The NASCAR world is alight with Juan Pablo Montoya.  With his Indianapolis 500 win, Formula 1 Series accomplishments and his recent 24 Hours at Daytona triumph... it's hard not to congratulate the guy.  Now we find this international sensation within out midst at NASCAR.  No question his jump from open wheel racing and quick grasp of our beloved sport has captivated the fans and the media alike.  In fact, it's because of the media that I'm starting to see a trend.

One thing that is starting to get out of control is NASCAR's hard push to let us all know that Juan Pablo Montoya is here.  Every week we are bombarded with JPM (let's call him JPM, so my fingers won't ware to the bone from typing is name so much).  He was plastered all over the racing world when he jumped ship to NASCAR.  He was extremely well covered when he won the Busch Series road course race in Mexico City a few weeks ago. If you wander on over to NASCAR.com, you'll even see that he has his own column that tracks his current standings and statistics called "Where's Juan". He is starting to get accolades from the media with claims that he (even though there's two other teams) is the only reason that Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates is seeing a small resurgence. (Source:http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/6591982)

The media circus around Juan Pablo Montoya is starting to turning fans off (rather than on) to the Colombian phenom.

There is a name for the huge JPM push, and it's called NASCAR's vaunted "Drive for Diversity" program.   NASCAR is prone to force-feeding their fans whenever a driver, who is not a Caucasian male, decides to make a go at stock car racing.  Be it a female, Asian, African-American or even a foreign national, NASCAR and the media is on top of pushing them to the exposure limit.  Last year, a Craftsman Truck Series regular named Bill Lester qualified for the Golden Coral 500 at Atlanta Motorspeedway.  The media frenzy over the event was both rabid and persistent.  But Bill Lester said it best when he said "Look, I appreciate all the attention, but I'm just a race car driver".  Did that stop circus parade?  It sure didn't.  In fact, the story was wasn't over until the DirecTV 500 at Martinsville, two-weeks later.

WA State Rep. Larry Seaquist believes that this a typical NASCAR fan... unfortunately so do a lot of people.

So what would be the first thing that comes to mind from minorities that considers NASCAR on their palette for taste in sports?  I'll tell you, it's stereotypes like "Redneck", "Hillbilly" and Confederate Flag waiving hellraisers.  And I would touch bases with you about Darrell Waltrip's contribution towards the problem with his infamous "Boogity, Boogity, Boogity".  I'll just save that topic for another blog.

Darrell, we're going to "Boogity" away from your catch phrase... for now.

So the whole purpose of media exposure of the "Drive for Diversity" program is to open to doors to potential fans with different ethnic and cultrual backgrounds.  That progress is limited because of NASCAR's current image that most non-fans precieve.  With these kinds of opinions that still fester in the American culture, how in the world can they attract a broader fan-base?  NASCAR has started their attempt to loose those images across the board, and their "Driver for Diversity" yielded some satisfactory results in the demography.

NASCAR FANS

Gender distribution

Male 60%

Female 40%

Ethnic diversity % of NASCAR fan base (18+): 1999 2006

Trend Hispanic 3.6% 8.6% +139%

African-American 4.9% 9.1% +86%

(Source: NASCAR case study 2006) 

Look don't get me wrong, I am all for ethnic diversity.  I don't care if you're white, yellow, black, brown, green, male, female, an alien from outer space or a talented chimpanzee.  If you can drive a stock car and do the job with dignity and class, then you're more than welcome in our sport.

Let him drive!  I would root for the #74 Chiquita Bananas Chevy

I can totally empathize with NASCAR's goal of cultural diversity.  But in order to do that, NASCAR's first need is to stop the media with their "Infatuation of Saturation"... meaning quit pounding us with the media machine.  Perhaps then we can enjoy the talents of extraordinary individuals like Juan Pablo Montoya, rather than be sickend by his name.  Secondly, they need to work on disassociating themselves with the American South without disassociating themselves from their rich traditions.  That would be a fine line to walk without loosing the fans that's been with them for decades, but it can be done.  In my opinion, once those goals are achieved then NASCAR will have finally arrived as a true powerhouse in big-league sports.