DECEMBER 2021 67a car co-owned by...Michael Jordan. Then again, last
year, a NASCAR driver made headlines when he was
suspended for using the n-word while gaming.
Since his return to racing, yes, Sprouse has heard the
f-word, what he calls “the worst word in the vocabulary
of the LGBT community.” Friends tell him it’s been used,
as well, when he’s been out of earshot. Sprouse says that
when he won his first race, “I actually had somebody
come up to the fence, and they said to me they hope I die.”
But, overwhelmingly, he feels that he’s judged on his
performance, skills and sportsmanship, not on his sexual
orientation. He has a small army of fans and is popular
among other drivers. Sprouse’s ex-fiancée married a man
who is now a driver; he and Sprouse are friends.
At the West Virginia Motor Speedway in Mineral Springs,
the closest thing Sprouse has to a home track, driver after
driver, fan after fan, hit on the same theme. “There’s a say-
ing in racing: You race me like I race you,” says Eric Barber,
who works on Sprouse’s crew. “If you’re mean to me, I’m
gonna be mean back. If you’re loyal to me, I’m going to
be even more loyal to you.”
The relationship between Barber and Sprouse encap-
sulates this. Barber, now 43, grew up in Parkersburg and
was close with the Sprouse family, especially Dustin’s
older brother. In 2016, running as a Democrat, he won a
spot on the city council. He found himself at odds with
more liberal members, whom he felt were attacking his
Christianity. He left the Democratic Party, becoming
unaffiliated. He had cosponsored a nondiscrimination
ordinance but, after a disagreement with the council’s
liberal members, voted against it. In an increasingly bit-
ter environment, he lost his election in November 2020
and then took his feuds to social media.
Then, the first week of the year, Barber headed to
Washington, D.C. On Jan. 6, Barber, donning a green
combat-style helmet and military-style field jacket, entered
the U.S. Capitol. In a YouTube video from the insurrec-
tion, Barber can be identified. He was among the first of
those storming the building to be arrested and charged.
Barber, who was indicted on multiple charges, including
theft and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted
building, says that he plans to take a misdemeanor plea
in December and, unlike so many involved in the breach,
he feels shame and remorse. And racing is part of his
therapy. “I did my time in the trenches and served on
the tip of the spear in this partisan war, and I don’t want
any part of it. I want to live my life in peace,” he says. “I
substituted Facebook and social media with motor sports.
And I can tell you my mental health drastically improved.”
At first blush, anyway, it’s an unlikely pairing: the
openly gay driver and the crew member who breached
the Capitol. Neither Barber nor Sprouse sees it that way.
They say their shared love of racing and shared history
overrides all. “My door on my garage, it’s like the gate at
the racetrack,” Sprouse says. “Once you go through there,
we don’t talk about [social issues]. It’s racing. Racinggay driver. But a news f lash too easily forgotten in these
binary, tribal, polarized times: People are complicated.
So are their communities.
Auto racing might be known for its conservative lean-
ings, prerace prayers and the omnipresence of Confederate
f lags, a particular stain upon the sport. (NASCAR banned
the f lags’ display last year, but not all circuits have followed
suit.) It also comes from a tradition of counterculture
bootlegging and skepticism of authority. Who was among
the first mainstream athletes to support Colin Kaepernick?
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Earlier this month, a Black driver,
Bubba Wallace, won a NASCAR race at Talladega driving