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RISING RACING STARS<br />
GETTY IMAGES<br />
Evernham Motorsports keeps its focus on<br />
the next race, the next engineering feat —<br />
and the next great driver. The team’s driver<br />
development program is <strong>com</strong>mitted both to<br />
giving a leg-up to promising young talent and<br />
to advancing diversity in NASCAR.<br />
Evernham’s program reflects NASCAR’s<br />
<strong>com</strong>mitment to developing talent in<br />
minorities across the sport. NASCAR’s<br />
Drive for Diversity initiative, launched in<br />
2004, offers opportunities for minority<br />
drivers and crew members. The program<br />
also has an internship <strong>com</strong>ponent and<br />
funding for scholarships, the NASCAR<br />
college tour and Philadelphia’s Urban<br />
Youth <strong>Racing</strong> School.<br />
Evernham is among the many teams<br />
that are serious about their own diversity<br />
programs. Erin Crocker, Evernham’s first<br />
female driver, is one of the Evernham<br />
program’s up-and-<strong>com</strong>ers.<br />
At age 7, she started racing quarter<br />
midgets in her native Connecticut. In 1999<br />
she took Rookie of the Year honors in the<br />
Eastern Limited Sprints. Crocker’s trajectory<br />
continued straight up, even as she was<br />
working toward her engineering degree at<br />
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New<br />
York, which she <strong>com</strong>pleted in 2003.<br />
That same year, she was named Nationals<br />
Rookie of the Year in the World of Outlaws<br />
Series and 410 Rookie of the Year after a<br />
strong campaign, and <strong>com</strong>peted at World of<br />
Outlaws and the All-Star Circuit of Champions<br />
events. So far, she’s the only woman to have<br />
won a World of Outlaws Sprint car feature in a<br />
<strong>com</strong>bined stock car–open wheel program.<br />
And Crocker is hardly slowing down.<br />
She has signed with General Mills, her<br />
first major full-time sponsor, running<br />
with Cheerios and — appropriately<br />
enough — the Betty Crocker brands.<br />
For Crocker, <strong>2006</strong> offers a chance to gain<br />
experience in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck<br />
Series and the ARCA RE/MAX Series and dip<br />
her toes into the NASCAR Busch Series.<br />
But she’s not losing sight of her goal of<br />
moving to the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series<br />
one day. What’s more, the boss is in her<br />
corner. “Ray [Evernham] says that he has a<br />
lot of confidence in me,” Crocker says.<br />
For his part, Evernham figures Crocker’s<br />
<strong>2006</strong> Truck Series schedule gives her a<br />
strong foundation for future success.<br />
“Erin’s not having raced on pavement a<br />
lot and not having raced traffic, we felt this<br />
would be a better way to get more experience<br />
racing without having all the pressure,”<br />
Evernham says.<br />
“I look at it in a positive way,” says<br />
Crocker, who is always ready for the next<br />
race, no matter what the ride. ■<br />
Evernham Motorsports’ first<br />
woman driver, Erin Crocker<br />
TOMORROW SPECIAL RACING <strong>2006</strong> 23
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