Then in early March a press release comes out stating, “On the heels of current successes by women in motorsports, including Melanie Troxel’s Top Fuel victory at the season-opening CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals, Minorities Empowered Nationally Through Organized Racing (MENTOR) announced this week the formation of the first African-American female-owned NHRA Pro Stock team.”
The press release goes on to say, “The driver will be selected from among three naturally gifted Pro Stock/Pro Mod-ready African-American and Hispanic drivers.”
I only hope that Cyn-Tay Motorsports team owner Cynthia Taylor and MENTOR founder Phil Coleman have the right perspective on big time drag racing. We already are a very diverse bunch, diverse in every way, but there is no NASCAR-style racial provisional or multicultural-mulligan – you’ve got to prove your stuff in 1320 feet.
There is no need to throw the “race card” at drag racing; we’ve already got Hispanic, Japanese, Russian, Australian, Austrian, African-American and Caucasian women and men. Your skin color or the country of your ancestors doesn’t matter at all.
I don’t care what color you are, what sex or what race your owner or driver is. You’d better find a horsepower authority like Steve Johns at Cagnazzi Racing or Grumpy Jenkins – or team leaders like Jeff Perly and Rob Downing who have, as a well-oiled race team, helped earn Pro Stock victories and championships for Jason Line and Greg Anderson.
I guess the thing that bugged me most about this whole opportunistic press release approach to drag racing was that somehow “if-you-announce-it-you-will-win” attitude just turned my stomach. That somehow a woman owner or an African-American owner or an African-American woman owner is enough to garner attention and wins on the dragstrip is an assumption that’s completely unrealistic, in fact living in the stereotypical past.
There’s a lot that newcomers to drag racing can learn from the wisdom of Melanie Troxel, “On the outside, I know it's a media draw, but here, we're all just racers."
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