Meet Tia Norfleet-NASCAR Driver

Move over Danica Patrick, there's another female driver about to hit the NASCAR circuit and she's a sistah.

She's 25 year old Tia Norfleet, the first and only African-American female driver in NASCAR.  She's the daughter of Bobby Norfleet, a NASCAR racer in the 90's who was mentored by legendary African-American racing pioneer Wendell Scott. 

Tia fell in love with racing early, and has competed in the drag racing and short track late models circuit in which she earned two top 15 finishes.

Her goal is to not only win the Daytona 500, but expand NASCAR's popularity beyond its current demographic base.  She also want to see more person of color get involved in NASCAR and become drivers, pit crew members and even engineers.


But I'll let Tia talk in this video.

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Norfleet received her NASCAR racing license in August and for now hasn't released her racing schedule, but when she does, I might be tuning into a NASCAR race or two to watch my fellow Taurus' historic car number 34 compete instead of bypassing any channel that a NASCAR race is on now.
 

Lewis Hamilton Wins F1 Driving Title

Unlike my roomie Dawn, I'm not a rabid fan of Formula One racing, but I do appreciate it when anyone of African descent makes history as Lewis Hamilton did today.

After barely missing becoming the world driving champ last year in his maiden F1 season, British driver Lewis Hamilton not only became the youngest Formula One world driving champion at age 23, he is also the first person of African descent to do so. I thought it was also fitting that he won the title in dramatic fashion at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo.



Brazilian homeboy Felipe Massa won the race for the second time in his career (previous win 2006) and thought he'd clinched the world championship at his hometown Interlagos track with his sixth victory of the season. With Massa's win Hamilton's margin for clinching the title shrank from finishing no worse than eighth place to fifth.

Hamilton had won five races this year including the British Grand Prix, but unfortunately was languishing in sixth place on the final lap before he passed Germany's Timo Glock on the last corner to finish fifth and edge Massa by one point in the overall F1 standings 98-97.

Congratulation to Lewis Hamilton and may he win any future F1 driving titles with less drama.

Driving Towards History

Great Britain's Lewis Hamilton is making a lot of history in his rookie season as a Formula One race car driver.

He is the first Black driver in the 61 year history of Formula One racing. He's the first to ever win the pole at a Grand Prix event (the Canadian Grand Prix) and he's the first to ever win a Formula One race. He's the first rookie to lead in the Formula One driving championship point standings at any time in the season, thanks to finishing no worse than third in the first eight races of the 2007 F1 season.

In addition to his third place finish in his first race, the Australian Grand Prix and a third place finish in the French Grand Prix, he's finished second four times. Hamilton captured the United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis on June 17 in addition to his milestone Canadian Grand Prix victory at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villenueve on June 10.

There's a point system that determines the F1 driving champion. The top eight finishers earn points (10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) in descending order from 10 points for the winner to one point for the eight place finisher. Hamilton currently leads the driver standings with 64 points, 14 points ahead of two time defending Formula One champion Fernando Alonso and 17 points in front of Felipe Massa with nine races remaining. The F1 season concludes with the Brazilian Grand Prix on October 21.

The 22 year old Hamilton is attempting to become the first Englishman since Damon Hill accomplished the feat in 1994 to win the British Grand Prix. He took a major step toward making that happen by capturing the pole position for tomorrow's British Grand Prix to the delight of his fellow Britons. They will be at Silverstone in force to cheer him on.

While auto racing is not high on my list as one of my favorite sports, I have to admit that ever since my roomie Dawn (who's a huge F1 fan) brought the historic nature of Hamilton's quest to my attention I've been getting more familiar with the intricacies of F1 racing.

I'll definitely be watching the British Grand Prix tomorrow to see if Lewis Hamilton can continue his race towards history.