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The 909 Group is adding a new mem­ber to its exec­u­tive team – Wade Leaphart will join the Huntersville, N.C. based sports and mar­ket­ing agency as Direc­tor of Busi­ness Development.

Leaphart comes to The 909 Group from Bob­cats Sports & Enter­tain­ment, where he served as Senior Account Exec­u­tive, Pre­mium Sales for the NBA’s Char­lotte Bob­cats. Prior to that, the Uni­ver­sity of South Car­olina grad­u­ate held var­i­ous sales and mar­ket­ing posi­tions, includ­ing Direc­tor of Sales for the ECHL’s Fresno Falcons.

“Wade’s sales and mar­ket­ing expe­ri­ence, along with his impres­sive track record and abil­ity to close deals, will serve him well at The 909 Group,” said Max Siegel, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of The 909 Group. “He will be an asset to our team and brings the skills nec­es­sary to help accel­er­ate the growth of our company.”

As Direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, Leaphart will over­see the agency’s sales efforts.  Among other projects, he will focus on secur­ing new part­ners & spon­sors for the Drive for Diver­sity program.

Michael Cherry races in the heart of the South at Greenville Pick­ens Speedway. The track opened in 1940 as a half mile dirt track. NASCAR began rac­ing at the track in 1951. The track was paved as an asphalt track in April 1970. Cherry is the first African Amer­i­can to race there since Wen­dell Scott.

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 1, 2009) – Thir­teen stu­dents from across the United States have been selected to par­tic­i­pate in the 2009 NASCAR Diver­sity Intern­ship Pro­gram that starts today and gives minor­ity col­lege stu­dents the oppor­tu­nity to com­plete 10-week, paid sum­mer intern­ships within the NASCAR industry.

More than 200 stu­dents have par­tic­i­pated in the pro­gram since its incep­tion in 2000. These interns have gained expe­ri­ence work­ing in mar­ket­ing, engi­neer­ing, pub­lic rela­tions, licens­ing and var­i­ous other areas. Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gram has led to full-time posi­tions in the indus­try for a num­ber of past interns.

“The NASCAR Diver­sity Intern­ship Pro­gram has intro­duced dozens of stu­dents from diverse back­grounds to pro­fes­sional oppor­tu­ni­ties in NASCAR,” said Mar­cus Jadotte, NASCAR’s man­ag­ing direc­tor of pub­lic affairs, who over­sees the diver­sity depart­ment. “The pro­gram has played an impor­tant role in NASCAR’s efforts to attract the best and bright­est to our industry.”

The pro­gram fea­tures intern­ships offered by NASCAR offices, spon­sors, licensees, teams, tracks and broad­cast part­ners. In addi­tion to NASCAR cor­po­rate offices in Day­tona Beach, Char­lotte, and Con­cord, the fol­low­ing com­pa­nies are par­tic­i­pat­ing in 2009: Cat­a­lyst Pub­lic Rela­tions, Day­tona Inter­na­tional Speed­way, Inter­na­tional Speed­way Cor­po­ra­tion (ISC), Joe Gibbs Rac­ing, Just Mar­ket­ing Inter­na­tional, Octa­gon, The SPEED Chan­nel, and The 909 Group.

The cur­rent intern class began their NASCAR expe­ri­ence with an ori­en­ta­tion ses­sion dur­ing the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race week­end at Lowe’s Motor Speed­way in Con­cord, N.C. The group vis­ited the NASCAR Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter in Con­cord, the Sam Bass NASCAR Art Gallery, Roush Fen­way Rac­ing head­quar­ters, attended the NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Chal­lenge pre­sented by Crafts­man, and the NASCAR Camp­ing World Truck Series race. In addi­tion, the group met with a num­ber of key peo­ple in the NASCAR indus­try includ­ing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew mem­bers, dri­vers, and NASCAR executives.

Each year, the intern­ships are avail­able to col­lege sopho­mores, juniors, seniors and grad­u­ate stu­dents across the coun­try. To be eli­gi­ble, stu­dents must be in good stand­ing with their school and com­mu­nity and have a min­i­mum 3.0 grade-point average.

In addi­tion to the intern­ship pro­gram, NASCAR awards diver­sity schol­ar­ships in trib­ute to NASCAR leg­end Wen­dell Scott, has an at-track diver­sity men­tor­ship pro­gram and a col­lege tour that vis­its his­tor­i­cally black col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties and Hispanic-serving institutions.

Attached is a list of the stu­dents and their col­leges. More infor­ma­tion on the intern­ship pro­gram is avail­able at www.diversityinternships.com.

Katie Hagar is focused. She’s focused on her rac­ing career; she’s focused on main­tain­ing a healthy lifestyle; she’s focused on help­ing kids learn to believe in themselves.

Her focus is pay­ing off, too. She’s a sec­ond year par­tic­i­pant in the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram, rac­ing for Golden State Rac­ing at Madera (Calif.) Speed­way. She has two top fives and six top 10s in six starts this season.

The 22-year-old Hagar wasn’t always this dri­ven, though.

Like many kids, Hagar went through some grow­ing pains as she strug­gled to define her­self as a pre-teen. She found her grades slip­ping and her atten­tion in school dimin­ish­ing. To add to her strug­gles, her sixth grade teacher died sud­denly from a heart attack.

“I went through some chal­leng­ing times,” says Hagar. “I was dis­cour­aged, unfo­cused and I wasn’t mak­ing the best decisions.”

That was before she climbed behind the wheel of a racecar.

“I was 11 years old… My dad pointed me towards rac­ing as a way to refo­cus my life,” she says. “He knew he could con­nect with me if I had a way to focus.”

Motor­sports wasn’t entirely new to Hagar, a native of Damariscotta, Maine. Her par­ents, Mark and Cindy, ran a race team, com­pet­ing in the Charger Divi­sion at local tracks in New Eng­land. Hagar grew up around the track watch­ing her dad’s team com­pete, but never took an inter­est in com­pet­ing her­self, instead play­ing soc­cer and basketball.

But when Hagar was strug­gling to find direc­tion in her life, her dad knew that rac­ing was exactly what his daugh­ter needed.

And he was right.

When Hagar was 11, she began com­pet­ing in go-karts. She tran­si­tioned to the Alli­son Legacy Series when she was 14. By the time she was 17 she was rac­ing an Open Wheeled Mod­i­fied and a Super Late Model in the Pro All Star Series in New Eng­land. She knew she wanted to make rac­ing a career.

“My dad has always tried to be one step ahead of me,” says Hagar. “He knew that I needed some­thing in my life that I could devote myself to 110 per­cent, and rac­ing was it for me.”

Hagar did con­tinue to play soc­cer and bas­ket­ball as she honed her rac­ing skills, and she grad­u­ated from Lin­coln Acad­emy High School in New Cas­tle, Maine in 2004.

Today, as a par­tic­i­pant in the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram, Hagar’s life revolves around rac­ing and doing every­thing she can to find a com­pet­i­tive edge. She’s at the gym first thing every morn­ing. She han­dles her own pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing, and is always ready to make a pitch to a poten­tial spon­sor. On race day, you can find her in the grand­stands, sign­ing auto­graphs before she climbs into her race car.

“It’s all about stay­ing healthy, pos­i­tive and deter­mined,” she says.

Away from the race track, Hagar is using her expe­ri­ences to help other kids who may be in the same place she was when she was 11-years-old. With the sup­port of her father, she vis­its schools to with her youth pro­gram, Believe in Your­self 101. The pro­gram reaches dif­fer­ent age groups, includ­ing ele­men­tary, mid­dle and high school students.

“I use my story to show kids what you can achieve when you believe in your­self,” Hagar explains. “If you set a reach­able goal and put your mind to it, you can achieve suc­cess in life. I went through some tough times, but I was able to mature and make the right choices. That’s what I try to instill in the kids I meet though Believe in Your­self 101.”

Hagar’s suc­cess story isn’t fin­ished, though. She’s still deter­mined to find suc­cess as a pro­fes­sional race car dri­ver, but knows she hasn’t cho­sen the easy road.

“I’ll take it as far as it will go, but I know this is the path I was meant to take.”

The 909 Group is an inno­v­a­tive sports, enter­tain­ment and lifestyle mar­ket­ing firm. The com­pany com­bines the strengths and expe­ri­ence of decades of hands-on prac­tice in enter­tain­ment, sports and mar­ket­ing. We pro­vide inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als through­out the sports and enter­tain­ment indus­tries. Our areas of focus include tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion, pub­lic rela­tions, spon­sor­ship devel­op­ment and rep­re­sen­ta­tion, web devel­op­ment, online mar­ket­ing and lifestyle marketing.

Drive for Diver­sity is the industry’s lead­ing devel­op­ment pro­gram for minor­ity and female dri­vers and crew mem­bers. Man­aged by The 909 Group, the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram cur­rently sup­ports dri­vers in two of NASCAR’s devel­op­men­tal series – the NASCAR Camp­ing World Series and the NASCAR Whe­len All-American Series. Drive for Diver­sity also sup­ports crew mem­ber can­di­dates through a four-year pit crew train­ing pro­gram. Crew mem­bers have gone on to com­pete in the NASCAR Camp­ing World Truck Series and the NASCAR Nation­wide Series.

The Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram helps to fur­ther diver­sify NASCAR’s par­tic­i­pant and audi­ence base. Diver­sity is NASCAR’s top cor­po­rate ini­tia­tive and NASCAR has been instru­men­tal in assist­ing The 909 Group in the devel­op­ment of Drive for Diver­sity. Much of the suc­cess of the Drive for Diver­sity ini­tia­tive is a result of sup­port from key spon­sors and involved team owners.

The Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram has been suc­cess­ful in cre­at­ing mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for minor­ity and female com­peti­tors and has seen growth since its incep­tion in 2004. The fol­low­ing dri­vers and crew mem­bers are prod­ucts of the Drive for Diver­sity initiative:

• Nicole Addi­son – Tire Changer, NASCAR Camp­ing World Truck Series
• Mark Davis – Dri­ver, NASCAR Nation­wide Series
• Paul Har­raka – Dri­ver, 2008 NASCAR Whe­len All-American Series track cham­pion
• Jesus Her­nan­dez – Dri­ver, NASCAR Camp­ing World Series
• Robert John­son – Strength & Con­di­tion­ing Coach, Roush Fen­way Rac­ing
• Carl Mabon – NASCAR Nation­wide Series Official

In 2009, under the direc­tion of The 909 Group, the pro­gram expanded to include 12 dri­vers and 14 crew members.

This Feb­ru­ary Kristin Bum­bera was rec­og­nized as the 2008 Drive for Diver­sity Par­tic­i­pant of the Year, an honor given to a dri­ver or crew mem­ber who exem­pli­fies out­stand­ing per­for­mance on the track while also edu­cat­ing and expos­ing young peo­ple to NASCAR and motor­sports. It’s no sur­prise that Bum­bera took home this honor; in addi­tion to tak­ing two wins, break­ing two track records, win­ning five poles and earn­ing numer­ous top fives and top 10s at All-American Speed­way in Roseville, Calif., Kristin found time to give back to the com­mu­nity and com­plete three semes­ters at the Uni­ver­sity of Hous­ton, where she is pur­su­ing a degree in marketing.

“It’s all about find­ing bal­ance,” said the 21 year-old racer. “My goal is to race pro­fes­sion­ally, but edu­ca­tion and com­mu­nity ser­vice are also impor­tant aspects of my life.”

In early 2008, as a first year par­tic­i­pant in the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram, Bum­bera relo­cated from her home­town of Sealy, Texas, to Cal­i­for­nia to run a 25-race sched­ule at All Amer­i­can Speed­way in the NASCAR Whe­len All-American Series. Bum­bera is back in Texas now, but she’s rac­ing in the NASCAR Camp­ing World Series East, trav­el­ing to 12 tracks in eight dif­fer­ent states. She keeps up with her stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Hous­ton with online courses.

“I’m glad to have the oppor­tu­nity to con­tinue my edu­ca­tion,” she said. “A degree in mar­ket­ing will not only help me now with my rac­ing career, but it will also ben­e­fit me later in life to have a col­lege education.”

Bumbera’s online courses are ben­e­fit­ing her two-fold; she’s earn­ing the cred­its she needs for her degree and she’s also get­ting a les­son in self-discipline.

“Online courses aren’t as easy as some peo­ple might think,” said Bum­bera. “It takes a lot of dis­ci­pline to study inde­pen­dently and keep myself account­able, espe­cially when I’m rac­ing every weekend.”

When she’s not rac­ing or study­ing, Bum­bera is giv­ing back to her local com­mu­nity and sup­port­ing diver­sity in rac­ing across the country.

She, along with her sis­ter, Kendall, and her brother, Boyd, filmed a pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment last sum­mer for Safe Kids Greater Hous­ton, an orga­ni­za­tion whose mis­sion is to pre­vent acci­den­tal child­hood injuries, a lead­ing killer of chil­dren 14 and under. The Bum­bera sib­lings, all of whom race com­pet­i­tively, were pro­mot­ing the use of booster seats for children.

“It was fun work­ing with Kendall and Boyd on this project. We had a great time and it was for a great cause,” she said. “Hope­fully as our rac­ing careers progress we’ll have more oppor­tu­ni­ties to work together.”

In addi­tion to advo­cat­ing for spe­cial causes, Bum­bera has also coun­seled high school stu­dents on oppor­tu­ni­ties in NASCAR’s Diver­sity ini­tia­tives and worked with fos­ter chil­dren at the Buck­ner Children’s Home. She looks to con­tinue her com­mu­nity ser­vice projects well into the future.
“I’ve been very blessed in my life,” she said. “It’s impor­tant to keep giv­ing back no mat­ter what.”

Black Enter­tain­ment Tele­vi­sion, a net­work keyed to African-Americans, will air a show next sea­son with NASCAR, a sport that has tried for years to improve diver­sity within its ranks.

“Chang­ing Lanes,” a docu-reality series expected to launch in 2010, will spot­light dri­vers in NASCAR’s “Drive for Diver­sity” program.

“I wanted to see more oppor­tu­ni­ties cre­ated in NASCAR for peo­ple of color, espe­cially on the com­pe­ti­tion side,” said Max Siegel, a for­mer record exec­u­tive turned stock car insider.

Siegel, who had been pres­i­dent of Dale Earn­hardt, Inc., took the idea to Jay Abra­ham, who runs NASCAR Media, the sport’s pro­duc­tion arm, and together they shopped it to net­works. BET will announce the show today as part of its new pro­gram­ming presentation.

“We’re going imme­di­ately into cre­ative meet­ings,” Siegel said. “We’ll come up with a pretty quick pro­duc­tion schedule.”

BET has bought 10 episodes of the hour-long show.

NASCAR has a num­ber of on-and-off-track diver­sity pro­grams, includ­ing the “Drive for Diver­sity,” which backs female and minor­ity dri­vers in feeder series for the sport’s top level. Some of those dri­vers will par­tic­i­pate in the real­ity show, said Siegel.

“Every week, there’s a lot of com­pe­ti­tion, on-track per­for­mance, a lot of back story, and get­ting to know the par­tic­i­pants,” Siegel said. “We want the audi­ence to get to know what it takes to par­tic­i­pate at this level.”

“Chang­ing Lanes” is far from the first real­ity series to delve into the sport, however.

FX aired “NASCAR Dri­vers 360,” a show that fol­lowed dri­vers on and off the track. ABC tried a celebrity series pair­ing stars with dri­vers in a race com­pe­ti­tion. And TLC aired “NASCAR Wives.”

None, how­ever, has focused exclu­sively on dri­vers who are women or of color.

“We want to tell a true story that is rac­ing authen­tic,” he said.

Few of these sports-related real­ity shows have become main­stream hits, however.

“For peo­ple who don’t know rac­ing,” Siegel said, “it has drama built into it. There’s a lot of speed. There’s a lot of com­plex­ity in rac­ing. Those are the key touch points to make an enter­tain­ment prod­uct successful.”

Does that mean vil­lains and heroes? Well, not exactly.

“I don’t know that you nec­es­sar­ily need any vil­lains,” he said. “What peo­ple need are good story lines. Look at [“Extreme Makeover: Home Edi­tion”]. We want to do things that, obvi­ously, cast NASCAR in the excit­ing and fun light that it is. We won’t script it in a way where we’re cre­at­ing vil­lains and rivalries.”

Siegel said NASCAR offi­cials have gone a long way in diver­si­fy­ing the sport, not­ing that there’s been an impact off the track, but he acknowl­edged that until there’s a top female dri­ver or one of color, NASCAR will con­tinue to be criticized.

“I do think fans will catch on when we do have a star that peo­ple can con­nect with,” Siegel said, hop­ing to have a hand in that with “Chang­ing Lanes.” “It will have an impact.”

Natalie Sather has always known she wanted to work in the auto indus­try. At an age when most young girls are telling their par­ents they want to be bal­leri­nas or princesses, Sather was telling her par­ents that she wanted to be a car sales­man or a race car driver.

“I’ve been around cars and rac­ing my whole life,” said Sather, whose father owns car deal­er­ships. “Peo­ple who know me say I could sell snow to an Eskimo, so I always thought I’d make a good salesperson.”

For now though, Sather is focus­ing on her dream of becom­ing a pro­fes­sional race car dri­ver as a mem­ber of the 2009 Drive for Diver­sity class. And she’s not let­ting that stop her from being a girl.

The 23-year-old from Fargo, N.D. started rac­ing go-karts when she was eight and moved to sprint cars in 2002. With her mom by her side, she trav­eled the coun­try while mov­ing up the sprint car ranks.

“I don’t know how many girls can say they spent every Sat­ur­day night in high school with their mom,” she said. “That’s what I did, though, and I wouldn’t trade it. My mom is my biggest sup­porter; we’ve been trav­el­ing and rac­ing together since I was 12 years old.”

Sather says she’s the girli­est tomboy you’ll ever meet and she just might be right. Dur­ing the 2003 off-season she com­peted in the Miss North Dakota Teen USA pageant where she was voted Miss Con­ge­nial­ity. She went on to com­pete in the 2006 Miss North Dakota USA pageant where she was sec­ond runner-up. She was also cap­tain of her cheer­lead­ing squad in high school.

Don’t let the beauty pageants fool you, though. Sather isn’t afraid to get a lit­tle dirt under her man­i­cured fin­ger­nails. In high school she trans­ferred to a school in a nearby town so she could take classes her home­town school didn’t offer – mechan­ics, weld­ing and build­ing con­struc­tion. She recently moved from North Dakota to Mon­roe, Wash. where she’s rac­ing with Total Veloc­ity Motor­sports this sea­son. She’s at the race shop every day, work­ing on her super late model and learn­ing every­thing she can. Sather knows it’s impor­tant for a dri­ver to know what’s going on with the race car.

“It might sound silly, but I’ve always lived by the motto ‘if you treat a car good, it’ll treat you good,’” she said. “That’s why I’m in the shop every day work­ing with the guys. I want to be involved in the whole process so I do what­ever I can to help, whether it’s clean­ing the car and the trailer or chang­ing oil. What­ever needs to be done I’ll do it.”

Sather’s will­ing­ness to help out at the shop has helped her fit in with her new race team.

“It’s a lit­tle bit like a cir­cus – we’re always jok­ing around and hav­ing a good time, but when it’s time to work every­one gets down to busi­ness and pulls their weight. I’ve only been here for a short time, but I can hon­estly say this team is my family.”

Sather is hop­ing that her new found fam­ily will help make her tran­si­tion from dirt to asphalt a smooth one. She’s com­pet­ing on asphalt for the first time this sea­son in cars she is unfa­mil­iar with. She looks to one of her idols, Jeff Gor­don, for motivation.

“I’ve always admired what he’s done for the sport,” she said. “He came from open-wheel and has had a suc­cess­ful career in NASCAR. He didn’t give up and he didn’t for­get where he came from.”

Sather made her asphalt super late model debut April 11, scor­ing a top-10 fin­ish. She’ll be rac­ing the full sea­son for the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram at the 0.375 and 0.625-mile tracks at Ever­green Speed­way. She’ll also be rac­ing as many sprint car races as she can fit into her schedule.

“I can’t leave the dirt. I love it. It’s what I grew up on,” she said.