Sports Roundup by Various Sports Writers

It is an image, a perception, that NASCAR just can't shake. Try as it might - and, officially, it is trying - NASCAR is viewed by many as a "good ol' boy" sport with a racist underbelly.

Maybe it's the sport's Southern roots. Maybe it's the demographics.

Blacks are few and far between at NASCAR races, whether it be in the stands, the garages, the grid - yes, even the press box.

Go to Daytona or Talladega and Confederate flags abound. African-American fans, far fewer in number.
During the 1990s, the boom in NASCAR's popularity was fueled largely by a change in demographics.

Women flocked to the sport. So did younger middle-class white families. Minorities, not so much.
NASCAR has a diversity program in place. It is eagerly recruiting minority drivers and workers.

But the $225 million racial and sexual harassment and wrongful termination suit filed in New York this week by an African-American woman who served two years as a technical inspector on NASCAR's second-echelon Nationwide Series is a huge setback.

Not only does it threaten to derail what NASCAR is officially trying to achieve, it raises the question again about blacks and stock car racing.

Sadly, as I read some of Mauricia Grant's allegations, I wasn't shocked.

Many of her claims echo comments I've heard over the years at various stock car racing venues, not just in the South but in the long-gone pits at Cajon Speedway.

Much of it was laughed off as garage talk. But the undertone was undeniably there.

As I read Grant's allegations, my thoughts turned to a friend, Milton Hines, the program and operations director for ESPN Radio 800.

Milton is black. He is a huge fan of NASCAR, as well as hockey and baseball.

A minor league hockey player got Hines hooked on hockey. The infamous fight between the Allison brothers and Cale Yarborough in the infield of the Daytona 500 got Hines interested in stock car racing.

"Growing up, I didn't do a lot of the black-white thing," Hines said Wednesday.

"My dad always taught me not to look at color. I found friends who felt the same way. Not that hard."

But as much as Hines loves and supports NASCAR, he feels different when he goes to races.

"I get 'What are you doing here?' looks that I don't get elsewhere," Hines said.

"Part of the problem," he said, laughing, "is that I'm a Jeff Gordon fan and wear a Jeff Gordon jacket."

But Hines acknowledges that he is viewed differently at NASCAR races than he is walking down the street. He recalled an incident two years ago in the garage area of then-California Speedway in Fontana.

"As a representative of the station, I had a full set of credentials and was walking in the garage area just looking at the cars and crews," Hines said.

"Suddenly, a worker grabbed me from behind and said, in fact, 'What are you doing here?' My credential had gotten turned around, but I wasn't asked to show a credential. I was grabbed.

"Over three-plus decades in racing, my credentials have twisted around maybe a thousand times. I've been asked - sometimes rudely - to show a credential. But I've never been grabbed from behind.

"NASCAR races are different for me," Hines said. "From officials to fans, I do get looks. I find myself keeping my hands in my pockets. I love the sport, but there are a lot of places I wouldn't go. I'm sorry, but it's just a fact.

"The best thing NASCAR has done is expand out of the South."

I don't know Mauricia Grant, who was an official at Irwindale Speedway in the L.A. area before being recommended to NASCAR by Magic Johnson.

I don't know whether her suit has merit. I don't know if she was fired for cause last October. I know only a couple of the 17 NASCAR officials she named in the suit.

But I do know that I've heard racist comments like the ones she puts forward in NASCAR settings. And I do know that when Milton Hines walks through the garages at Fontana, he gets strange looks. I've been there. I've seen it.