Former crew member sues NASCAR in wake of 1999 racial prank
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A former NASCAR team member who was the victim of a 1999 racial prank is suing NASCAR, claiming the sanctioning body failed to deliver on a promise to provide him work after the incident.
David Scott, a former motorcoach driver for car owners Roger Penske and Michael Kranefuss, is seeking back pay and compensatory damages in his suit filed Aug. 8 in the Seventh District Court in New York City.
Scott, who is black, was subjected to racial slurs and harassment in several run-ins with a handful of white motorcoach drivers during the 1999 season. The situation exploded during a July race at New Hampshire International Speedway, when two white motorcoach drivers confronted Scott with one wearing a white pillowcase over his head to imitate a Ku Klux Klansman.
The coach drivers, Mike Culberson and Ray Labbe, were fired from their respective teams and NASCAR revoked the licenses needed to work at the race track.
Scott claims that during NASCAR's investigation into the incident that president Mike Helton, who was the vice president of competition at the time, gave Scott several ways to get in touch with him and other high-ranking NASCAR officials.
"We're doing this to make sure that if there are any other incidents you can contact us, and if you work for us there won't be any problem," the suit quotes Helton as saying. "We'll just hire you so we won't have to worry about anyone bothering you."
But Scott claims that when the incident became public a few weeks later at a race in Watkins Glen, N.Y., former vice president George Pyne sent a NASCAR plane to the track to immediately fly him home to North Carolina.
"NASCAR is concerned about your safety, there are going to be reporters at the track," the suit quotes Pyne as saying. "We want to control the situation. We don't want this to get out of hand. We're concerned about racing fans throwing objects. This is a move to protect you. People may view you as a trouble maker. I'm gonna send my plane up to get you."
Scott did not return to the track again in 1999, and accepted a settlement on his contract with Penske and Kranefuss in early 2000. But he said he only did so because he believed NASCAR would be hiring him in some capacity, as he claims Helton and Pyne had promised to do.
Helton was not available for comment Tuesday, but NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Scott was never promised employment within NASCAR, but officials did try to help him land outside jobs -- which Scott turned down.
"We did everything we said we would do, and that was to help identify opportunities," Poston said.
Scott, now 43 and living in Oregon, said he only wanted to work for NASCAR because he enjoyed being at the race track and part of the action.
"We sat down and talked about employment inside of NASCAR, but my impression was they wanted me to get a job at Bilo grocery or UPS," he told The Associated Press by phone. "That's not what I wanted to do, and that's not what we discussed. I needed them to help me find a job within the sport. I didn't need help finding work outside of the sport."
Scott said that after he left his job as coach driver, he maintained a dialogue with Helton and Pyne for the next several years discussing possible opportunities within NASCAR. But he claims a voice mail message left by Helton in February of this year made it clear that there would be no job.
"Basically the phone message that he left for me was, `There is nothing for you, NASCAR has done all that they can do,' and that was it," Scott said.
That message prompted him to file his suit.
Ricardo Aguirre, Scott's New York-based attorney, said he knows the time elapsed between the 1999 incident and the filing of the suit is suspicious but blamed the delay on Scott being strung along by NASCAR officials.
"The lay person is going to say this guy is an idiot, he's just out to get some money," Aguirre said. "But up until February of this year, he had a mantra going on, there was an integral friendship and a relationship. He was in constant contact with Mike Helton. There was a dialogue."
Poston maintains NASCAR never promised Scott a job and acted appropriately following the incident.
"Back in 1999, both NASCAR and the employers of those responsible for the deplorable prank took swift and severe action," he said. "As we said seven years ago at the time of the incident, there is no place in NASCAR for intolerance. NASCAR has not and will not stand for harassment of any kind."
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press
This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index
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