Scott family would like to see patriarch honored

He broke into the sport the same year Jackie Robinson was breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. He reached the sport's highest level in 1961, when John F. Kennedy was president of the United States, and competed at that level for 12 long, difficult years.

Yet somehow, Wendell Scott remains a largely uncelebrated, ignored figure in stock-car racing history. Scott's family and friends would like to see NASCAR do something about that -- and they would like to see it sooner rather than later.

Chris Bristol

As Major League Baseball continues to celebrate in style the 60th anniversary of Robinson's entry into MLB, the contrast between baseball's treatment of Robinson and NASCAR's relative indifference toward Scott, the first African-American to compete at the sport's highest level and to this day the only African-American to have won in the series, has never seemed greater.

Wendell Scott Jr. said that he wanted to make it clear that he wasn't trying to "burn any bridges" with NASCAR, especially since he's still active as a mentor in the sport's Drive for Diversity program. But he and his brother, Franklin, also made it clear that they ache for something more -- some kind of validation for all the years their father toiled thanklessly on what was then known as NASCAR's Grand National circuit, the equivalent of Nextel Cup racing today.

Chris Bristol, an African-American and aspiring driver who has become a close friend of the Scott family, said society in general does not seem to comprehend the enormity of what Wendell Scott endured.

"As great as what Jackie Robinson did in baseball, I think what Wendell Scott did was a greater accomplishment," Bristol said. "It was around the same time and they faced similar circumstances as far as race relations in America, but Wendell Scott also did it in the South, and not in Brooklyn."

Asked if he thinks NASCAR should do something more to honor his father's memory, Wendell Scott Jr. pauses before answering.

"I live in Danville, Va., on Wendell Scott Drive in the Wendell Scott Community," he says, his voice gathering momentum. "But they ain't done nothin' for him. When you see Wendell Scott being promoted, it is for NASCAR to reap the benefits.

"You cannot ignore him; you cannot deny him. But every time they do something to promote Wendell Scott, it's for NASCAR. It ain't for the Wendell Scott family." (Continued)