NASCAR Diversity Program in gear, but black drivers are rare

The last African-American driver to win a NASCAR event was Wendell Scott in 1963.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- The only black driver to win at NASCAR's highest level never got a proper celebration in Victory Lane.
Wendell Scott beat the field in a 200-mile race in 1963, but as the story goes, NASCAR officials were worried about how the predominantly white crowd in Jacksonville might react to seeing a black man hoist the winner's trophy.
Buck Baker was declared the winner, and only after two hours of review -- with the crowd long gone -- was a "scoring error" detected and Scott declared the official winner.
"It was a night my dad said was a very good feeling, but a frustrating feeling because he couldn't get the full enjoyment from his victory," says Sybil Scott, the daughter of the late NASCAR pioneer.
Nearly four decades later, NASCAR still hasn't seen a black driver celebrate in Victory Lane, mostly because blacks remain a rarity in stock-car racing.
Popularity increasing
Two years ago, NASCAR signed a $2.8 billion TV contract. In the past decade, it has moved up alongside football, baseball and basketball as one of the nation's most popular sports.
With that growth, the lack of a black presence is no longer just a regional or cultural anomaly. It has become a costly business problem, as well.
As a result, leaders of a sport where Confederate flags still often outnumber black fans in the infield are beginning to realize the pressure to bring blacks into the fold isn't all coming from the outside. There's money to be made by attracting black participants and more black fans.
And out of a newly formed black fan base, NASCAR just might discover its first black superstar driver -- the stock car version of Tiger Woods.
"We understand it could be a win-win for everyone," says Dora Taylor of NASCAR.
In the past few years, NASCAR has stepped up its efforts to diversify a sport that was born and raised in the South, and still often seems stuck there.
Now, it's just a matter of figuring out how to keep moving forward.
Hires new director
At the start of 2002, NASCAR hired Taylor to spearhead the NASCAR Diversity Initiative. Taylor previously worked for Denny's restaurants when they were faced with a series of discrimination lawsuits.
When she came to NASCAR, she was confronted by an organization that was willing to change but didn't really know how.
"We've got a diversity program working, but this is a very difficult sport," NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. said. "You don't play it in school. If you're a good athlete, a good basketball player, the basic equipment you need is a ball. That's not the case here."
Through the years, a smattering of black drivers, owners and crewmen -- driver Willy T. Ribbs, car owners Thee Dixon, Reggie Jackson and Dennis Green, Busch series crew chief Tim Shutt -- have taken turns working in NASCAR garages or trying to own NASCAR teams, all with middling degrees of success, at best.
Currently, the only black driver participating in any of NASCAR's national-level circuits is truck driver Bill Lester.
More notable are the names of those who have tried and not succeeded: Julius Erving and Joe Washington had a Busch team, but couldn't sustain momentum, and lost their sponsor. Three years ago, Olympic track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee and her husband, Bob, announced plans to form a team, but nothing ever materialized.
Rainbow Sports, a division of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition, has worked with almost all these black wannabe owners, and with NASCAR, to try to give blacks a bigger presence in the big leagues of stock-car racing.