Case 6: NasCaR’s Drive for Diversity: Can They Reach the Finish Line? (Ref Contemporary Organizational Behavior, From Ideas to Action – Kimberly D. Elsbach, Anna Kayes, D. Chris Kayes) p. 571 1 Sonya Jewell University of California, Davis Kimberly D. Elsbach University of California, Davis I t’s Sunday morning. You slowly wake up to the first sounds of life outside the walls of your camper and open the door to a sea of RVs and tents. Beer cans, beaded neck laces, and smoking fire pits remind you of the Mardi Gras-like partying that ended only a few hours ago. As more fans awake and gather themselves, eggs and beer cans are cracked open in perfect harmony. The familiar smells of barbeque and burning rubber remind you what’s happening today...it’s race day! From your seat in the grandstand at the Bristol Motor Speedway you can feel the an ticipation building. The smell of sweat and exhaust fills your senses. The grand marshal takes the stand and 170,000 fans catch their breath as they await those famous words. 1This case was prepared to stimulate class discussion. It is not intended as a policy statement or recommendation. flag, the race begins. Welcome to NASCAR. Deeply rooted in Southern tradition, NASCAR (or the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is one of America’s most popular and well-attended sports. Many of the values embraced by NASCAR define much of contemporary American culture, including small-town and rural values, working-class ideals, and a deep respect for patriotism and the military. 1 NASCAR’s affiliation with the military is especially notable, and extends from team sponsorships (e.g., the Army and the National Guard both sponsor race cars), to military color guards and flyovers at every Sprint Cup event, to a large presence of military personnel in the stands. Because the military is so diverse in its membership, NASCAR’s strong affilia tion with it has increased the diversity of fans in the stands. Yet, in the last decade, NASCAR has been criticized for its lack of diversity on the track. 2 In fact, it has been almost 50 years since the only African-American to ever win a NASCAR Cup Series race claimed his victory.3 In 2004, executives at NASCAR launched Drive for Diversity, a program aimed at at tracting minority and female drivers and crew members to the sport of professional stock car racing. NASCAR said that the program was designed to bring drivers from under represented minority groups to the top echelons of the sport. Yet, by 2012 (the time of this case study), they had failed to bring in one such driver to their Cup Series. So why was a program labeled “NASCAR’s top corporate initiative” having such dif ficulty producing results? What follows is an in-depth look at the implementation of the Drive for Diversity program and the role of diversity in NASCAR’s culture. NASCAR4 At the time of this case study, NASCAR was a family-owned and operated business, founded in 1947, that sanctioned and governed ...

1. Case 6: NasCaR’s Drive for Diversity: Can They Reach the
Finish Line?
(Ref Contemporary Organizational Behavior, From Ideas to
Action – Kimberly D. Elsbach, Anna Kayes, D. Chris Kayes) p.
571
1 Sonya Jewell University of California, Davis Kimberly D.
Elsbach University of California, Davis I t’s Sunday morning.
You slowly wake up to the first sounds of life outside the walls
of your camper and open the door to a sea of RVs and tents.
Beer cans, beaded neck laces, and smoking fire pits remind you
of the Mardi Gras-like partying that ended only a few hours
ago. As more fans awake and gather themselves, eggs and beer
cans are cracked open in perfect harmony. The familiar smells
of barbeque and burning rubber remind you what’s happening
today...it’s race day! From your seat in the grandstand at the
Bristol Motor Speedway you can feel the an ticipation building.
The smell of sweat and exhaust fills your senses. The grand
marshal takes the stand and 170,000 fans catch their breath as
they await those famous words. 1This case was prepared to
stimulate class discussion. It is not intended as a policy
statement or recommendation. flag, the race begins. Welcome
to NASCAR. Deeply rooted in Southern tradition, NASCAR (or
the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is one of
America’s most popular and well-attended sports. Many of the
values embraced by NASCAR define much of contemporary
American culture, including small-town and rural values,
working-class ideals, and a deep respect for patriotism and the
military. 1 NASCAR’s affiliation with the military is especially
notable, and extends from team sponsorships (e.g., the Army
and the National Guard both sponsor race cars), to military
color guards and flyovers at every Sprint Cup event, to a large
presence of military personnel in the stands. Because the
military is so diverse in its membership, NASCAR’s strong

2. affilia tion with it has increased the diversity of fans in the
stands. Yet, in the last decade, NASCAR has been criticized for
its lack of diversity on the track. 2 In fact, it has been almost 50
years since the only African-American to ever win a NASCAR
Cup Series race claimed his victory.3 In 2004, executives at
NASCAR launched Drive for Diversity, a program aimed at at
tracting minority and female drivers and crew members to the
sport of professional stock car racing. NASCAR said that the
program was designed to bring drivers from under represented
minority groups to the top echelons of the sport. Yet, by 2012
(the time of this case study), they had failed to bring in one
such driver to their Cup Series. So why was a program labeled
“NASCAR’s top corporate initiative” having such dif ficulty
producing results? What follows is an in-depth look at the
implementation of the Drive for Diversity program and the role
of diversity in NASCAR’s culture. NASCAR4 At the time of
this case study, NASCAR was a family-owned and operated
business, founded in 1947, that sanctioned and governed
multiple auto racing sports events, including the elite Sprint
Cup Series, as well as the mid-level Nationwide Series and
Camping World Truck Series. Annually, NASCAR sanctioned
over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 39 states, and Canada.
NASCAR was officially headquartered in Daytona Beach,
Florida, but also maintained offices in four cities in North
Carolina: Charlotte, Mooresville, Concord, and Conover. Due to
its southern roots, all but a handful of NASCAR teams were
still based in North Carolina, especially near Charlotte.
NASCAR was one of the most-watched professional sports in
the United States. In fact, in the year 2012, professional
football was the only sport in the United States to hold more
television viewers. Also, at that time, NASCAR held 17 of the
top 20 attended single-day sporting events in the world, and
claimed 75 million fans who purchase over $3 billion in annual
licensed products. Fortune 500 companies sponsored NASCAR
teams and drivers, and were instrumental in making it a $3
billion (in annual revenue) sport. Overview of Drive for

3. Diversity Program According the program’s website, in 2012:
“Drive for Diversity is the industry’s leading development
program for minority and female drivers and crew members.
The Drive for Diversity (D4D) program currently supports
drivers in two of NASCAR’s introductory level racing series—
the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and the NASCAR Whelen All-
American Series (both regional stockcar racing series). D4D
also supports crew member candidates through a year-long pit
crew training program.” Much like Major League Baseball’s
minor league system, D4D was attempting to recruit and
develop new racing talent that could be moved through the
circuit with the hopes of attracting new fans and sponsors to the
sport. According to the NASCAR’s diversity website
(nascardiversity.com), the mission of the D4D program was to
“To engage women and people of diverse, ethnic and racial
backgrounds in all facets of the NASCAR industry.”5 The
program was also designed to further diversify NASCAR’s
participant and audience base.”6 In this manner, NASCAR’s
D4D program was positioned as the path to a more inclusive
culture, a way to reinforce their commitment to diversity.
NASCAR suggested that this move was not only the right thing
to do, but made good business sense as well. Widening their
audience would bring more people to the races and to their
television sets on weekends. In line with the D4D program,
NASCAR had attempted to remove controversial symbols from
official NASCAR venues. For example, they decided not to
display the Confederate flag at the NASCAR Hall of Fame,
which opened in 2009, despite the flag’s role in the sport’s
heritage. As Winston Kelley, executive director of the Hall of
Fame and a longtime pit reporter for MRN (Motor Racing
Network) Radio, said, in May of 2010: "The Rebel flag means
different things to different people. Since it is offensive to
some, that is the reason we don’t want it in there [the Hall of
Fame].”7 Struggles in the D4D Program Despite the above
claims and efforts, NASCAR’s D4D program had struggled to
produce results. In its first year, 2004, the Drive for Diversity

4. program invited four African American drivers, including Joe
Henderson, and one female driver to try their hand at
NASCAR’s weekly short track circuit. These drivers were
selected based on their resume of experience and performance
record as well as their minority status. By 2012, D4D drivers
competed in nearly 200 events at NASCAR Home Tracks across
the country each year.”8 Since its inception, 31 drivers had
competed under the Drive for Diversity banner, winning 34
races combine. Yet, by 2010, no D4D driver had ever made it to
the Promised Land, NASCAR’s big three: Sprint Cup Series, the
Nationwide Series, and the Camping World Truck Series.
Promises made to the young talent brought into the program
remained unfulfilled. D4D drivers, like Henderson, recruited in
2004, were still waiting for their 15 minutes of fame. According
to a New York Times article, Henderson was under contract
from 2005 to 2006 and was used for publicity for NASCAR
diversity efforts but was given poor equipment in 2005, and was
not provided a racecar in 2006.” “It’s a sham,” Joe Henderson
Jr. said in a telephone interview... The program is not designed
to be successful because, No. 1, it’s not properly funded. They
claim that it’s a pipeline. Well, nobody came out the pipe.”9
Some critics suggested that these problems stemmed from mixed
signals that NASCAR sent about its commitment to diversity—
including both racial and gender diversity. For example, in one
of its first moves after starting D4D, NASCAR gave re
sponsibility for creating, managing, and promoting the D4D
program to an outside marketing agency and brought in, not a
race car driver, but a basketball legend (Magic developmental
program, Fueling Dreams, or D4D to their main website,
creating a symbolic disconnec tion between the two. Finally, in
one of the most-often quoted statements in recent years,
NASCAR Vice President, Robin Pemberton—in telling reporters
that NASCAR was go ing to stop policing drivers so strictly—
said, “Boys, have at it and have a good time.”10 That statement,
more than anything else, affirmed that NASCAR drivers were
male. At the same time, other critics suggested that D4D

5. struggled because NASCAR never put in the necessary
resources for success. Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs Racing,
for exam ple, was heard commenting about the lack of funding
for the program. Similarly executives from automakers as well
as journalists for stock car racing routinely discussed the need
for more funding in the D4D program. It appeared that these
commentators liked the idea of the D4D program, but thought
its initial rate of funding was not enough to help it take off.
Finally, some argued that NASCAR would never have minority
drivers in a sport that was perceived to appeal most widely to
white audiences. Specifically, they argued that sponsors, who
drove the sport, were wary of investing in minority drivers,
when minority fans were not prevalent. As Kurt Roehring, of
Roehring Engineering (a former team sponsor) mentioned: In
marketing products, if you’re selling the product to primarily a
black demographic group, well, blacks aren’t really in the
stands right now in NASCAR. There are possibly other sporting
events or sports marketing that you could do that could target a
black demographic better than stock car racing.11 Moving
Diversity Forward—Can D4D Succeed at NASCAR? By 2012,
the question that remained for NASCAR and its leaders was
“What will it take for the D4D program to succeed in placing
more minority and women drivers into NASCAR’s top
competitive levels?” Some, like team owner Joe Gibbs, said it
would take the next Tiger Woods. As Gibbs noted, ’’I think
that’s what we need [i.e., another Tiger Woods]. The reality is,
I don’t care who finds the person, how you get him involved, I
think the sport needs it. Once you open those doors up, I think
there’s going to be a benefit for every team out there, not just
the team that finds him.’’ Others suggested that NASCAR must
change its deeply rooted traditions and cul ture to achieve
success in its diversity programs. Further, they noted that
traditions and cultures aren’t made in a day. In fact, according
to researchers, most organizational cul tures are grounded in
long-held and continually reinforced values.12 As sociologist
and NASCAR enthusiast Jim Wright notes, “race is not

6. something that is talked about” as a current issue in
NASCAR.13 At the same time, there were hints that diversity
may, yet, thrive on the track at NASCAR. First, diversity
seemed consistent with NASCAR’s core values of Freedom and
Individualism. As Wright also pointed out: The values of the
NASCAR subculture are best described as the traditional
American virtues.... Individualism, freedom, community,
mobility—these are NASCAR values, important values, the
things we stand for as a nation.14