Bill Lester hasn’t raced in NASCAR in 14 years, and by his own admission, he “really had no itch to scratch” when it came to getting back behind the wheel.
But between working to promote his book, Winning In Reverse: Defying the Odds and Achieving Dreams, and having sponsor support, everything aligned perfectly for a comeback — no matter how brief.
For 60-year-old Lester, Saturday’s NASCAR Truck Series Fr8Auctions 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway is a one-off race for now, because he said he doesn’t know how he’ll feel when the green flag flies.
“I’m no spring chicken,” Lester joked this week during a virtual press conference. For his 143rd NASCAR Truck Series race and first since 2007, he’ll drive the the No. 17 David Gilliland Racing Ford. He has seven top-10 finishes and three poles in the third-tier series and his first of two Cup Series races was at Atlanta in 2006.
“I need to find out how I feel behind the wheel,” he continued. “Do I still love it like I remember I loved it? Or is it something it’s like, ‘OK, I did it. It was cool. But I have no more burning desire, [and] the flame is extinguished’? I don’t know, and I am just as excited and encouraged to find out.”
And he’ll have to adjust to plenty of other unknowns, like working with a new crew chief and spotter, and hitting the track without a minute of practice or qualifying, which is the result of COVID-19 restrictions.
“Sometimes I think, ‘I must be crazy,'” Lester said. “But by the same token, I still love racing. I still have a passion for it. If I didn’t have a passion for it, I wouldn’t be doing this. I don’t have anything to prove to anybody, except myself.”
What Lester does know, however, is that he’s returning to a NASCAR that looks quite a bit different than the last time he was on the track.
Among only a handful of Black drivers to race at the premier Cup level, Lester has been vocal in the past about the boos and hateful receptions he received at the track racing in NASCAR’s three national series from 1999 to 2007. In 2017, he said he felt like he “was not really embraced” by the NASCAR community when he previously competed. Tuesday, he spoke about how motor sports are often inaccessible to people of color, in part, because “it wasn’t an inviting environment.”
He recalled how, as a child, he’d tune in for a NASCAR race and “see a sea of white folks and Confederate flags,” which “was a huge turnoff” for him. He said as a racer when he arrived at tracks like Martinsville Speedway, there were “many times where my pace was quickened” as he tried to get from his hauler to the garage as fast as possible. He said he’s had to call out people for using the N-word “on a number of occasions.”
But Lester credited driver Bubba Wallace for igniting a culture shift by pushing NASCAR last year to take the necessary and long overdue step of banning the Confederate flag.
Bill Lester competed in trucks in the mid-2000s & will race a truck Saturday at Atlanta. Lester, whose two 2006 Cup starts made him the only Black driver in Cup between Willy T. Ribbs in 1986 and Bubba Wallace in 2017, said he was floored when NASCAR banned the Confederate flag. pic.twitter.com/FoT42vHQcl
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) March 16, 2021
“Bubba was really fortunate to be able to take advantage of the platform that he had being at the top level of the sport to be able to say, ‘You know what, NASCAR? You talk about being America’s sport, well, prove it. Ban the Confederate flag. See if you really want to put your money where your mouth is.’ And NASCAR, to their credit, did.
“I was floored. I was blown away. I was so moved that I sent an email to [NASCAR president] Steve Phelps and said, ‘Thank you. I really appreciate what you did. That was a huge statement.’ Because when I was racing on a more consistent basis in the mid-2000s, ears were not ready to hear it. There was no platform that I had to be able to say the things that Bubba did and let them gain traction. They sunk in this time.”
Lester said he said he believes the landscape of the predominantly white male sport is changing to be more vocally inclusive and welcoming while addressing racism and inequality within NASCAR. He also noted that culture changes are not instantaneous, but he said he’s “optimistic” about NASCAR’s work to diversify the garage and the grandstands alike.
And a win from Wallace — the only Black driver currently in the Cup Series who’s behind the wheel of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota — could expedite some of those efforts.
“For young, Black youth or youth of color, they have to see more athletes that look like them in this sport, right?” Lester said. “They need to see more Bubba Wallaces or Bubba Wallace having more success. It’s going to come. I believe, honestly, that it’s going to come with that program. But you know, folks are expecting way too much too soon. It’s not going to happen overnight. …
“But as soon as somebody like Bubba starts winning and more folks from the Black community start seeing that and realizing that’s something that they can do — because they see that, they have that exposure — then that’ll be something they start trying to do.”
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