¡ NASCAR !

We don’t want to overstate its importance, but there is some significance to the victory by Juan Pablo Montoya in Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup Toyota/SaveMart 350 race at Infineon Raceway. Namely, Montoya is Hispanic.
He hails from Bogota, Columbia, and was already an accomplished international driver when he came to NASCAR last fall, having won several Formula 1 races and the Indianapolis 500, along with several championships in a professional career spanning more than 10 years. Now in his first full year on the 36-race national U.S. circuit, he brings diversity to the top echelon of a sport often thought to have grown little from its “good ol’ boy” roots.
In fact, NASCAR has many divisions in all regions of the country and is enjoyed, whether in the drivers’ seats or in the stands, by men, women, and youngsters of all backgrounds. Talented drivers are apparent in these lower divisions, which are used by some teams as “farm leagues” for young drivers, whom they sponsor. Some teams even have development programs in those leagues specifically for young drivers from ethnic minorities.
Car racing may take money or connections to get started, but like most true sports, it is blind to skin color or language, and in racing that is true even for gender. It is a true meritocracy, where quotas don’t work. What matters is talent, and perseverance. Even for the gifted ones, it simply takes time for drivers to develop, building on experience in different cars and different situations.
NASCAR is particularly conducive to that, with Montoya himself noting how open and helpful his competitors have been, in contrast particularly to Formula One. Here, competitors are friends off the track, happy to provide advice to younger drivers and newer teams. We expect this is important for fans, too, who live vicariously through the drivers. The interactions of the drivers, colleagues in a highly visible business, is both entertaining and reassuring.
So Montoya is a talented driver – now a winning driver in NASCAR. And as it happens, he is Hispanic. Similarly, Englishman Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1 is also breaking new ground. He is winning races (he’s the first since Montoya in 2001 to win in his rookie year), and he happens to be black.
These racers, whether they seek it or not, are role models, literally changing the face of their sport. This is a good thing, as our society becomes more integrated, as ethnic background becomes not the first or foremost factor that shapes life for our youth. Montoya and Hamilton, simply by succeeding in their personal endeavors, make prospects better for others, too, and we wish them both continued success.