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by CRAIG DIXON
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
Baseball had Jackie Robinson, boxing had Muhammad Ali and NASCAR had Wendell Scott. All were African American athletes who persevered in racially turbulent times, but Scott may be a stranger to most.
Scott was the first black NASCAR driver. Pulitzer Prize-winner and investigative journalist Brian Donovan discussed his biography on Scott, “Hard Driving,” and shed light on the hardships Scott has faced.
The Appalachian: What is “Hard Driving” about?
Brian Donovan: “Hard Driving” is the story of Wendell Scott. He
was the first black driver to break the color barrier in Southern stock
car racing. Even today, he’s the only black driver to ever win a race
on NASCAR’s top national level. He raced from 1952 up until he was
nearly killed in an accident in 1973. He was never able to get, at the
national level, the sponsorship that he needed to drive a competitive
car. He never really got to realize his dream of being able to prove
what he firmly believed, that he was as good as any other driver on the
track. The book explores how NASCAR treated him, and it’s pretty
critical of the way he was treated by the top level of NASCAR
officials. Officials and some promoters played an important part in
robbing Scott of his dream. He was racing in an era when segregation
was still hanging on in this country; the book explores that theme at
some length.
TA: He faced a lot of adversity during his career in terms of discrimination, what are some examples?
BD: Some white drivers, just a minority, but some, would
deliberately wreck him. Because of that atmosphere and his situation as
the only black man in this whole white world of NASCAR, he felt that he
couldn’t retaliate. Early on he was banned from some NASCAR tracks in
the minor leagues. Later on, Bill France [NASCAR’s founder] promised
him that he would get equal treatment, as any other NASCAR driver, but
when he got to the national level, for example, Darlington Raceway in
South Carolina, banned him for three-and-a-half years. There was no way
he could get a sponsor to support him if we was banned from the
Southern 500. Sponsoring a black driver would have involved companies
in racial controversy too, so that was one more example. At various
times he was also banned from races in Charlotte, Martinsville,
Riverside Raceway in California, and Daytona. NASCAR officials would
deliberately single him out for repeated inspections, and cause him to
miss track time. One time, Charlotte drew a record crowd by promoting
the idea that they were giving a fully-competitive car to Scott to race
in the World 600, but in fact, my research established that the car was
a fake. It was actually a car that had been rented from a very low
budget team.
TA: He spent 21 years racing amidst all of this discrimination. What compelled him to keep going?
BD: He believed from the very beginning that he had the talent
to be one of the best. He loved auto racing at a very deep level. I
used the word ‘addiction’ a couple of times in the book to describe his
relationship to racing, and to those of us who love [racing], it has a
certain addictive appeal. He never wanted to work in the mill, or in
the tobacco plant… he always wanted to be his own boss. Being a racer
at least allowed him to do that.
TA:
Scott didn’t have the financial support or the sponsorship that other
racers had. How was he able to maintain his resources and keep racing?
BD: He’d work all winter in his repair shop, fixing cars for
people. I spent a long time at the County Clerk’s office in Danville
looking up all of Scott’s many mortgages. He refinanced his house over
and over and over again, to keep racing. Basically, he worked 100 hour
weeks, being his own mechanic, his own tow truck driver. He used stuff
from the junkyard, he used hand-me-downs from some of the well-to-do
teams and that’s how he kept going.
TA: Scott had allies, some of the white racers stood up for him; what kind of relationship did he have with them?
BD: A racer named Earl Brooks raced with Scott, all the way back
into the early 50s. He was a big, tough guy from Lynchburg. He wasn’t
only a long-time friend of Scott’s, but served as his bodyguard. As the
only black man there, Scott felt that he could not get into a fight
with a white man… it just wasn’t done. Earl Brooks and a couple of
other white racing friends who didn’t mind fighting, they served as his
body guards in those early years.
TA: Why do you think Scott's legacy remains largely unsung compared to other African
American athletes?
BD: I think through most of his racing career he felt that
speaking out would ruin any chances he had of succeeding. He kept quiet
though his racing career. I think there was also a failure of the motor
sports press to really report his story; I could not find a single
story written, for example, about the fact that he was banned from
Darlington, and only got to race there after the Civil Rights Act made
that discrimination illegal. Scott also had a pretty forgiving nature,
considering what he went through. He became friends later in life with
some of the people who had really done him wrong earlier in his life.
Toward the end of his life he became a religious man and so he didn’t
set out to publicize the injustices. I sort of showed up on his
doorstep and pressed him to talk about these things; that’s basically
what happened.
TA: What is it that you hope readers will be able to take away from the experience of reading “Hard Driving?”
BD: I hope that they find an inspiring story about a man who
sacrificed tremendously for a dream, and kept on coming back after
repeated failures. Also, I think that Scott deserves recognition as a
pioneer in the civil rights era, whose example and determination, whose
ability to bounce back and keep on trying undermined a lot of the
racial stereotypes that helped to support segregation.
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