Are you ready for the weirdest motorsports story of the day?
CBS Evening News on Sunday ran a story about Melissa Harville-LeBron, an African American single mom who claims to be the “first woman of color to solely own a NASCAR team.”
There are a couple of things we know for sure: 1. Harville-Lebron leads something called E2 Northeast Motorsports and 2. The outfit “partnered” with Copp Motorsports to field a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series truck in a race at Daytona International Speedway in February.
Beyond those facts, there are some questions.
First, watch CBS’ story on Harville-LeBron and two of her sons, Eric and Enico, in the video below:
Seems like a good story, right? Well, it might be. But further digging by Yahoo! Sports’ Nick Bromberg revealed that Harville-LeBron — and her team — might not be all they claim to be.
Here are Bromberg’s tweets about CBS’ story:
CBS News aired a story recently about the “first black woman to own a NASCAR team.”
The story takes place at Dover — where there was no such team competing — and there’s no record of the owner or team on Racing Ref’s owner page.https://t.co/UZBjur17bG
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) June 5, 2018
The team, E2 Northeast Motorsports, appeared on the No. 83 truck at Daytona earlier this year. The No. 83 truck’s listed owner is DJ Copp, not Melissa Harville-Lebron, the subject of the story.
Copp and E2 allegedly “partnered” at Daytonahttps://t.co/xwQNc3y88T
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) June 5, 2018
There’s even a story as far back as 2015 about Harville-Lebron being the first black woman team owner in NASCAR, yet it curiously omits any reference to an actual team like, you know, competing. https://t.co/8gOMiKKSRL
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) June 5, 2018
There are also multiple references in stories across the internet about how Harville-Lebron’s team is "the first multicultural NASCAR team,” which is an absolutely ridiculous claim to make
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) June 6, 2018
Make of all that what you will.
While it’s difficult to 100 percent confirm or deny the information surrounding E2 Northeast Motorsports, we, like Bromberg, feel confident in saying that E2 is not the “first multicultural NASCAR team.”
For starters, retired NBA player Brad Daugherty co-owns JT Daugherty Racing, which competes on the highest levels of NASCAR. Also, retired NFL star Shawne Merriman owns a NASCAR K&N Pro Series team, which employs African American driver Jesse Iwuji. These are just two examples of many “multicultural” outfits in NASCAR.
Furthermore, in all levels of the sport, NASCAR teams are employing former professional athletes — many of whom are minorities — to work for them in various roles.
Again, it’s difficult to determine exactly who or what Harville-LeBron and E2 Northeast Motorsports are. Nevertheless, their story is very strange.
