JACK MILNER
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (Nascar) is an American family-owned and operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto-racing sports events. The company was founded in 1948.
Nascar is motorsport’s pre-eminent stock-car racing organisation. It is second to the National Football League among professional sports franchises in terms of television viewers and fans in the United States.
Much of what makes Nascar so “quintessentially American” is its blinding white maleness. There have been the odd breakthroughs that have allowed black and women drivers a foot in the door, but it’s been so little and far between that it hasn’t helped Nascar to open much of a gap between its inclusionary ideals and its reputation as a sport by and for red-blooded white men.
Also caught up in this is their “evangelical Christian behaviour”, totally ignoring the existence of other religions.
It’s a pattern that recurs so often that it leaves Nascar open to charges of “purposeful discrimination”.
Into this quagmire of intolerance comes Alon Day, a 25-year-old Israeli who is trying to break into Nascar. Prior to Day there was another Jewish driver, Jon Denning, who failed to reach the heights he was hoping for.
Denning was never the type to “wear the fact that I’m Jewish on my forehead”, he said. But the longer he hung around, the more his New Jersey-inflected speech and physical features drew suspicion.
Before long he seemed to be crashing into intolerance at every turn.
Eventually Denning quit and moved on. So how will it be for a young Israeli? Lawyer Dave Levin found Day and was determined to break the Nascar mould. Day made himself easy enough to find. His CV is studded with great triumphs in sports cars and single seaters.
As soon as his talent was plain, Day’s parents sent him to Europe. He landed a deal with Mercedes but when a major sponsor dropped out, it cost Day his track privileges. He finally got a break in the form of an invitation to Italy to test a Whelen Series Nascar. A top grade earned Day a contract with CAAL Racing, a family-owned outfit.
“I found myself from the lowest point of my career to getting very deep into Nascar.”
But to succeed in motor racing takes money – heaps of it. Without it you won’t get a winning car and the support of a first-rate crew.
Levin knew this when he first met Day. “I told Alon: ‘Look, I am going to put you in the spotlight as being the standard bearer for American Jews and Israel, to have you be a spokesman for something that has previously been unrepresented in what is, in my view, the quintessential American sport’.”
Some 24 hours later Day responded: “I’m coming to America! For you!”
Fundraising around Day seemed like the least of Levin’s worries. After all, here was a young driver who was Jewish and from Israel! Who wouldn’t want to get in on that?
Levin drafted 200 e-mails, addressing most of them to businesses with Jewish affiliation or leadership. He made the pitches personal, weaving elements of his own biography into Day’s. Alas, the few replies he received were not positive.
Occasionally, Levin would vent his frustrations to gentile friends in corporate America. “Well,” they’d say, ‘what do you expect? Jews are cheap’.”
Strangely, when Nascar heard about Levin’s efforts they encouraged him to reframe his letters as a business proposal and sent him statistics of the sport. Levin’s next batch of e-mails were framed more like a venture capital opportunity. He still has not yet got “a decent response” but there has at least been more of a willingness to engage.
Without outside investment, Levin has been forced to go it alone, dipping into his retirement plan money to keep his man on track.
The sight of Day’s Charger snaking through the circuit, with the Israeli and American flags painted on its hood, stirred souls in both countries. But despite Levin’s best attempts, little money has come in other than his own.
Now the only goal is to keep going until the Miami race which ends the season. Miami is also home to a large Jewish community, a fact not lost on Levin, who is already well past his breaking point.
Getting Day onto that stage would be much, much more than a personal victory; it would strike a mighty blow for Nascar’s diversity effort.
“Everybody keeps telling me Nascar is a very specific culture and people and everything, but I’m like a baby in Nascar, like blank paper. As the time goes on and I have more races under my belt, I just fall in love more and more with Nascar,” said Day.
“I think also it’s a good thing because I always talk about myself as a guy who came from Israel, a completely different place. I came from the desert, from a country that you always hear about on CNN and war and everything. But I always make fun about it. I’ve always said about myself that I put a bit more spicy sauce on the meal.”
