NASCAR's flag ban opens sport to diverse new crowd

NASCAR's ban on Confederate flags appears to be working and drawing a new audience to the sport.

NASCAR half-heartedly tried in 2015 to ban the Stars and Bars from its events, but that first effort lacked a meaningful enforcement plan. Five years later, pushed by the only Black driver during a summer of national unrest, NASCAR took its firmest position in its 73-year existence. NASCAR is inextricably tied to its Southern roots and culture, and with it comes a checkered racial history. NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. endorsed Alabama governor and segregationist George Wallace for president, and the Hall of Fame biography for Wendell Scott, NASCAR's first Black driver, is whitewashed of his unrelenting battle for equality in the sport. NASCAR was serious this time, even if meant alienating a portion of its fan base. Steve Phelps, who in 2018 became NASCAR's fifth president and its most progressive, only saw upside in social consciousness — for every fan who complained about lost heritage, someone new would discover a sport far more inclusive than initially perceived.