Give ‘em Hell Wendell!
On December 1, 1963, Wendell Scott broke NASCAR’s color barrier by becoming the first African American NASCAR driver to win a Grand National race, NASCAR's highest level. Until Bubba Wallace’s win on October 4, 2021, there had never been another black driver to win a NASCAR race.
To this day, Wendell Scott is the only black NASCAR team owner. Despite Wendell Scott’s triumphant victory, he was never awarded a trophy for this win. It wasn’t until August 28, 2021, nearly 60 years after his Jacksonville win that his trophy was posthumously awarded to his family.
100 years after his birth and 58 years after his NASCAR victory, Wendell Scott continues to break barriers as his legacy is now irrevocably entwined with technology that is shaping the future of how users engage with the world around them. ***NFTs are a fitting mode to share Wendell Scott’s story as NFTs, like Wendell Scott, disrupted society while simultaneously paving the path for change in a broken system. Akin to NFTs impact on technology, cryptocurrency, and the future of Web 3.0, Scott’s impact shook NASCAR’s status quo and made the sport more inclusive and accessible. Owners of these NFTs have a chance to be a part of history in the making.
A monumental series of firsts, these historic NFTs were created in partnership by leading digital agency Worldwide XR (WXR), Extended Reality content developers Vue XR, and Wendell Scott Ventures and are the first ever NFTs to be released of an African American NASCAR driver. This will be Nifty’s first time releasing a 3D Augmented Reality (AR) digital car on their platform. The first of it’s kind and an exact 1:1 replica of Wendell Scott’s first-ever NASCAR winning 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air.
Wendell Scott won #NASCAR Grand National Race on December 1, 1963. To commemorate Scott’s legacy, his journey will be preserved in a series of #NFTs. The #NFT series was developed by WorldwideXR and VueXR.@niftygateway @Worldwide_XR @Vue_XR#NFTCommunity #SportNFT pic.twitter.com/hr6h3gQj4E
— Capital Block (@CapitalBlock1) March 7, 2022
Much like the blockchain allows users to operate on a decentralized system, the Extended Reality (XR) version of Scott’s car breaks it away from its physical confines of its display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and brings it to the masses. This AR asset can also be utilized in Metaverse applications. The AR memorabilia include a 3D recreation of his first-ever NASCAR championship trophy and a special edition 3D AR collage featuring a trinity of black barrier breakers Wendell Scott, Jackie Robinson and Arthur Ashe.
Depending on which NFT is purchased, owners will also receive Authentik Studios’ SILO™ Digital Frame that brings your NFTs to life by allowing users to display their collections on a 43” HD high-fidelity audio display from the comfort of their home. Users can access their entire NFT gallery via the SILO™ App & enjoy their NFTs in unparalleled 4K resolution.
In 2021, Scott 34 Racing partnered with David Steward II’s Lion Forge Animation (Academy Award®-winning Hair Love), and parent company Polarity, a leading Black-owned entertainment holding company, to create Wendell Scott Ventures and introduce the life and legacy of Wendell Scott to audiences through films, TV series, docu-series, digital content, games, and more. Polarity and Lion Forge Animation are working in direct-partnership with Wendell Scott’s son, Frank Scott, and grandson, Warrick Scott, on all initiatives. The NFT medium presents a new opportunity for storytelling that intertwines education and entertainment, with the NFTs themselves serving as pieces of living history.
*for the older folk (like NRM) who do not know what an NFT is: NFTs (short for Non-Fungible Tokens) are digital items that you own. Proof of ownership is stored on a blockchain, a digital database that is publicly accessible. Augmented reality enables creators to provide more depth and context to any digital artwork.
"Once I found out what it was like, racing was all I wanted to do as long as I could make a decent living out of it.… I'm no different from most other people who're doing what they like to do." Wendell Scott
About Wendell Scott
Born in rural Virginia in 1921 during the Jim Crow Era, a time when racial segregation was enforced by law, Wendell Scott’s life and career was filled with adversity. After serving as a mechanic in a segregated division in WWII , he was denied access to NASCAR due to the color of his skin. From his first job as a taxi driver, Scott sharpened his driving skills bootlegging moonshine during the Prohibition era.
Scott used his trials and tribulations to propel him forward. Scott became the first African American team owner and spent nine years in the “Dixie Circuit”, a smaller regional competitor to NASCAR, until he was finally able to persuade NASCAR to grant him a license to race in 1953 – officially breaking the sport’s color barrier.
Scott won the Jacksonville 200 race in 1963, only to see the win given to a white driver on a “clerical error” (later reversed). After competing in 496 NASCAR races, with 147 Top 10 finishes, a horrific near-death crash in 1973 ended his career. Scott died of cancer in 1990 and was officially inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015, becoming the first African American in NASCAR history to do so.
Wendell Scott’s career was repeatedly challenged by racial prejudice and threats on his life. However, his determined struggle as an underdog would prove to win the hearts of thousands of fans and fellow racers. Scott was, and still is, a pop culture icon who was the subject of the film “Greased Lightning” starring Richard Pryor and was the inspiration for the character of River Scott in Disney’s animated film “Cars 3.”
Wendell Scott was inducted into The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and the National Black Athletic Hall of Fame, is an honorary member of the Black American Racers Association, and is a lifetime member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
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