Texas Motor Speedway unveiled its Speeding To Read pilot reading program to more than 600 students at Clara Love Elementary School on Friday and announced an exclusive partnership for the 2011-12 academic year with the Justin-based school for this NASCAR-themed educational program.
Speeding To Read is an incentive-based reading program created by Texas Motor Speedway to encourage students to read more frequently during the school year. The student body will be split into two divisions – kindergarten through second grade and third through fifth grade – with the classrooms competing against each other to read the most books and earn the title of Speeding To Read champions.
The program will begin Monday and run through April for Clara Love’s 29 classrooms that all will have the opportunity to earn incentive prizes throughout the academic year. The classrooms in each division leading the race at nine-week intervals will earn special prizes and awards from Texas Motor Speedway.
The K-2 and grade 3-5 champions at the conclusion of the school year will earn class trophies and each student will receive four frontstretch grandstand tickets to next April’s Samsung Mobile 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage announced the Speeding To Read program during an assembly in the school auditorium that included all students, teachers, parents and dignitaries such as Northwest ISD Superintendent Dr. Karen Rue, Clara Love Elementary Principal Julie Nerby, Clara Love Elementary Assistant Principal Yolanda Wallace and NISD Board of Trustees Vice President Mel Fuller. Two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart also taped a video message for the student body to encourage them to embrace the Speeding To Read program.
“We’re excited about the debut of this NASCAR-themed pilot program designed by Texas Motor Speedway to encourage students to read more frequently and improve in that important aspect of their overall academic curriculum,” Gossage said. “We have a perfect partner in Clara Love Elementary, which embraces outside initiatives such as Speeding To Read and strives to provide their students with fun and unique educational programs.”
“We are excited to have a partnership with Texas Motor Speedway at our local school,” Northwest ISD Superintendent Karen G. Rue, Ed.D., said. “This program is a wonderful way for Texas Motor Speedway to utilize the excitement of NASCAR and the day’s events to influence young minds by encouraging reading in the classroom and the development of lifelong reading skills.”
To keep abreast of the competition – which will be known as the Clara Love 500 -throughout the school year, Texas Motor Speedway had an 8×24-foot animated mural of the world-class motorsports facility produced by sports artist David Arrigo that will hang on Clara Love’s library wall.
Each classroom will receive a cut-out template of a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car and the students will design their own paint scheme as part of the program. The cars will be placed on the speedway mural and move incrementally around the track in relation to the amount of books read by each classroom.
Clara Love, an “America’s Choice” school that already has an accelerated reading program, will determine the books and curriculum for the students during the Clara Love 500. Included in that curriculum is the “Principal’s Book of the Month” as well as a NASCAR-themed book that will count double in the competition.
To help initiate the Speeding To Read program, Speedway Children’s Charities-Texas Chapter donated $1,000 worth of new books to the school library while Headline Kids and NASCAR donated 30 copies of Funny Dan the Race Car Man by author Tim Packman to serve as a NASCAR-themed book. Press Pass, Inc. also donated a pack of NASCAR collectible cards to each student to kick off the program.
The library’s speedway mural will serve as the focal point of Speeding To Read, but Clara Love Elementary also will incorporate the Texas Motor Speedway and NASCAR theme throughout the entire school. Street signs with NASCAR’s most popular current drivers will hang in the school’s busiest hallways, along with TMS and NASCAR banners and signage, for the duration of the school year.
“Our school community is looking forward to participating in this unique partnership with Texas Motor Speedway,” Nerby said. “The motivation and excitement created by the Clara Love 500 will promote a love for reading that will result in academic success for all of our students. We are appreciative of the support from all of the sponsors who are helping to make Speeding to Read a huge success.”
Texas Motor Speedway PR
- Talladega Superspeedway Weekend Schedule - April 14, 2024
- Odd Tony Stewart Talladega Post Race Q&A - May 7, 2012
- Team Chevy Post Talladega Race Rundown - May 7, 2012