CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The first time Joe Gibbs heard of Marc Davis, Gibbs was enlisted to try to talk the youngster out of pursuing a career as a racecar driver.

Davis was a youngster then and he's a youngster now -- but Gibbs long ago went the opposite way on offering him career advice. Now 16 years old, Davis is one of the hottest young drivers on the fast track to the big time, and Gibbs is the one giving him his ride.

As he prepares to enter his second season as a member of the Joe Gibbs Racing/Reggie White Drive for Diversity program, Davis, an African-American, is poised in Gibbs' opinion to perhaps become NASCAR's version of professional golf's Tiger Woods.

Not in the sense that Davis would dominate the sport the way Woods has golf -- because it's not likely anyone can duplicate that in the NASCAR arena -- but in the sense that Davis has a real chance to someday become the first African-American to carve out a long-standing and successful driving career.

"I would say that in NASCAR, all of us feel the same way. It's for America. I think it would be great for all nationalities to be involved. ... It would be great to see Marc break in," Gibbs said.

"I think that's another great area of growth for our sport. We'll continue growing as we get all segments of America involved -- because the kids like Marc are excited about driving the cars. They get started when they're 5 or 6, driving go-karts. I think we'll see another area of growth in the sport when you get a high-profile black driver who is doing well in the sport. I think it would be great for the sport."

Davis has been raising eyebrows and turning heads in the sport for some time. But he really opened some eyes last year when, at age 15, he competed in the legendary Bailey's 300 Late Model Stock race at Martinsville. Among those who have competed in the Bailey's 300 and then gone on to drive in the Nextel Cup Series are Jeff Burton, Elliott Sadler, Ward Burton, Denny Hamlin, Scott Riggs and Mike Skinner.

"It's the biggest Late Model race around," Davis said. "There were 120 cars that showed up to try to make the race, and they only started 36. I actually ended up qualifying 13th out of 120 cars my first time there, and then I ended up finishing sixth in the race. I really thought we could have won that race. Pit strategy kind of got us a little bit."

That's the way Davis talks and thinks. He seems humble, yet quietly and supremely confident. He speaks matter-of-factly about his talent, the racing accomplishments he already has piled up, and what the future holds.

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."

His mother agreed that they needed to find something safer. Marc subsequently thought he found the perfect outlet when he was thumbing through a racing magazine and saw an article about Quarter Midgets.

"I ended up running Quarter Midgets, just having fun," Davis said. "That led to Bandeleros, which led to Legend cars and Late Models. Every year I kept getting into bigger things, going faster and I kept winning. So I got hooked."

Gibbs is in his second stint as head coach of the Redskins in Washington, but still stays involved in the race operation now essentially run by his son, J.D., in North Carolina. He said it was J.D. Gibbs who got Marc Davis back on the coach's racing radar when they visited a short track together.

"J.D. had seen him several times," Joe Gibbs said. "He's like, 'Watch this kid. He's got real talent.' And of course we had the minority program going, and he was a perfect fit for that."

Tish Sheets, NASCAR's director of diversity, once said of Davis in an interview with the Indianapolis Star newspaper: "He is like a young Jeff Gordon."

Except, of course, he is black. Sheets went on to caution that there is a danger in having Davis attempt to shoulder the entire load for those who desperately want to bring more diversity into a sport that has for decades been sorely lacking in that department, adding that "several faces" are needed to help NASCAR turn the corner to a brighter and more diverse future.

When he was just 14, Davis also spent a year in Roush Racing's Drive for Diversity program. But when Davis is behind the wheel driving, he's not thinking of making history in the spirit of racial diversity.

He's thinking about winning.

"It's in the back of my mind," Davis admitted of the possibility of making a mark as the first black driver to experience extended success at NASCAR's highest levels. "But as I've grown up, I've grown up with all these guys like Joey [Logano] and Matt Martin [Cup driver Mark's son]. All these kids, that's who I've raced with for 10 years and that's all I've known. So I really haven't thought about it much. ...

"It would be nice for a minority driver to really break through in the Cup Series, but I really think that in time it will happen. That would be a really great breakthrough for NASCAR from the standpoint of expanding the fan base and marketing; but for myself personally, I just look at it as something that will happen eventually. It's not something that I think about 24/7."

Although making it to the Cup Series within five years might sound a bit overly ambitious, or at least maybe not realistic, Davis said that he truly believes it not only can be done but will be done.

"I like to think that way," he said. "With the seasons we've had and the support we have here at JGR, they're really helping us and pushing us forward. So I think if we can keep up what we've been doing the last few years, it's a pretty realistic goal."