardless of race?

Still, his is one experienced voice worth hearing, if only to help define the debate. Miller is no mere student of racing, or of race in America, but he has lived that history firsthand.

“IF I’M NOT LOOKING, NO ONE’S looking,” says Harry Turner of the quest for minority racing drivers and crew. Turner is General Motors’ director of road-racing programs, which include the Corvette ALMS and Le Mans entries, the Cadillac CTS-V in SCCA World Challenge, the Pontiac engine program for Grand-Am prototypes, and the recently announced Pontiac GTO for Grand-Am GT racing. Turner is African-American and a racing fan since childhood, though he didn’t attend a race in person until he did so in a professional capacity in 1988. “I came up poor,” he explains. “Dad worked on his own cars, out of necessity, and I guess I picked up some of the car interest there. I don’t remember not being interested; I watched all the races on TV, the Wide World of Sports from Monaco, all of it.”

Like Miller, Turner says the barriers are lowest for blacks who want to be involved in drag racing, because you can start out by tuning the same car you drive to work in and be your own crew chief and driver. Before he moved to road-racing programs, Turner was the director of the company’s drag racing activities.

Together with Alba Colon, the Puerto Rican woman who is director of GM’s Nextel Cup operations, Turner is one of the most prominent and, potentially, influential minority participants in motorsports. And he says he can’t find blacks with road-racing experience for his programs. “I don’t know of anyone right now who’s ready.

“This is the top level of the sport. I can’t just take a kid out of driving school, no matter how promising and naturally talented, and put him into a $500,000 car. That wouldn’t be responsible to my program or the drivers,” he says. Turner notes that he once tested several young black drivers with little more than driving-school experience, and while they had raw talent, one put a car in the wall. “Just to test, you take a risk of balling up an expensive car, and I have to be able to justify that. There has to be enough on the r