Voice of America Online Reporter - Stacia Demarco

Philadelphia, Pennsylavania

June 20, 2007

Listen to Demarco narrate UYRS Story

The most popular spectator sport in the U.S. is American football. Close behind is . . . stock car racing. NASCAR races air on TV in 150 countries and millions of fans fill raceways each weekend looking to party and catch an adrenaline rush. But with only a handful of African-American drivers and even fewer women, NASCAR knows it has a reputation as a rich, white man’s sport.

It’s working hard to change that, through co-sponsoring schools dedicated to diversity in motor sports. One of them is the Urban Youth Racing School in the northeastern U.S. city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It’s located on a cobblestone street under a highway overpass surrounded by abandoned lots, graffiti and trash. There’s no sign above the locked door, only a security camera, a stark reminder of the dangers of life in the inner city.

But behind the door is a vibrant world. Teens sprawl on a sofa watching an auto race on a big flat screen monitor. Multiple computers line the tables for the kids who do data entry and for the mechanics to download information from each car’s computer. And in the back room, student mechanics work on miniature racecars in preparation for the team’s next big race.

It’s fun with a purpose, says Anthony Martin, the man behind it. “Did you know you can change tires and make a $100,000 a year changing tires in the racing business?” he asks rhetorically. “The goal was to introduce them to the different jobs and to let them know these jobs exist. If you don’t know, how can you be a part of it?”

In 1998, the NASCAR fan and a few of his friends wanted to show the kids from their inner city neighborhoods what NASCAR was all about, and its potential to change their lives. The only problem was that the inner city kids were never exposed to the sport. So Martin and his friends brought NASCAR to them, in the form of evening and weekend workshops that actually got kids behind the wheel.

Martin stresses the school offers more than a chance to drive around a track. “We say to them, ‘Listen. You know what? (If you) go through our Build A Dream Program and you feel like this is what you want to do with your life, you can become part of our Driver Teen Development Program.’ And they either become drivers in that program or they become mechanics in that program. They are with us for a few years. Once they go through that program they are then on their way to college.”

With the help of corporate sponsors, more than 2000 students have gone through the program. A second program was started in Washington D.C. last year.

The Urban Youth Racing Schools use a mix of track work and traditional textbooks to teach kids not just about NASCAR, but about the importance of education. Martin says it also gives them exposure to the myriad jobs in the world of professional motor sports. “They are doing internships, working for NASCAR, watching races, whatever. They are really a part of it.” He says when they get to college, many of them already know what they want to do. “Oh, you know, ‘I want to major in Marketing because I want to be a marketer for one of the teams,’ or ‘I want to major in mechanical engineering because I want to be one of the people who build engines for the teams.’

15-year-old Jade Gillis knows she wants to be involved in the motor sports industry. She heard about Martin’s program when she was 10, begged her mom to let her join and has been a racing school addict ever since. “It’s something different than like basketball or football, track and all those after-school, different things,” she explains. “Racing is a real adrenaline rush. You are trying to win. Everything. You are trying to race. It’s a lot of fun.” She currently is the only girl racing at the advanced level.

She knows the program has made her a better student. And while Jade imagines herself out on the raceway breaking all kinds of records, she also recognizes the importance of college and realistic dreams. “I mean if I can’t get to the racing part that good, then the business part is just as great as racing,” she admits. “There’s a lot of money and I like money so that would be great.”

19-year-old Lamott Ebron has been in the program for 5 years and shares the same desires as Jade, when it comes to having a good job and being part of life on the track. But his introduction to the school was different than Jade’s. “I had no direction,” he recalls. “My dad didn’t live with us or anything and, [I was] just watching my mom go to work and all that. You know I just had no direction. I had no clue who I wanted to be. Nothing really to look forward to or up to.”

Lamott says the Urban Youth Racing School changed his life and gave him the direction and motivation he was craving. He has taken full advantage of the program’s networking opportunities, like internships and meeting sponsors at the track. His goal is to work for Hendrick Motor Sports, one of the top NASCAR teams. “Initially I wanted to be a mechanic. Now I am leaning more towards some of the upstairs work, the PR (public relations) department or the Communications/Marketing Department.” This fall, Lamott will begin college at a small university in Charlotte, North Carolina, a NASCAR hub and home to Hendrick Motor Sports headquarters. He’ll work there part-time while in school.

The Urban Youth Racing School could produce its first professional NASCAR driver next year. One of its students who will be graduating from college has already been offered a racing position with NASCAR.

As the school enters its 10th year, founder Anthony Martin says there are big plans for it and the changing face of NASCAR. He hopes to open programs in 5 more major cities, predicting, “You are going to see the flood gates start opening in the next two years!”

Webber’s Disabilities Are No Disadvantage

By Steve Yanda

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; Page E08

RICHMOND — The kid in the red Washington Nationals T-shirt does not always wear his seatbelt when he drives a go-kart. He cannot afford to, really; he needs to lean forward for extra leverage.

As the green flag drops, Dayton Webber aggressively positions his kart right behind the one in front of him, careful not to break the rules with an inadvertent bump. Webber merely rubs the other kart a little to let its driver know he’s about to be passed.

Webber, 9, makes his move now, steering with the insides of his biceps and pounding the pedals through the force of his hips. He squeezes by the opposing kart on the inside, makes a turn and then moves on to his next victim.

“It feels like you’re going to fall out of the kart sometimes,” said Webber, a statement that might be more true for him than for the other students at the Urban Youth Racing School.

Born without a spleen, Webber had his legs and his arms below the elbows amputated when he was 10 months old because of a bacterial infection. He races with prosthetic legs and manages the steering wheel with the sides of his arms.

If you think Webber’s disabilities hold him back, you might want to talk to the handful of drivers he passed on the previous lap. Sure, Webber cannot turn corners as sharply as some of the other kids, but he makes up for it with perseverance and grit.

A native of Charlotte Hall, Webber grew up following in the footsteps of his older brother, Tyler. When Tyler got involved in dirt bike racing, Dayton wanted in on the action. And when Tyler took up an interest in go-karts, so too did his younger brother.

“He’s kind of an extremist,” Natalie Webber said of Dayton, her middle child.

His driving would suggest nothing different.

Dayton receives the UYRS Perseverance award from UYRS Ambassador and actor Mathew St. Patrick on March 18, 2008 at the UYRS 10th Anniversary Awards Ceremony

By Terence Samuel, AOL Black Voices,

Posted: 2006-02-23 12:22:30

On the Fast Track

Wire Image

The Urban Youth Racing School in Philadelphia is a free program that seeks to get kids interested in learning by getting them interested in stock car racing.

PHILADELPHIA — In a bleak, industrial section of this struggling city, in the looming shadow of the Ben Franklin Bridge, is a tiny building on the banks of the Delaware where bright futures are being constructed out of hope, hard work and horsepower. This is the home of the Urban Youth Racing School, a free program that seeks to get kids interested in learning by getting them interested in stock car racing. “Our main focus is education,” says Michelle Kuilan, director of operations for the UYRS.

But the idea of a stock car racing school in the heart of industrial Philadelphia catering to mostly black and other minority kids is enough of an anomaly that is fairly quickly jumps out of the “main focus is education” box. And right from the first flag, everyone is willing to admit as much. “We are changing a mindset,” Kuilan says. “The first thing that parents say is, ‘Black people don’t race cars. And recent history and the current numbers support that position.

Why They Are Poised to Make History

As the interest in stock car racing continues to explode with the surging popularity of NASCAR on television and in the national consciousness, the issue of race has been a prominent feature of the discussion. The sport is working hard to overcome a perception that it is overwhelmingly white, Southern and male. Though considerably more muted, the debate about Confederate flags in the stands at NASCAR events has not gone away.

On the Pulse

In response, there is a NASCAR Executive Steering Committee for Diversity; there are NASCAR Diversity Scholarships, and there is the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program, started in 2004, which seeks to “develop;diverse and female drivers and crew members” to compete at the highest levels of the sports. As part of that larger diversity effort, members of the UYRS program last month taped a commercial for NASCAR that celebrated the slim history of minorities in NASCAR racing.

It wasn’t until 1991 that Willie T. Ribbs became the first African-American driver to compete in the Indianapolis 500. But many may have forgotten that black participation in racing reached its peak in the first half of the 20th century with the Indianapolis-based Gold and Glory Sweepstakes racing circuit designed for black drivers. Charlie Wiggins, the most celebrated competitor of the 1920s and ’30s, was the one of the early African-American heroes on the racing track. “Black kids don’t know that this is part of their history,” Kuilan, says, “They don’t know about the Gold and the Glory.’”

“I think they’re trying,” says Anthony Martin, founder and president of the Urban Youth Racing School, of NASCAR’s diversity efforts. And in the UYRS storefront, they are doing all they can to take to take advantage of these efforts. But it must do it one kid at a time. “Look, we live in Philadelphia,” says 14-year-old Jeremy Ortiz, who takes part in the youth program. “Don’t nobody know nothing about NASCAR.” The freshman at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science says that when he’s playing basketball or just hanging out with friends, he almost never mentions his racing life.

Prince of the Road

Jeremy Ortiz:
One of the stars of the Urban Youth Driving School program in Philadelphia.

“People think it is a white-people’s sport,” says Danny Colon, who at 18 has graduated from the program and is looking for a way to on keep driving. “It’s like the only sport I’m good at,” he says as he walks around one of the race cars one afternoon in late January.

The program not only teaches driving skills, but also how to manage a pit crew, develop sponsorships and how to keep their cars on the road. One team recently complained that its car did not have enough horsepower to handle the competition, and was dispatched to the engine room to figure out how to generate more.

Imitation of the Best Form of Flattery

Colon and Ortiz argue about who is a better driver and they argue about whose hero is the better driver: Colon says Mark Martin is his favorite. “He is just the man,” he says. Ortiz, a Jeff Gordon guy, is vigorous in his dissent. But Martin, the 41-year-old former sports agent who started the school eight years ago, clearly hopes that one day, his kids will be the NASCAR role models. His goal, he says, was to solve the problem of access. “There is no way for a kid from the hood to get involved in motor sports,” he says. Now he has them so involved that one new requirement of the program is that kids must completely disassemble an engine and put it back together again. “We are developing kids from this size,” Martin says, holding his palm face down a couple of feet off the floor. He thinks that out of these ranks, NASCAR will get its Tiger Woods. “It’s like anything else, you have to start young and you have to win,” Martin says.

The cars the kids drive are called super mini cups. And they are exactly like NASCAR stock cars, except they come in at a quarter of the original size.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

“It’s hot in these cars,” says Jade Gillis, 14, pointing to where the engine sits in the car. She says, “You have to wear the fire suit and the fire boots and the neck brace, which is what I hate the most.” Gillis thinks that maybe she wants to be a lawyer, but she loves being at the small tracks in the Poconos or in Delaware or in Upstate New York or racing high performance go-carts around the streets of the Art Museum section of Philadelphia, as happens once a year.

She loves the sport for a very basic reason, she says: “It’s fast.” All of them love the trash-talking and camaraderie that comes with being at the track even though it’s usually with older, white men. “We never ever see any other black or Puerto Rican kids when we race,” says Colon, “never.” In general, they feel as if they’ve been given a gift: “People don’t know about this stuff,” says Ortiz. “We are on the road all the time, and they don’t know how much fun it is. It’s sickening, sickening how much fun it is going that fast.”