Racing school on fast track

Philly.com for Philadelphia Daily News

Bill Fleischman

3/20/07

Photo Caption:

(L-R) NASCAR driver Casey Mears; students Lamott Ebron, 19, and Kyle Baker, 16; General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner; NASCAR head Mike Helton, and NASCAR driver Kyle Busch.

Photo Credit:

Steven M. Falk/Daily News

At dinner (from left), NASCAR driver Casey Mears; students Lamott Ebron, 19, and Kyle Baker, 16; General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner; NASCAR head Mike Helton, and NASCAR driver Kyle Busch. Anthony Martin was accepting a diversity-in-motor-sports award in Detroit in January and spotted a famous face. “Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, was sitting in the crowd,”

Martin, the founder of the Urban Youth Racing School, said yesterday. “I don’t think he knew that he supported our program. When I accepted the award, I said, ‘I’d like to

thank General Motors for all their support.’ I saw him smile. He was stunned.” Wagoner attended the racing school’s eighth annual dinner last night at the invitation of the school’s board chairman, James Farmer. Speaking to more than 500 students and famous racers at a “Build a Dream” awards dinner at the Sheraton Society Hill, Wagoner encouraged the students to pursue their dreams.

Philly-based Urban Youth Racing School promotes careers in motor sports for city kids. Joining Wagoner at the dinner was NASCAR president Mike Helton. Having Helton and Wagoner at the dinner “will open a lot of eyes around the country about how big our organization really is and how much support we get,” Martin said. Said Helton: “For Rick Wagoner to take time to come here speaks volumes. . . . This is a great model or other urban markets to look at.”

The first Urban Youth Racing School branch opened last year in Washington, D.C. No Urban Youth drivers are close to racing in any of NASCAR’s top-three series: Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck. But the school is all about opportunities. “The [NASCAR] teams have embraced us,” Martin said. “Our kids have had internships. It’s feasible that some of them will get [to NASCAR].”

Said Helton: “Our effort is to tell the NASCAR story [wherever] we can tell it. You don’t drive by schools and see racetracks. You see soccer, baseball and football fields and gymnasiums. “We have to be about creating more opportunity. If NASCAR has interest to someone and they say, ‘That’s neat; I’d like to do that,’ that next step is a big step.” The next step for the Urban Youth drivers could be late-model cars. Or, it could be college. Lamott Ebron, 19, a Simon Gratz High School senior, plans to attend Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C. “My goal is to get into fabrication [building cars],” Ebron said. “Last summer, I interned at Hendrick Motorsports. I started at the very bottom, cleaning the haulers [that carry the race cars and dry cleaning. I worked my way up.”

Kyle Baker, 16, is thinking Formula One. A student at Philadelphia Electrical & Technology Charter High School, Baker recently drove a Formula 3 race car in Monterey, Calif.Brothers Johnny and Jeremy Ortiz also are thinking Formula One or Nextel Cup. Johnny is a studentat Abraham Lincoln High; Jeremy attends Carver High School of Engineering and Science.

City high school grads Jason and Leon Simmons are racing Legends cars in Virginia. Also attending were Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Casey Mears, and Oakland Raiders receiver Randy Moss, who Martin said is getting involved in racing. *