Keep Your Foot on the Gas | Can America Learn From NASCAR?

U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Chance Babin

Explaining NASCAR to the uninitiated is a difficult task. The name conjures images of mulleted rednecks drinking beers, fighting, and making out with their cousins. The hater will say NASCAR is too conservative, too white, too male, too simple, too boring.

Some of that sentiment can be understood by examining our own prejudices while also acknowledging some facts. NASCAR has its roots in the South, having emerged from moonshiners running from the fuzz. Its drivers and fans are largely white males. Many drivers speak with an accent and say things like “we run good.”

To assume a Southern sport is backwards is its own kind of bias. Bias NASCAR is actively trying to combat.

Despite considerable progress, the sport’s warts have entered our national consciousness of late. First with the public banning of the Confederate battle jack necessitated by the flag’s ubiquitous presence at events. Then with an ugly, as-yet-unresolved racist act against its lone black driver Bubba Wallace .

Much of NASCAR’s reputation is based on stereotypes of the South. Its history is intertwined with that of the region. Other sports have worse contemporary problems yet NASCAR as a league bears the brunt of popular criticism when it comes to race.

Shed no tears for Dixie during this zeitgeist but it is worth noting the discrepancy in standards as we look for ways to understand systemic racism. Wherever prejudice is possible it needs to be illuminated.

The NFL blackballed a high-level player because he dared protest police brutality against people of color. Several of its coaches, owners, and players have and continue to take openly racist stands.

Atlanta Motor Speedway Circa 2011

Photo by Jason Earle

There is less of a conversation around the racism of the NFL, NBA, and MLB. NASCAR is an easier target. To have the broader discussion, we must acknowledge race as an enormous challenge all over the world, not just the American South. Thankfully, America is beginning to reckon with that reality in a more meaningful way.

NASCAR should not be let off the hook. A noose was found in a black competitor’s garage. Driver Kyle Larson was recently fired for using the n-word during a virtual competition. The league has a long way to go before it can be seen as a model for progress.

NASCAR can be viewed as an example of how change is a slow and messy process. There will be a breaking point. Perhaps this is it. Maybe now we wrestle with the heavy questions and work toward answers with sustained vigilance. Answers beginning with an examination of the institutions we hold dear.

Sports provide both a reflection of and escape from the real world. We are projected as fractured microcosms of society on game day. United in defense of people we have never met playing a game most of us never play. Fortified against another group of people on the other side of the arena.

America, ain’t it? Opposite sides of the arena. Each group feels like they are on the righteous side of history. Neither wants to hear a single fact from the other. If only the problem were so simple to distill.

The sticking point in this contest is the Trumpian side of the arena has no interest in facts. Sports teams led by cowards and fools stumble their way to mediocrity. Their fans will keep showing up for the hope that this year things may be different. The same is true of politics.

A noose in Bubba Wallace’s garage is the powerful tip of a terrifying iceberg. A violent obstruction lying below the view of many citizens. Its response to what happened with Bubba or what Larson did contains lessons. The fight for a more just world begins with chipping away by addressing specific incidents, but change will not stick unless the system is changed.

NASCAR represents a snapshot of America. An organization slow to reckon with its past, uncertain of its present, and anxious for its future. Hopefully we learn lessons from the sport’s slow shift. Unlike a NASCAR event, there is no finish line for equality. We must keep our foot on the gas like a driver on the back straightaway of an endless race.