A gay NASCAR fan is finding a growing audience online

Michael Myers grew up in Spartanburg, S.C., the middle of Nascar country, but his parents were not stock-car-racing fans, so he was not one, either. He went to his first race, the 1998 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, because he received free tickets.

But Myers said he became an unabashed fan over the next four or five years, and in September 2009, he started a racing Web site different from most others. Queers4Gears.com, he announced, would be an online home for gay Nascar fans.

Myers, 37, who lives in Las Vegas, is keeping his day job as a sales manager. But his Web site has found a modest audience of race fans, gay and straight. He said the site had averaged about 2,000 unique visitors a month.

“Nascar has more fans who are accepting of me being gay than gays have been accepting of me being a Nascar fan,” Myers said in a recent telephone interview.

He still wants gay racing fans to know they are not alone. In fact, he made what he thought was Nascar history by arranging a ticket discount for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender fans to Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway.

“Just that alone, just sticking that on the Web site, says volumes to the gay community,” Myers said.

The deal, which is available to anyone through Queers4Gears, is among about 200 group ticket specials for the race weekend, said Paul Corliss, a track spokesman. About 50 to 100 people were expected to take advantage of the discount, which ranged from $7 to $18 a ticket, depending on seat location. For some, it may be an introduction to Nascar racing.

“As race promoters, we are always interested in opportunities to reach potential fans and introduce them to the excitement of our Nascar events,” Corliss said.

The ticket offer was a triumph of sorts for Myers, who as a part-time journalist is trying to get the word out to gay Nascar fans that they are not alone.

It is no secret that attendance at Sprint Cup races is lagging. Tracks are becoming more creative: Richmond International Raceway, for example, will allow fans to carry in soft-sided coolers that hold up to 36 beverage cans next season; the previous limit was six cans.

Nascar applauded Phoenix’s ticket offer through Queers4Gears, which Myers began to arrange when he was at the track in the spring to cover a Sprint Cup race for his site.

Andrew Giangola, a Nascar spokesman, said: “Nascar is a sport open to everyone, and we market it very broadly, as opposed to specific demographic segments. For example, while women make up 40 percent of the Nascar fan base, we position the sport more generally to all sports fans and would-be fans.”

Queers4Gears is not the only car Web site for gay men and lesbians, but it seems to be carrying the most momentum. Myers’s tongue-in-cheek “gaynalyses” of each race refers to drivers as divas and leans hard on the soap-opera-style drama of the sport. But he also writes standard recaps of every Sprint Cup race.

He also wants to keep the site lighthearted and fun. Some readers expected Myers to comment when Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, whom many regard as antigay, delivered the invocation before an August race in Atlanta. Myers chose not to.

“I’ve been so encouraged by the acceptance that I’ve gotten, I don’t want to upset the pot, so to speak,” Myers said.

He has drawn notice from the mainstream news media, and his Queers4Gears Twitter account has more than 1,300 followers. But two accounts that Myers set up anonymously each have more followers. When Kyle Busch, a tempestuous 25-year-old Sprint Cup driver, talked early in the season about softening his abrasive personality, Myers created @oldkylebusch and @newkylebusch on Twitter to poke fun at Busch.

On Halloween, @oldkylebusch posted: “No KyBu Pumpkin this year. I was trying to carve it when it bumped me — so I smashed it into the wall.”

Myers was found to be the author of the posts, and Queers4Gears drew more attention. This, Myers figured, made his Web site more legitimate (not to mention more visible to potential advertisers).

He acknowledges that gay male race fans are attracted to stock car drivers the way straight female race fans are, but his agenda seems to be much simpler.

Race fans, no matter their sexual preference, just like to watch races.

“I’m not there to ask drivers about what they think about gay marriage,” Myers said. “I’m there to ask them about racing.”

DAVE CALDWELL
The New York Times...