NHRA easily laps NASCAR in the race for diversity

Female and minority drivers having great success racing motorcycles and hot rods.

DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

Thursday, Sep. 11, 2008

Top Fuel driver Antron Brown during eliminations of the Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway. Bob Kozel-US PRESSWIRE

Comparing stock-car racing and drag racing is tricky. Both are about making automobiles go fast, but the respective worlds have far more differences than similarities.

“I've had people ask me, ‘Are you going to move to NASCAR?' ” Funny Car driver Ashley Force said. “To me that's like asking me if I want to go play football.”

NASCAR is practically a made-for-television event. But many believe the biggest hurdle to explosive growth for the National Hot Rod Association is that its product, interesting in person, doesn't make for particularly good live television.

But one of the biggest differences has to do with who's driving.

One major hurdle NASCAR can't seem to clear – finding a more diverse roster of competitors – is an obstacle drag racing has put a six-lane bridge across.

In 2006, J.R. Todd became the first black driver to win in the NHRA's Top Fuel class. Force, the daughter of 14-time Funny Car champion John Force, became the first woman to win in Funny Car earlier this year.

Shortly after Ashley Force's win, Melanie Troxel won in a Funny Car at Bristol to become the first woman to win in Top Fuel and Funny Car.

Brown and Hillary Will will compete for this year's Top Fuel championship in the Countdown to One that begins with this week's Carolina Nationals at zMAX Dragway @ Concord, the new drag strip at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Ashley Force is in the Funny Car countdown as well.

The division that has opened the door widest for diversity in the NHRA is Pro Stock Motorcycles.

Brown laid the foundation for his career in the sport there, and it's also where Angelle Sampey built a winning legacy that links her directly to one of the greatest names in motorsports history, Shirley Muldowney.

“I don't think anybody looks at me as a ‘girl racer' any more,” said Sampey, who in 12 years of NHRA competition has 41 national event victories and three championships. Muldowney, who won Top Fuel titles in 1977, 1980 and 1982, is the only other woman with three titles. Muldowney won 18 races.

“Everybody is used to me being here now,” Sampey said. “It took a long time to get that, but I finally did.”

The NHRA's Pro Stock Motorcycle pit area is often one of the most crowded areas in the wide-open garage, and the fans you'll see there come in all colors, genders and ages.

“We have a lot of young fans,” Sampey said. “There's a growing community of motorcycle riders. It used to be back in the day if you rode a motorcycle you were in the Hell's Angels. Now you can be a doctor or lawyer. There's a (motorcycle) rider of every style and the motorcycle class is growing every year because of that.”

Brown thinks that has a lot to do with why drag racing, in general, has proved to be more accessible to women and people of color than NASCAR.

“NASCAR is a great sport but it demands a lot of money,” Brown said. “In drag racing, you can get in your mom's grocery-getter and go out there and race all weekend. You can race on a scooter or on a sport bike and have a blast doing it. That's the difference. Kids can relate to it, it's just like a foot race from one street corner to the next.”

Brown grew up going to drag races with his father and uncle, who raced in sportsman classes around their home in New Jersey. He grew up idolizing Top Fuel drivers such as Don Garlits, Eddie Hill and Joe Amato and wanted to be like them some day. Now he looks across the ropes that surround his David Powers-owned Top Fuel car and sees himself in some of the faces – young and old, black and white – that look back.

“I see it every day I am at the track,” he said. “I see the heart and the desire, I see the determination and will on their faces. I think that makes a difference, too. They can come here and see us, touch us and slap us on the back. You can get up close and see how exciting all this is.”

Two of Ashley Force's sisters, Courtney and Brittany, are progressing through the NHRA ranks toward national competition the same way Ashley did. The NHRA has a junior dragster program as well as competition in cars of all shapes, sizes and budgets at the sportsman level – all pathways to the big time.

“There are so many more opportunities to get into drag racing,” Force said. “You don't need a multimillion dollar team. There are so many more options to get involved in as a hobby, on the weekends with your family and bringing the kids out. I think that's where you see people from all over the country be able to do that.”

Another factor, Troxel believes, is in the actual nature of the competition.

“On an oval, if people didn't want you involved it was a lot easier for them to take you out,” she said. “You can't do that in drag racing. You're in your lane.

“They can make you feel unwelcome, but they can't actually come over in a corner and bump you and you're done for the day.”

Troxel, though, says Muldowney's success helped move things along more quickly.

“Shirley won three championships before any man had won three in Top Fuel,” Troxel said. “Normally the progression is that there is a woman involved and then later maybe there's another one and then in a while a third one is a little more successful. It takes a long time.

“Shirley went boom, right through a lot of that, and said women were going to be here and win races. She was a strong; forceful woman who just said, ‘Get used to it.'

“That carried us through so many years of what it might otherwise have taken.”

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NHRA easily laps NASCAR in the race for diversity

Female and minority drivers having great success racing motorcycles and hot rods.

DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

Thursday, Sep. 11, 2008