EVOLVE Business and Professional Magazine May 2018 | Page 15

I
n a stock car race two years ago, Daniel Suárez suffered an early
speeding penalty during a pit stop, forcing him to the back of
the pack. He then lost his clutch, souring his chances of winning
the 125-lap top-ranked race in Michigan.
Despite these odds, Daniel Suárez, of Mexican descent, started
pushing ahead with 13 laps to go and finally caught the leader,
Kyle Busch, one of the sport’s most successful racers. In a thrilling
last lap, Suárez edged past Busch to win his first NASCAR Xfinity
Series race of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
(NASCAR).
The result was big for Suárez — and for minorities in the sport.
He became the first Mexican to win a NASCAR national series race,
building on his recognition as Xfinity Series Rookie of the Year in
2015. He went on to win the series championship in 2016, helping
to earn him a spot on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series,
NASCAR’s premier series, where the 26-year-old now races against
the likes of seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson.
Suárez’s rise is a sign of change in American stock car racing,
a sport long dominated by white men, in part because of its roots
in the South. Over the past few years, more minorities and women
have been coming up through the ranks to get sponsorship deals
and into the big races, including the most prestigious of them all:
the Daytona 500.
This hasn’t come by chance. Two Daytona Beach-based
companies — NASCAR, which operates the races, and
International Speedway Corp. (ISC), which hosts and promotes
races at 13 tracks across the country, are taking steps to diversify
the sport.
Josh Avila, senior director of consumer marketing at the ISC’s
Auto Club Speedway, a track in Fontana, Calif., said diversification
is a must for the sport, if for nothing else than the fact that the
country is getting more heterogeneous. According to the U.S.
Census Bureau, racial and ethnic minorities are increasing faster
than non-Hispanic whites.
This poses a big challenge: How can the sport maintain
television viewership and ticket sales?
For Avila, the answer is simple. The sport must diversify its
driver and fan base for future growth.
It’s doing this. “Just like the demographic is changing for the
country, so is our business as a whole,” Avila said.
Josh Avila, Senior Director of Consumer Marketing at ISC Auto Club Speedway
MAY 2018 | 15 |