This isn’t your father’s NASCAR. It’s definitely not Tia Norfleet’s father’s NASCAR, and her father actually drove NASCAR circuits.
Norfleet is 23, female and African American. Some time this season, she hopes to become the first to start a NASCAR race, and she knows exactly what that will mean. She’s working toward this not just because she’s loved to drive fast ever since she was 5 years old, but because she wants to open the door to the sport that huge segments of Americans are convinced is not for them, never was and never will be.
Tia Norfleet, one of four children, grew up in Suffolk, Va. -- the Hampton Roads area, a certifiable NASCAR hotbed. (Facebook photo) JIM BROWN TO JACKIE ROBINSON: Top 10 game-changers in sports history
“That’s one of the things I want to change,” Norfleet said recently from Augusta, Ga., where she continues to practice and prepare for her still-undetermined qualifying attempt. “We want to bring a different light to NASCAR. You ask the average person, black, what NASCAR is, and they say, ‘You drive around in a circle, and that’s it — so what?’
“Well,” she continued, “they don’t see anyone there they recognize, or that they can identify with.”
When Norfleet says “we” want to change that, she mainly means her father, Bobby, who drove in the 1990s, and was a teammate and friend of then-Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki. Bobby Norfleet was mentored by racing pioneer Wendell Scott. Norfleet brought sponsors into the sport like FUBU, Sean John, So So Def Records and boxing champion Roy Jones Jr.
Norfleet doesn’t pretend that in his day it wasn’t daunting to be the lone black driver in a sport that not only was all white, but also rooted in the Deep South and was accompanied by all the expected baggage, such as the omnipresent symbol that even NASCAR people are leery of still seeing: Confederate flags in the stands. He also knew first-hand of the cruel treatment Scott received when he was breaking the color barrier in the 1960s.
For him, though, “I wasn’t really conscious of it. Everybody else was, (but) I tried to keep it as low-key as possible. I did what I’ve been telling Tia — you want them to recognize you for your driving.” Not as “the black driver” because Norfleet said, “others put that label on me.”
Tia Norfleet, one of four children, grew up in Suffolk, Va. — the Hampton Roads area, a certifiable NASCAR hotbed — loving her father’s life of speed, and he loved indulging her. At 5, she had a little drive-it-yourself Barbie car, like most little girls. But Bobby put two real car batteries in it, and, she said, “I wore the tires off of it.” As she got older (relatively speaking — she was 9), Bobby let her drive the actual family car on the streets.
“Her mom would want to kill me,” Bobby said, “but I’d prop her up on the driver’s seat and let her get out on the highway.”
Certainly every driver in every circuit in the world probably has a story like that. And one like this: Tia decided to get serious about the sport at 14, raced go-karts, then drag-raced, then started winning on short tracks, leading up to her attempts to get on the circuit today.
The best part about their story? NASCAR and the racing hierarchy couldn’t be happier, and by all indications, it’s not an act. The elder Norfleet even attests to that. “It’s not the 1950s and 1960s NASCAR anymore. In the last five to seven years, they’ve made a lot of strides for inclusion. It’s a work in progress.”
NASCAR has a “Drive for Diversity” program that actively recruits and encourages minority and female drivers and promotes them to fans. African American drivers are emerging through the ranks — veteran Bill Lester won a Grand Am series race last week in Virginia, and Michael Cherry, just 22, is on the developmental K&N circuit and has been part of Drive for Diversity since 2008.
A huge boost has come from media and entertainment mogul Max Siegel, who started a team, Revolution Racing. He was the executive producer of the Wendell Scott docudrama that aired on ESPN the night of the Daytona 500, and pulled off the seemingly-impossible feat of getting NASCAR onto BET, with last year’s “Changing Lanes” reality series.
In addition, the famed South Boston Speedway in southwestern Virginia (where, among other luminaries, Scott regularly raced) recently invited Norfleet to run there the first chance she got. The track’s general manager is Cathy Rice, who has been involved in the sport since 1972.
“I can remember when females were not allowed in the pit garage,” Rice said in an email, “and now you are seeing more and more of the sport being family-surrounded, which is a wonderful thing. I speak very highly of NASCAR and I would love to see Tia make a name in NASCAR one day.”
Yet, the job is far from done. In the middle of that whole culture shift came a $225 million federal sexual and racial discrimination and harassment lawsuit, filed in 2008 by former NASCAR official Mauricia Grant. It was settled late that year for an undisclosed amount, but not before she named names and alleged a long list of insults, slurs and abusive behavior during her two years working for NASCAR.
If Tia Norfleet has ever encountered that side of the culture, she doesn’t admit to it. She’s seen more of the other side. “I’ve had women and little girls email me and post messages on my Facebook page, telling me how I’ve inspired them and motivated them and that they want to do what I’m doing,” she said. “I said, ‘Really, small little me, and I’ve inspired someone to do something?'
“I try to tell them you can do it, no matter where you grew up, no matter how you grew up.”
As for her own demographic, young and African-American, the one that didn’t know why anyone would watch people driving in a circle?
“Now they say, ‘I wanna see that race; hey, can I get involved in that?’” she said.
Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nascar/story/2011-05-22/as-young-black-female-tia-norfleet-aims-to-change-nascar#ixzz1NGWl8ayL
Norfleet is 23, female and African American. Some time this season, she hopes to become the first to start a NASCAR race, and she knows exactly what that will mean. She’s working toward this not just because she’s loved to drive fast ever since she was 5 years old, but because she wants to open the door to the sport that huge segments of Americans are convinced is not for them, never was and never will be.
Tia Norfleet, one of four children, grew up in Suffolk, Va. -- the Hampton Roads area, a certifiable NASCAR hotbed. (Facebook photo) “That’s one of the things I want to change,” Norfleet said recently from Augusta, Ga., where she continues to practice and prepare for her still-undetermined qualifying attempt. “We want to bring a different light to NASCAR. You ask the average person, black, what NASCAR is, and they say, ‘You drive around in a circle, and that’s it — so what?’
“Well,” she continued, “they don’t see anyone there they recognize, or that they can identify with.”
When Norfleet says “we” want to change that, she mainly means her father, Bobby, who drove in the 1990s, and was a teammate and friend of then-Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki. Bobby Norfleet was mentored by racing pioneer Wendell Scott. Norfleet brought sponsors into the sport like FUBU, Sean John, So So Def Records and boxing champion Roy Jones Jr.
Norfleet doesn’t pretend that in his day it wasn’t daunting to be the lone black driver in a sport that not only was all white, but also rooted in the Deep South and was accompanied by all the expected baggage, such as the omnipresent symbol that even NASCAR people are leery of still seeing: Confederate flags in the stands. He also knew first-hand of the cruel treatment Scott received when he was breaking the color barrier in the 1960s.
For him, though, “I wasn’t really conscious of it. Everybody else was, (but) I tried to keep it as low-key as possible. I did what I’ve been telling Tia — you want them to recognize you for your driving.” Not as “the black driver” because Norfleet said, “others put that label on me.”
Tia Norfleet, one of four children, grew up in Suffolk, Va. — the Hampton Roads area, a certifiable NASCAR hotbed — loving her father’s life of speed, and he loved indulging her. At 5, she had a little drive-it-yourself Barbie car, like most little girls. But Bobby put two real car batteries in it, and, she said, “I wore the tires off of it.” As she got older (relatively speaking — she was 9), Bobby let her drive the actual family car on the streets.
“Her mom would want to kill me,” Bobby said, “but I’d prop her up on the driver’s seat and let her get out on the highway.”
Certainly every driver in every circuit in the world probably has a story like that. And one like this: Tia decided to get serious about the sport at 14, raced go-karts, then drag-raced, then started winning on short tracks, leading up to her attempts to get on the circuit today.
The best part about their story? NASCAR and the racing hierarchy couldn’t be happier, and by all indications, it’s not an act. The elder Norfleet even attests to that. “It’s not the 1950s and 1960s NASCAR anymore. In the last five to seven years, they’ve made a lot of strides for inclusion. It’s a work in progress.”
NASCAR has a “Drive for Diversity” program that actively recruits and encourages minority and female drivers and promotes them to fans. African American drivers are emerging through the ranks — veteran Bill Lester won a Grand Am series race last week in Virginia, and Michael Cherry, just 22, is on the developmental K&N circuit and has been part of Drive for Diversity since 2008.
A huge boost has come from media and entertainment mogul Max Siegel, who started a team, Revolution Racing. He was the executive producer of the Wendell Scott docudrama that aired on ESPN the night of the Daytona 500, and pulled off the seemingly-impossible feat of getting NASCAR onto BET, with last year’s “Changing Lanes” reality series.
In addition, the famed South Boston Speedway in southwestern Virginia (where, among other luminaries, Scott regularly raced) recently invited Norfleet to run there the first chance she got. The track’s general manager is Cathy Rice, who has been involved in the sport since 1972.
“I can remember when females were not allowed in the pit garage,” Rice said in an email, “and now you are seeing more and more of the sport being family-surrounded, which is a wonderful thing. I speak very highly of NASCAR and I would love to see Tia make a name in NASCAR one day.”
Yet, the job is far from done. In the middle of that whole culture shift came a $225 million federal sexual and racial discrimination and harassment lawsuit, filed in 2008 by former NASCAR official Mauricia Grant. It was settled late that year for an undisclosed amount, but not before she named names and alleged a long list of insults, slurs and abusive behavior during her two years working for NASCAR.
If Tia Norfleet has ever encountered that side of the culture, she doesn’t admit to it. She’s seen more of the other side. “I’ve had women and little girls email me and post messages on my Facebook page, telling me how I’ve inspired them and motivated them and that they want to do what I’m doing,” she said. “I said, ‘Really, small little me, and I’ve inspired someone to do something?'
“I try to tell them you can do it, no matter where you grew up, no matter how you grew up.”
As for her own demographic, young and African-American, the one that didn’t know why anyone would watch people driving in a circle?
“Now they say, ‘I wanna see that race; hey, can I get involved in that?’” she said.
Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nascar/story/2011-05-22/as-young-black-female-tia-norfleet-aims-to-change-nascar#ixzz1NGWl8ayL
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