A few weeks ago, Caitlin Shaw got a most-welcome, but unexpected phone call. The call was from NASCAR officials, inviting her to join the Drive for Diversity Combine.  For the aspiring race car driver, it was music to her ears.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” said Shaw, an 19-year-old who graduated from La Cueva in the spring and is attending Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, studying motor sports management. “This is a great opportunity to me.”

The Drive for Diversity Combine will bring 24 young drivers from across the country to the South Boston Speedway in Virginia on Monday and Tuesday, competing for one of the 15 spots in NASCAR’s Developmental Series. The winning drivers will land berths in either the Camping World Series or the Whelan All-American Series.

The drivers will be showcasing their skills in front of NASCAR executives and team owners in two days of competition. The participants also will undergo media training and evaluation.

Shaw and the others will be behind the wheel of closed-wheel, late-model stock cars, pushing 3,000 pounds of power around the track. This will be quite a change for Shaw, who’s used to open-wheel, midget racers that weigh 900 pounds with horsepower of about 400.

“There’s a big difference in the type of racing,” she said. “There’s a lot more power.”

Drafting, braking and powering through the turns are the biggest difference, Shaw said.

“When you’re coming through a turn, in a midget, you hit the gas at the apex of the turn to keep your momentum,” she said. “With the stock cars, you roll through the turns.”

Another big change is the midget drivers sit in the middle of the vehicle while in stock cars, drivers sit in the traditional left-hand side of the car.

Shaw has had some experience testing the stock cars, as well the trucks from the Craftsman Truck Series, so she’s not entirely unfamiliar with how they handle.

And she’s confident once the executives get a good look at her ability, she’ll open some eyes.
“This fits right in with my goals for my driving career,” Shaw said. “Within five years, I plan to get into the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.”

Shaw has been gearing toward a driving career since she was nine, racing quarter-midgets. She moved up to mini sprints at 14, winning a number of local championships at the Sandia Motorsports Park. As a 16-year-old, she moved up to the USAC Ford Focus Midget Racing Series, then onto the USAC National Series as a K&N Development Driver.

This has already been a busy year for Shaw. In addition to beginning college, she’s also attended driver’s school with Brad Noffsinger at Lowe’s Motor Speedway; was a Mazda Miata road course instructor at the Sandia track; attended the Lyn St. James Driver Development Program and tested trucks at the Pocono Raceway in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Now she’s studying in a renowned program for developing students in all aspects of the racing world.

She’ll have to miss two days of classes next week to be in the program, but Shaw isn’t too concerned.

“The professors are all pretty willing to work with you,” she said. “Particularly since I’m pursuing my professional career.”

SOUTH BOSTON, Va. – The long blonde hair hanging over the back of a racing suit covered with sponsor logos makes it apparent that Kristin Bumbera is not your average racer.

Her record confirms it; the 21-year-old Late Models whiz from Sealy, Texas, not only looks like a sponsor’s dream, but she drives like one, too, having claimed two victories and 11 top-five finishes in 2008 in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series at Roseville, Calif.

Bumbera is one of 25 drivers vying this week in individual testing and evaluation sessions at South Boston Speedway for one of 14 spots in NASCAR’s sixth Drive for Diversity class.

The candidates include 16 women and nine men, ranging in age from 17 to 29 and all hoping to earn a fully funded ride for 2009. The diversity program will support 10 teams in the Whelen Series, and four more in the Camping World Series, the next step up for drivers.

Bumbera, bidding for her second year in the program, also knows that no female driver has ever made a mark in NASCAR beyond some status as a pioneer, and as she looks around at the ever-expanding numbers of women getting behind the wheel, she knows that will change.

“It’s definitely coming,” she said.

In its sixth year, the Drive for Diversity program has yet to produce a household name, and only this year can claim a champion. Paul Harraka, in his second D4D season, won 11 races at All-American Speedway in Roseville, Calif., and took the championship on the final day.

Harraka, a freshman at Duke with a double major in mechanical engineering and public policy, is back seeking a third season, and said he’s getting from the program what he needs.

It “has definitely meant a lot to my career,” Harraka said, noting that it lifted him from a Legends car racer into late models, a significant jump in class, and helped him get a full-time ride with Bill McAnally Racing. “That’s what the program does, it opens doors.”

Harraka, 19, auditioned again Monday in case one of the team owners or scouts who watched the first 13 candidates take laps liked what he saw. Each driver makes 30 laps, then gets a coaching session, followed by a 10-lap run that shows, among other things, coachability.

They finish with a two-lap mock qualifying run.

The other 12 driver candidates spent part of Monday in seminars that teach them about dealing with sponsors and the media, and the two groups trade places on the second day.

Max Siegel, president of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc., was among the team reps on hand Monday, and said he’s looking for “tomorrow’s future stars,” drivers who have already invested in their careers and who demonstrate they can run consistent, smooth laps.

The way young drivers present and comport themselves also is a big consideration for employers, Siegel said, but in the end, “you’re only as good as you are on the track.”

DEI already employs Jesus Hernandez, who spent four years in the program.

Bobby Hamilton Jr., who owns teams in the developmental series, also sent a scout to the combine on Monday, as did several owners of teams in the various developmental series.

“There’s a lot of pressure” on the drivers, McAnally said. “They know they’ve got booths full of people up here watching every lap, watching every word they’re saying.”

For Kortney Kosiski, 18, that prospect made it all the more nerve-racking. A third generation racer who runs dirt late models in Nebraska, she had never raced on asphalt.

“I’m very nervous,” she said. “This is the chance of a lifetime.”

After four years racing Soap Box Derby cars, Kosinski moved up to Hornets in 2005, won her first dirt late model race in 2007 and had one victory and seven top-fives finishes this season.

“Ever since I was little, I’ve always wanted to go race those cars,” she said of the ones used in NASCAR’s premier series. She said her family’s interest in auto racing of all kinds has continued to grow ever since her grandfather, Bob Kosiski, raced in the 1960 Daytona 500.

Given the chance to move up, she said, “then I’m living the dream.”

For many, the first step is just showing they belong.

Trista Stevenson learned that at the Music City Motorplex in Pocahontas, Ill., where she raced in the Whelen Series this year after not making it through the combine last year.

Guys she races against, she said, often flash “why are you here?” looks her way.

“They don’t think that girls can do it. Why? I don’t know,” she said. “We’re just like a guy except in a girl body. They’ll rough you up and try to take you out. If you let them take you out, they’re going to do it every week. You’ve just got to pound them back and show them that I’m not going to give up just because you’re a guy and I’m a 17 year-old girl.”

Or, in the case of Michael Cherry, a 19-year-old black driver trying to make his way.

Cherry is grateful for the program that gave him a steady ride last year, even if he had to commute from his home near Tampa, Fla., to Motor Mile Speedwway in southwest Virginia.

“It gives us hope that we do have a chance to make it somewhere and show what we’ve got,” Cherry said of the program. “If it wasn’t for this program, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

Going forward, NASCAR hopes, Cherry and others will keep improving that position, too.

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