September 17, 2010
By Rebecca Gladden
Max Siegel, CEO of Revolution Racing, is a former entertainment executive who came to NASCAR a few years ago at the behest of Teresa Earnhardt to help run what was then Dale Earnhardt, Inc.
Siegel's online bio highlights his past accomplishments in the music industry, mentioning his role in the careers of stars like R. Kelly, Justin Timberlake, Usher, and the Backstreet Boys.
So, perhaps it's no surprise that when Siegel needed a vehicle to draw attention to the drivers of his Revolution Racing team, he chose a proven entertainment formula: an American Idol style competition now airing on the BET network called Changing Lanes.
The idea of a TV show featuring a group of young drivers vying for a limited number of spots on a NASCAR team is nothing new, however. In 2005, the Discovery Channel offered Roush Racing: Driver X, a program that followed the selection process of new talent for one of the sport's biggest teams, Roush Racing.
The Changing Lanes 'twist' is that it features minority and female drivers, though Driver X also had a number of female competitors five years ago, including 23-year-old Christi Passmore, who ran 66 races in the ARCA Series from 2002-2006. Today, female IndyCar racing star Danica Patrick is competing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and will likely be in the Cup Series within a few years.
One of the biggest shortcomings of Changing Lanes, particularly when compared to classic weekly elimination shows like American Idol or Survivor, is the lack of suspense. The episodes that began airing September 1st were filmed between October 2009 and February 2010, meaning nearly a year has elapsed since the team tryouts were held. Viewers who follow racing already know the ten drivers selected for the 2010 diversity class and the four who land spots at Revolution Racing. But even non-race fans tuning into the show out of curiosity can find the names of the winners online with a few mouse clicks. Without the anticipation of an unknown result, the entire elimination format is lacking.
For a show intended to change stereotypes and misconceptions, Changing Lanes wastes no time in pigeonholing the drivers into specific types and telegraphing these labels to the audience. We're told from the outset that Brandie Jass is in over her head, that Sergio Pena is a "diamond in the rough," that McKenna Bell is a "superstar in the making," and so on. It's all a bit insulting to the viewers' intelligence and robs the young drivers of the opportunity to make their own impressions on race fans.
Although Siegel previously stated that the show would not be "scripted" in a way to create villains and rivalries, that is exactly the effect. From his first introduction, driver Paulie Harraka is typecast as cocky and egotistical.
The characterization is reinforced in the second episode (only two episodes have aired at press time) when Harraka is described by the talent judges as "high maintenance" and "not a team player," among other things.
The irony here is that the men judging the competition, including Mr. Siegel, indicate their collective concern about these traits, while knowledgeable race fans know that some of the best drivers in the sport (not naming names) are the very embodiment of those qualities.
The inclusion of Harraka in the series and in the Drive for Diversity Program is an intriguing choice. The D4D website (drivefordiversity.info) states it is "the industry's leading development program for minority and female drivers and crew members." Harraka, born and raised in New Jersey, is deemed a minority because he is "of Syrian descent." So is Apple CEO Steve Jobs, but I'm not sure most people would consider him a minority in the common usage of the term.
Harraka has been in the Drive for Diversity program for three years now, a fact which further belies the American Idol analogy, where a new class of fresh-scrubbed contestants arrives each season.
Back in 2008, ESPN.com senior NASCAR writer Ed Hinton wrote this about Harraka: "Paulie is of the very last minority I expected to find at NASCAR's Drive for Diversity scouting combine this week. 'Harraka' is a Syrian name, but that's just the technicality [emphasis mine] that qualified him for the Drive for Diversity. Paulie really represents America's tiniest minority: the super-intellectual, overachieving dynamos of energy from the elite universities, the Ivy League schools, M.I.T., Stanford and, in Paulie's case, Duke, where he's a freshman."
Ironically, Harraka did not need the Drive for Diversity program to get noticed by some of NASCAR's top power brokers. In 2005, two years before he joined the D4D, his racing skills garnered him an invitation from Humpy Wheeler, then President of Lowe's Motor Speedway, to drive a Legends car in the Lowe's Summer Shootout. Harraka won the event.
Granted, the entry requirements for the Drive for Diversity program may have changed since 2007, when Harraka first enrolled, but the eligibility list for the class of 2011 does not include anything pertaining to Middle Eastern ancestry as one of the "ethnic minorities classifications" listed on the D4D website.
If nothing else, Harraka's inclusion in the TV show and the D4D program is just one of the complicated issues that arise when discussing diversity initiatives and the process of classifying individuals as members of minority groups.
How far back can a person go in their ancestry, for example, to claim a particular ethnic heritage? A grandparent … a great-grandparent … further?
Beyond that, most, if not all, of the diversity drivers were born, raised, and educated in the U.S. and at least some of them, according to comments made on Changing Lanes, come from affluent families.
Is being female or minority (however one defines it), in and of itself, just cause for a diversity program at a time when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series features full-time drivers from such diverse parts of the globe as Bogota, Colombia, Como, Italy, and Launceston, Australia?
Clearly Max Siegel thinks so, and he has plenty at stake in the success of the Drive for Development program and Changing Lanes. In 2009, after leaving DEI, Siegel and partners formed The 909 Group, a marketing firm whose initial clients include NASCAR itself.
Siegel is CEO of the group which now manages the Drive for Diversity initiative for NASCAR. Siegel is also CEO of Revolution Racing, which fields cars for all 10 drivers in the 2010 diversity class -- the same drivers now appearing on the Changing Lanes TV program. Changing Lanes is a joint venture of the NASCAR Media Group, The 909 Group, and BET. Along with being owner and CEO of Revolution Racing, the organization's website lists Siegel as one of the "on-air talents" for Changing Lanes.
If you find all this a bit complicated, you're not alone. These are complex business dealings involving a politically charged topic.
In the second episode of Changing Lanes, for example, the father of one of the contestants notes that he wants his son to make it in racing not because he's black, but because he's talented. The statement seems a bit paradoxical -- under the circumstances.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.
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