July 7, 2009
By Allen Madding
As NASCAR prepares to debut its NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina and begins to contemplate the inaugural inductees, it is a prime opportunity for NASCAR to right a wrong that the sanctioning body made 46 years ago.
Wendell Oliver Scott was the first black man to compete in NASCAR in an era of racial inequality, social injustice, and hate. He quietly endured the hate, sabotage, dirty driving on the track flamed by bigotry and racial slurs shouted at him at every event. But the biggest insult that Wendell Scott endured during his NASCAR racing career came at the hands of the sanctioning body itself.
Wendell Scott won the 1963 NASCAR Jacksonville Florida 100 finishing the event 2 laps ahead of all the other competitors in his 1962 Chevrolet. But, NASCAR feared the reaction of the crowd if they handed him the trophy and celebrated his victory. So instead, NASCAR declared second place driver Buck Baker the winner.
Several days later, NASCAR claimed there had been a “scoring error” reminiscent of the mysterious debris cautions of the last few years.
In a private, quiet, small meeting a month later with the noticeable absence of the press, NASCAR gave Scott a pathetic excuse of a trophy for the win which was a crude construction of wood covered with some varnish. The “trophy” the sanctioning body presented Scott had no brass plate, no driver’s name, and no name of the event he had won. The trophy was a reminder of the rewards of a black man competing in a white man’s sport. Buck Baker had the real trophy from the event which he has retained.
"Everybody in the place knew I had won the race," Scott would recall later, "but the promoters and NASCAR officials didn't want me out there kissing any beauty queens or accepting any awards."
NASCAR has in recent years launched their “Drive for Diversity” to try to erase the stigma that NASCAR was an all white sport. But even the “Drive for Diversity” program has failed to deliver.
Joe Henderson Jr.‘s son, Joe III, was under contract to MB2 Motorsports from 2005 to 2006 as a part of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program. Henderson in an interview regarding the experience that his son had in the program said the program was a sham. He described poor equipment being provided in 2005 and that a car was not even provided in 2006.
Drivers participating in the program received much of the same treatment that Wendell Scott received in the 1960s. Witnesses reported that Marc Davis, then a 16-year-old driver participating in the Drive for Diversity encountered blatant racism at Hickory Motor Speedway in Newton, N.C., where more than 100 fans crowded a fence next to the track to yell racial epithets.
If NASCAR wants to make a public statement that it embraces racial diversity in the sport, it could make huge inroads by righting the injustice of the past that the sanctioning body played a hand. Wendell Oliver Scott should be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame as a member of the inaugural class, and NASCAR should present the Scott family with an exact copy of the trophy for the 1963 Jacksonville Florida 100 with the date and Wendell Scott’s name engraved on it.
It has been 46 years. It is time to finally correct this injustice.
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