NASCAR has nesting ground at CAU

But after interning with NASCAR this semester, she said “we found out that some of the black people working for them have a lot of influence there."

Through the NASCAR Kinetics program, the team of interns at this historically black university are getting an immersion in the business end of a sport that they may never have considered.

“You think of it as a ‘white’ sport,” senior marketing major and Detroit native Lauren Glenn said, referring to NASCAR’s fan base of only 7 percent minorities.

But practicality motivated the students to see past a perception of racism stirred by a dearth of black drivers and a recent discrimination lawsuit filed by a black female NASCAR pit row official. And they're learning that the racing brand encompasses more than oval tracks and high performance stock cars.

“I saw all the companies sponsoring the cars, and I jumped at the opportunity to work with them,” said junior finance major Javon Davis, from Harlem, N.Y.

Glenn wants to go into sports marketing when she graduates in May, and viewed the Kinetics program as a smart move.

“As far as revenue goes, they generate a lot of money,” she said. “NASCAR is the biggest example of how sports works with sponsors.”

The company is a huge marketing engine that has set its sights on growing in the coveted 18-34 year-old market, and selling itself as a diverse organization.

As a result, CAU is one of three historically black campuses – Howard University in Washington, D.C. and Winston Salem University in N.C. – where the Kinetics program operates currently.

The program started in January with, among its objectives, to expose new college-aged fans to NASCAR.

“Is this program about making people NASCAR fans?” asked Kinetics program director Talia Mark. “This is set up to give students an understanding of what the sport is on outside the actual racing.”

The program also operates at the University of Notre Dame, Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C., and Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant.

"We wanted students to realize that there's a lot more that you can do with NASCAR than just changing a tire or working on pit row," said Brandon Thompson, a CAU alum who now works with NASCAR's diversity affairs department -- and convinced the company to include Clark Atlanta in its Kinetics program.

For a semester, the five-student teams from each campus are on the front line promoting NASCAR.

At Clark Atlanta, that includes organizing a major forum on Oct. 19, to present the company and it’s corporate partners to the general student body.

In addition to running marketing campaigns, each team must help find solutions to business cases presented throughout the term from different NASCAR departments or sponsors.

"Most of the case studies are about how to get the NASCAR brand out there," Hutchins said.

Mark sends the students case studies every week to two weeks with varying deadlines, and the CAU team typically communicates via e-mail or phone to work through the process, meeting once all together to hammer out the final product.

"You learn how to work with other people, because not everybody's going to agree on the answers you come up with for each case study," Davis said.

The culminating project, due from each team at the end of this month, is a competitive marketing campaign designed to target a diverse, college-aged audience.

“It’s kind of like ‘The Apprentice,’” Hutchins said.

The top three teams this year get to go to present their findings to NASCAR executives and sponsors in Miami Beach, at the end of the semester. And the team with the best presentation will remain to interact with the many sports professionals while the other two teams are sent home.

Though the students aren’t paid, they gain a wealth of experience and get personalized recommendation letters from NASCAR when they graduate and begin looking for their first jobs, program director Mark said.

“I get calls all the time from prospective employers looking to hire our students,” she said. "It goes a long way when a hiring manager hears I'm familiar with one of their candidates."

Mark said for those students looking to work in sports marketing ... or any other area of marketing, "there aren't too many people who are going to have NASCAR on their resumes.”

As NASCAR diversifies its audience, Hutchins said she hopes her experience with the organization, and that name in her credentials, will help her rise to the top when she enters the job market next spring.

“Because black and white people come together when it’s time for business,” she said.