Auston Harris was invited to participate in the Accelerate first annual driver shoot-out which took place from February 25 through March 3, 2007. 

 

The Accelerate program was sponsored by S&L Racing whose principals are Gale Sayers and Ray Lewis of NFL fame.  They were to be assisted by Newman-Wachs Racing and have program development assistance from the Champ Car World Series.  The Accelerate program goal is to bring minority talent from all disciplines, drivers to engineers and executives, into the racing world.

 

The program was well thought out and included a variety of vehicles and tracks.  Beginning in Phoenix at the Bob Bondurant facility the participants were evaluated in karts and then Corvettes.  They moved on to Las Vegas where they ran the outside school track in American Racing Academy formula cars.  Finally they were at Laguna Seca where the expected Champ/Atlantic cars from Newman-Wachs were not available due to transportation issues, so formula cars from the Skip Barber Racing School were used for sessions on the world famous course.

 

Interspersed with the track sessions was a full schedule of classroom training sessions including topics such as physical training, public speaking, media relations and of course overall principles and concepts of formula cars.

 

The week long program was fully documented by a video production crew who followed the group and their activities at each venue including mock interviews which were part of the training program.

 

Overall the program was excellent; Auston thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found the training to be invaluable.  Unfortunately, although the winner and the award were to be announced on March 3 at the awards dinner they were not.  At the first weekend of April Auston has yet to hear from the organizers on how his performance was judged and any next steps to be taken.  While this is disappointing, Auston nonetheless thanks the organizers for the experience and the training, it is valuable as he continues his career in motorsports.