NASCAR Fans Angry Over VA Governor’s Efforts to Ban Critical Race Theory

By Elliot Baas

Richmond, VA – Calling it a travesty to public education, a group of NASCAR fans gathered outside the Virginia state capital building today to protest Governor Glenn Youngkin’s recent efforts to ban Critical Race Theory in schools.

“This is our heritage,” Jethro Tull, a local NASCAR fan and organizer of the protests said. “Our children have the right to learn about the great men behind race in this country. Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Dick Trickle. These are our forefathers,” Tull added.

Tull and other protesters argued that a recent surge in the popularity of Formula 1 racing shouldn’t keep schools from teaching about history through a NASCAR-centric lens. 

Other parents in the district argue their children should be exposed to a wide variety of racing, including not only F1, but IndyCar, NHRA, the Tour de France, and marathon running. 

The opposing sides plan to settle things with five laps around the track, but what mechanism of transport and which track to use is still up for debate.

Citing the recent banishment of books such as “Maus” and “1984” across the country, pro-NASCAR protestors have scooped up hundreds of copies of “Driver #8” and “The Physics of NASCAR (online),” fearing similar treatment may be ahead for some of the most influential race-related books ever written.

The protestors may be fervent, but some educators and scholars suggest they are misinterpreting the purpose of Critical Race Theory, saying at its core, Critical Race Theory is an academic framework created in the 1970s to evaluate systems of racism in America and examine how they’ve evolved and perpetuated, not a course on the history of stock car racing.