Diversity, Tolerance Taken for "Grant"ed in NASCAR

It’s ironic and a bit sad that in this year when NASCAR officials so desperately wanted to return focus to the on-track action and away from off-track distractions, the Mauricia Grant story has exploded into the headlines. For those of you who might possibly have been stranded on a desert island and incommunicado for the last month, Ms. Grant is a former NASCAR Nationwide Series official who was fired and is now suing NASCAR for $225 million dollars. Grant claims she was subject to a hostile work environment and when she complained about it to her superiors, was fired.

Numerous friends and colleagues have told me this story is one I should shy away from. NASCAR officials would desperately like it to go away and there will be repercussions for those who buck the party line. But what do I care? I’ve pissed a couple careers in writing away about racing already and came out with my soul untouched. This story and its implications are the 800-pound gorilla sitting at the center of the room nobody wants to talk about.

Like a lot of you when I hear that someone is suing someone else for $225 million (to put that into perspective, that’s enough to buy every Hemi Cuda convertible Mopar built in 1971 with enough left over for a few 427 Cobras) my instant reaction is to roll my eyes. Yeah, yeah … mental anguish, personal distress, emotional brutality and all that stuff. I figure if emotional distress is worth $225 million then I am entitled to at least five mill from the producers of the Cavemen TV show for marketing a really bad situation comedy based on a Geico commercial. Granted, I never watched the show, but just knowing it existed caused me to lose sleep, gnash my teeth, lose control of my blood pressure and consider converting to the Amish faith. And anytime lawyers get involved, it seems to me that the two parties that will eventually benefit are the opposing lawyers, no matter which wins the case.

But as I read about the allegations Ms. Grant makes I felt sickened. Then I read the excellent three-piece series Tom Bowles wrote for Sports Illustrated and I got even more unnerved. For those of you who haven’t read that series, surf over there and read it right now — the rest of us will wait here for you.

OK, back now? Tom told me, and I think his articles convey, that Ms. Grant is a very believable person who is genuinely aghast and upset over what happened during her tenure with NASCAR. And that bothers the hell out of me. When it comes to people taking part in our sport, my attitude has always been the same: The door is open to anyone — be it blacks, Hispanics, women, Asians, Mennonites or any other — but there’s no free ride for anyone. If you want it, take it, and best of luck to you.

There’s been an occasional effort to address some perceived past injustice in our sport by trying to rush a black driver into Cup racing. To me that’s a recipe for disaster. Drivers, no matter what race, background or gender have to work their way up to what may be the most competitive form of racing on four wheels on this planet. Look at the recent influx of open wheel stars like Dario Franchitti or Patrick Carpentier into the Cup Series. Their lack of success to date has nothing to do with their Scottish or French-Canadian backgrounds. Both are extremely talented and accomplished racecar drivers in other series, but they were thrust prematurely into racing against the best in the business in a series alien to them.

There’s a career path to Cup racing that starts at a very early age these days, with pre-schoolers racing karts and quarter midgets, then perhaps moving on to the Legends series and finally into Late Models. The best of those racers then get a chance in the Truck or Nationwide Series and, ideally, have a few years before they dip a toe into the Cup ranks. The trick here is to get young people hooked at an early age, allowing the sacrifices required to race cars on any level to thin the herd. To have a career racing a young person is going to have to give up some dates, Friday nights hanging with his or her buddies and a lot of general free time. That’s a near universal sacrifice to achieve in any sport — be it an Olympic hopeful swimmer or a racecar driver. Some folks simply won’t accept those sacrifices. Others (like me) will eventually come to the realization that, as much as they’d love to race, they are just no damn good at it and are making fools of themselves. But for the chosen few with the talent and the determination coupled with a deep-seated passion for racing, the road to the top lays open.

Or that’s how I used to feel. Now I’m not so sure.

It worries me that an individual who has earned their stripes and paid their dues to make it to the big time is going to find themselves thrust into a hostile environment that, rather than welcome and help to nurture their emergent talents, is going to make it clear to a black man or Asian woman that they just aren’t welcome.

Everything I’ve read to date indicates that Ms. Grant had a dream and pursued it through the proper channels. She did her job and received good reviews up until the point she started complaining. Then, suddenly, she was a lousy employee. After all, we can’t have “those people” getting “uppity on us” when we let ’em in the Boys Club right? If you feel that way I don’t need you as a reader.

I mean seriously, “Nappy-headed Mo?” How stupid are these guys? Hadn’t they heard about the “Nappy Headed Hos” comments Don Imus made and how that exploded in his face? Imus is a shock jock that could hardly be counted on or expected to be politically correct, but those comments were so offensive that they nearly cost him his career. And to be frank, I resent the hell out of the fact that these Nationwide officials pulled this stunt.

See, as a long time race fan I am forced to fight reverse prejudice from those outside the sport that think all white fans of stock car racing are poorly-educated, racist rednecks. I know better; I have too many black readers. I’ve traveled to races with black friends and talked to fans from all walks of life at the track. I’ve sat down and discussed racing with them over a few beers and the only “minority” that mattered was that we as race fans were in a big secret clique that the stick and ball fans didn’t get. I was raised better than to be a racist. I cling to the faith my parents handed down to me that teaches all men and women are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I don’t hate anyone — not even Brian France — because to hate diminishes me as a person, not the person I hate.

But I’ve got to admit I have a very strong dislike for Brian France’s actions. For better or worse (and I think my stand on the matter is clear) he is the head of our sport. Given the seriousness of these allegations, I feel he should have extended an olive branch and not an iron fist. He should have at least tried to discuss the allegations with Grant and to launch an immediate and independent investigation into the charges. But that’s not Brian’s style.

Instead, he once again circled the wagons, strongly insinuating that Grant was after money and that her allegations were false. He blamed her for not making her superiors aware of her complaints earlier and through formal channels although Grant claims she made her grievances known through the proper channels of command right up to Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash. In doing so he basically blamed the victim, and that’s a strategy that has been proven very ineffective before a fair-minded juror.

France claims that Ms. Grant could have reached out to him at anytime had she chosen to do so (well, anytime except for at the track, because France so rarely attends NASCAR events). At the same time that France insinuated that Grant was a gold-digger, NASCAR placed two senior officials of the Nationwide Series on leave for allegedly exposing their male organs to Ms. Grant. So I guess the message here is, “What Grant says happened never happened, but maybe it did, and if so, we’re being proactive addressing the problem after the fact.”

It’s time for France to suck it up and admit fault. A placard on the desk of the great Harry Truman, while he served as Commander in Chief, read, “The buck stops here.” If the hostile work environment Grant alleges existed, ultimate responsibility for letting that untenable work environment continue is France’s. Was it because of indifference? Inattention? It really doesn’t matter.

In his handling of the allegations, France has once again shown himself to be the “Great Bumblini.” The racing press may be willing to sweep this one under the carpet but the mainstream attack media, folks like “60 Minutes” and “20/20” will not. Doubtless they smell blood in the water and potential Emmys for investigative reporting on the “Good Old Boy” culture of NASCAR. It ain’t going to be pretty.

But that’s Brian France’s and Mike Helton’s cross to bear. There’s not a lot I can do as a writer about this sport. All I can offer is this: Ms. Grant, I believe you are speaking the truth. As a middle-aged white male involved with the sport, I apologize to you for what you went through. For every time I listened to a racist joke in the garage area (or at a local bar) and didn’t laugh, but didn’t call out the teller of the joke, I am sorry. Moving forward I’d like to think there’s a way that all of us — black, white or Hispanic, male or female — can all chase our dreams and somehow make this great sport and this great nation the best they can be. Because as it stands written in the Book of Bruce: “Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse, is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”

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