Knowing right way to race becoming academic

“It’s so easy for people to focus just on drivers,” said NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston. “But beyond the drivers there are crew members, mechanics and engineers, accountants, PR professionals and marketing professionals. Every day the sport gets more competitive.”

Guy Faulkner, a professor at the University of Westminster in London, has helped design motorsports programs around the world and says they can help attract students to colleges and universities.

“It’s glamorous, it’s sexy, it’s fast-moving, it’s exciting,” he said.

Europe has a long tradition of motorsports education, thanks in part to the popularity of Formula One racing. Now, academic motorsports programs are cropping up in China, Malaysia and Singapore, Faulkner said.

Kristi Willocks began her master’s degree in sports management, with a concentration in motorsports operations, at East Tennessee State in January. The longtime racing fan hopes the degree will help her get a job doing event planning at a race track.

“I don’t know 100 percent it will help me, but I think it will put me a little bit ahead of someone else who has a sports management degree,” she said.

John Griffin, a spokesman for the Indy Racing League, wouldn’t be surprised.

“I would look at motorsports, more so than any other sport out there, as a sport where the business side is such an essential part of your success,” Griffin said. “Racing has become increasingly sophisticated and a platform where someone can become educated and enter the sport being finely tuned in what he’s going to be working on. That’s an advantage for all of us.”

NASCAR driver Ryan Newman studied vehicle structure engineering at Purdue on the advice of drivers Ken Schrader and Jeff Gordon.

“I said, ’If you could do it all over again, would you go to college?’ They both said ’Yes,”’ said Newman, who graduated in 2001.

Newman says the degree has helped him better understand the science and engineering behind racing. Now, he tells budding drivers to consider a similar path.

“The people who have that engineering degree or motorsports background will have a better opportunity to be involved in NASCAR, to get what they want for a high-paying job in the future,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to change the sport. But it’s going to be a better opportunity for them to be part of the sport.”

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