The relationship started with a sponsorship, the type of big financial commitment every NASCAR driver needs to keep running in the Cup series, the top level of the country’s biggest form of racing.
Yet, underlying the standard business deal involving St. Louis businessman David Steward and Bubba Wallace in 2018 was a dynamic that would create a force for change.
Steward founded and owns World Wide Technology, the largest Black-owned company in the country. Wallace is the lone Black driver in the Cup series.
Since their first meeting, some well-publicized and lesser-known events have helped alter NASCAR. Their relationship will reach a crossroads Sunday when Wallace drives in the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway, where Steward purchased naming rights a year after joining forces with Wallace.
“Dave wanted to do big things in NASCAR, and he saw me with the Richard Petty team and wanted to be part of it and stepped up in a big way,” Wallace said. “It’s a relationship that was fun and still is because I saw how passionate he was about diversity and inclusion and how he incorporated that into his workplace.”
WWT no longer sponsors Wallace’s team, but together and separately they have aided a movement, whether it be the banning of the Confederate flag by NASCAR, implementing diversity programs or embracing Pride month on social media this week.
At a time when the sponsorship of Wallace was ongoing and the naming rights deal freshly inked, Steward was invited in 2019 to be the keynote speaker at the sports diversity and inclusion symposium in Daytona Beach, Fla. That’s where his impact on NASCAR began to explode.
“That period was during the whole issue of the Confederate flag being removed,” Steward said this week. “We were intimately involved with Bubba at the time. We were on the periphery and having discussions with NASCAR about diversity and what was important to us — a welcoming environment for all folks to racing.”
The sequence of events is not likely a coincidence.
After the sponsorship started, WWT and the track entered their naming right agreement a year later. Steward headlined the diversity and inclusion symposium, which included officials from all sports, the same year. The Confederate flag was banned in 2020.
Then in September 2021, WWTR was awarded a Cup race.
“I did not go into our initial conversation thinking it would directly lead to a NASCAR Cup race,” track owner Curtis Francois said. “There’s no doubt (Steward) was a big piece of the St. Louis story.”
It was after these connections had been formed that Wallace became immersed — albeit through no doing of his own — in an incident in which a rope tied into a noose was found hanging on the door of his garage at Talladega Superspeedway in June 2020.
The matter was investigated as a possible hate crime, but it was later ruled not to be because the garage pull had been in place for months. Nevertheless, Wallace took issue with the tying of a rope into a noose.
“I definitely gained a few less fans, which is fine,” he said. “It’s just a big misunderstanding for a lot of people. We’re this far down the road that I don’t want to help them understand. They can be who they want to be and that’s fine. You choose how you want to be portrayed as a person. It’s your destiny. I live my life the best way I can, and if people don’t like it, that’s not my problem.”
Behind the scenes, Francois and Steward, who also is part of the ownership group of the St. Louis Blues, were trying to position the track to get a coveted Cup series race. It’s something Wallace said he heard from Steward from the beginning of their friendship.
Besides giving the keynote speech at the symposium, Steward spent time talking to some top people in NASCAR, including the France family that founded the organization. Francois said when Steward offered to help in any way, it was a turning point.
“I was there to serve them in any way and to have a voice in the sport that was conspicuously absent,” Steward said. “That’s in every sport but especially in NASCAR. There are resources in the diverse community and future fan base that have been unrealized to date.”
David Steward II also immersed himself in aspects of NASCAR with his company creating a project to make films, a TV series and digital content based on the life of Wendell Scott, NASCAR’s first Black driver.
Having a businessman who is one of 15 Black billionaires in the world, according to Forbes, on board became a powerful statement. The elder Steward was front and center at last year’s announcement that the track bearing his business’s name would host a Cup race.
“David Steward has a tremendous passion for racing, philanthropy and driving inclusion,” Phelps said. “When you couple that with his track record of leadership driving change, he is an incredible ambassador to welcome new audiences to NASCAR.”
NASCAR took that to another level this week when it posted a celebration of Pride month on Twitter. The message drew a mix of support and condemnation in the form of thousands of responses.
Wallace embraced the message as another step in the right direction.
“Things are definitely trending upwards, and that’s the only way it could go,” he said. “Seeing the possibilities for new people coming in is really special. It’s something small, but NASCAR putting out the Pride month post is something special. A few years ago, that wouldn’t even have been a discussion.
“It’s so cool to see these strides that we’re being more comfortable talking about these issues. What’s next? I don’t know. Why not be proactive instead of reactive. We can handle it the right way.”
Among the initiatives NASCAR has instituted are diversity programs for interns, drivers and suppliers.
Wallace has long been impressed with Steward’s support of STEM programs, which led to the creation of a charitable group that offers those opportunities to underserved youth in the St. Louis area.
Raceway Gives Motorsports Academy is an offshoot of that group, and Wallace will speak to kids about opportunities in motorsports Friday.
“That’s our relationship,” Steward said. “It’s important how he got started and our involvement with him. He understands the significance of passing that on.”
