Black History Month: Davis sees Cup future (cont'd)

He said that he and Joey Logano, a fellow Gibbs' development driver, have a dual plan to take the Nextel Cup scene by storm sooner than some might think possible. They'll race together this year as Gibbs teammates in the Grand National Busch East Series.

"Joey and I are running as teammates this year, and hopefully forever," Davis said. "Hopefully we'll both be in Cup in five years. If everything goes like it has been the last couple of years -- because we both had phenomenal seasons last year, where we won a bunch of races -- we'll have a chance to get there within five years. Right now I'm just hoping to do well this coming year. I think we'll both have a chance to win a championship this year."

Folks who know Davis realize it would be unwise to dismiss him when he talks big like that. He already has several championships on his resume, including the 2005 NASA Road Course points championship in the Super Unlimited division. In 2003, he drove Legends cars and became the only driver ever to win both the road and dirt course championships in the same season when he captured national points titles in the Dirt Young Lion division and the Road Course Young Lion division.

In March of last year, Davis won the Limited Late Model race at legendary Hickory Motor Speedway in Hickory, N.C. In doing so, he became just the second African-American to win a stock-car race at Hickory, which opened for business in 1950. (Former Gibbs Racing development driver Chris Bristol was the first, winning at the famed short track in April of 2005).

"I've got great respect for you if you can race around here in Late Models," Gibbs said. "If you're up at Hickory, you've got to be studly to run up there. I think he's kind of earned his way. He's a great story, and hopefully he's going to be somebody who we think can be somebody special."

Gibbs first heard of Davis' passion for racing from George Michael, the Washington D.C. television sports-show host. Davis' father, Harry, was working at the time as a cameraman for NBC in the Washington area and frequently shot NFL footage of the Washington Redskins for Michael the first time Gibbs was the team's head coach.

"[Harry] Davis used to be running up and down filming things, doing all the sideline stuff for George Michael when I was there," Gibbs said. "And George would say to me, 'He keeps saying his kid wants to drive racecars.' And George would say to him, 'What's he talking about? Tell him to play basketball or something.'

"And sure enough, he had a great drive to drive cars. And Marc stayed with it and his dad stayed with him, kept supporting him."

Harry Davis is a former Formula One speedboat driver. For a while, Marc Davis supplemented his racing habit by playing basketball and soccer, but he soon gave those up except on a purely recreational basis.

Marc first started out trying to service his need for speed by racing BMX bikes, which his older brother also had done. But he said he eventually found it "a little bit too dangerous, when you're running in the expert classes and jumping next to 20 guys." (Continued)