Maddie Crane, a 16-year-old racer from Meansville, is among the multicultural and female drivers participating in the 11th annual NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine on Oct. 13-15.
The drivers will showcase their talents at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Va., in hopes of landing a ride with Rev Racing, which works with NASCAR’s Diversity team to give young drivers a chance to compete in top-notch equipment.
Among the drivers who have used the diversity program as a springboard for their careers are Sprint Cup rookie Kyle Larson, Camping World Truck Series driver Darrell Wallace Jr. and Nationwide Series driver Daniel Suarez.
Crane, like many other youngsters, started racing Bandolero and Legends cars, in her case on the quarter-mile track at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Unlike many, she now races a dirt Late Model car at tracks like Dixie Speedway in Woodstock and Rome Speedway.
Racing against a field of mostly adult men, she’s won five features in the past two seasons and finished a close second in the points standings both years.
She said she’s confident heading into the tryouts, even though she has very little experience in an asphalt Late Model Stock car that she’ll drive at Langley.
“I’ve testing a Late Model Stock car and did pretty good, and I started out on asphalt in Bandoleros and Legends,” she said. “I’m as ready as I can be for that.”
Crane and the other candidates also will be asked to try their hands at racing simulators and they’ll have a session testing their media skills and another measuring their physical fitness.
“I haven’t done a lot of simulators, but I’ll practice that in the coming weeks,” she said. “And I’m prepared for the fitness part.”
Jim Cassidy, NASCAR’s vice president of racing operations, pointed out in a news release that the diversity program, which sputtered in its early days, now has plenty to show for the efforts put into it.
“The NASCAR Drive for Diversity program has seen significant success in recent years with several standout drivers who have consistently excelled and put on their best performance on the race track,” he said. “It is important for us to provide development opportunities for young female and diverse drivers who have the talent, but may lack the resources or guidance to find an entry point in our sport.”
Keselowski's Kansas challenge: Brad Keselowski, who leads the Sprint Cup Series in victories this year with five, will be racing this weekend at Kansas Speedway, where in 2011 he got his first win while driving the No. 2 car for his current employer, Team Penske. (He got his first of his 15 career Cup wins aboard James Finch's Chevrolet at Talladega Superspeedway in 2009.)
But Keselowski hasn’t run as well at Kansas since the track was reconfigured and repaved midway through the 2012 season. In his past two starts at Kansas, he’s finished 17th and 13th.
“We didn’t run as well as we would’ve liked to in the spring race earlier this year, so that gives us added determination to improve our performance this weekend,” he said in his team’s weekly release.
Keselowski crew chief Paul Wolfe said he and the No. 2 crew have worked hard to figure out how to be fast on the 1.5-mile oval in Kansas City, especially with the new Chase format that has reset the points for the participants beginning this week and will see four of the remaining 12 drop out of contention after three more races.
“We have put a fair amount of effort into the setups for this track based on what we learned there earlier this year,” Wolfe said. “It becomes even more important to run well here with the new Chase format …
“As long as we keep our steady progression of refinement and improvement both on and off of the track, we should be alright.”
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