Sports, like so many things done as a "group" in society, depends very much, in fact, almost entirely, on the "atmosphere" which is created by those in positions of authority. That's why there has been so much consternation, and rightly so, about the NBA referee who was apparently "bought", and the same with the steroid scandal in baseball; the very people involved in it don't "get" it. They don't understand why their use of these chemicals, many of which can kill you if abused, goes against everything we're told as youngsters in this country: That baseball is sacrosanct and that the Hall of Fame is Hallowed Ground (even if the sport's biggest racist, "Cap" Anson, is enshrined there). But, you get the idea; we ALL get the idea. (Photo - NASCAR's Hall of Fame being built in Charlotte, NC).
That's why the powers-that-be in NASCAR are so concerned about a lawsuit filed not by an angry fan, not by someone who felt they didn't get "their" chance at being a driver and not filed by a person who wanted a job and didn't get one.
No, this lawsuit is filed by a former NASCAR employee who says she "was subjected to racial and sexual discrimination in her two years as an employee" of NASCAR.
This is not the first such suit filed against NASCAR. Last year, an employee of one race team, an African 
American, filed a lawsuit saying that white members of his own team had "joked" with him about the Ku Klux Klan and had even "dressed-up" in white robes and engaged in other disgusting, stupid behavior aimed at their fellow team employee. Honestly, we don't know what happened with that lawsuit, but this time around, the complainant being a former NASCAR employee, not a team member or a worker for a third-party vendor, there might be more public notice.
Here's the newswire story on the topic:
"A former racing official has sued NASCAR, saying she was subjected to racial and sexual discrimination in her two years as an employee.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, lists 23 incidents of sexual harassment and 34 incidents of racial and gender discrimination beginning in January 2005 and ending when she was fired in October 2007.
Mauricia Grant, 32, who is black, said in an interview that co-workers called her by racially insensitive nicknames and that male colleagues made sexual advances. She is seeking $225 million. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said NASCAR had yet to review the suit." (Photo - Every armed service of the US, our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and National Guard spend many, many millions on the sport ... And all that money comes from where? Our taxes, which come from ... ALL of us).
Here's the same old problem, yet again, for NASCAR: In their drive to become a true national sport, not just a regional sport which occasionally goes out of their "home territory," NASCAR has not done nearly enough to integrate their sport to the point where Americans in general will respect the organization as they do the NBA, Major League Baseball, the NFL, NHL, etc.
Which is why we said what we did about "groups" at the start of this posting. The leaders of any group create the atmosphere which pervades that organization, no matter if it's a sport, a private company or even a nation.
NASCAR can go on and on about their Drive for Diversity and their Diversity Internship Program and other in-house efforts they've made, they say, to open the sport to all Americans at every level of NASCAR, from fans to drivers to officials to executives. But the result is yet to be seen on the tracks, in the grandstands nor in the sport's executive suites. The sport's much-promoted Diversity Internship Program which began in 2000 has seen only 150 students go through it. That's about 20 a year; a shockingly low number for any organization which claims to be doing all within their power to promote their sport in and for every strata of our society.
In the past few years, NASCAR has been turned-down in New York City, the Portland and Seattle areas 
and elsewhere outside of the sport's traditional Southeast stronghold in their attempts to build new race tracks. Apparently, NASCAR officials do not see at least one of the roots of these continual refusals; that NASCAR, even with all its success, is still considered by many, maybe most Americans to be a rowdy, red-neck sport which revels in and eagerly promotes the boot-legging tradition where the sport supposedly began. The sport also continues to allow the use of "rebel" flags at their events; taking a hard-line stance against that one thing alone would go a long way to helping NASCAR rebut their "Johnny Reb" image. Strangely, and a bit off-topic, NASCAR has no alcohol- or drug-screening programs within the sport and in fact has come out publicly against implementing them, even in the face of a NASCAR driver admitting to being high on heroin DURING a race last year. (Photo - NASCAR's roots are in boot-legged liquor, and the "hopped-up" cars which boot-leggers built to outrun federal revenue agents; these days, the sport welcomes with wide-open arms hard-liquor sponsorships, in a sport aimed as much at children as anyone else).
How long is this going to take them? Some question whether NASCAR, making plenty of money for everyone involved, even cares about this facet of their sport; perhaps some concerned Americans should take another look at doing business with the many companies which spend millions of dollars, dollars made from every American, on the sport.
We'll watch this case closely and report its conclusions to you.
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