Evan Darling: Just Being Himself

To many gay men and lesbians who love auto racing, he's a trailblazer. To the LGBT community at large, he's an advocate. To the many closeted gay athletes, he's a mentor.

If you ask Evan Darling who he is, he'd say he's just being himself. It only takes a couple of minutes to realize there is more to this speed demon than meets the eye.

Did you grow up in a racing family?
No, but my father raced years and years ago and decided it was too dangerous. That's why he's very against me racing. He still thinks you race with leather helmets and no seat belts.

So if Dad's opposed to it, how did you get interested in racing?
I think it's just always been in my blood. Ever since my first Big Wheel® races down the hills, I've always been into speed. I've always done speed sports like skiing, racing dirt and mountain bikes, really anything I could have raced. I've always been very competitive. Cars, well, I've always been very interested in them, and my interest in them just naturally progressed into this.

Is it just the speed that you love about it?
No, it's also the competition. The feeling you get inside of a race car is like no other. It just a real sense of achievement when you win a race or do really well. I sort of compare it to like being in a war. You're out there with these guys, and you race against them and when you're done racing there is this bond you have with them. You're trusting each other with your lives.

The type of racing you do is different from NASCAR or Formula One. What are the differences?
I compete in the Grand Am KONI Challenge Series, which is actually owned by NASCAR. It's a premier road racing series and we race on tracks similar to Formula One, meaning we turn left and right. Tracks are generally between a mile and a half and four miles. There are elevation changes and all kinds of interesting stuff. We race at Daytona and we use the international course, which uses all the banking and as well as all of the infield. We don't race in ovals, but we do race on tracks that are oval but have been modified with road courses on them, so we can get all the thrills of banking and the high speeds and we also have the thrill of turning left and right. There is a high skill level involved with it, dealing with all of that.

We race production-based cars. I'm racing Volkswagen GTI, Acura RSX and TSX and Mazda RX-8. We modify them with safety equipment and build the engines up a little bit and then we race them against each other. These are the cars you buy every day, except we tear them apart and put $100,000 into them to make them do what we need them to do.

How much money do you need to be competitive?
Generally, it costs me between $15,000 to $20,000 a weekend, plus the cost of building the cars, which is very expensive.

How many weekends do you typically race?
Our Grand Am season ranges from 10 to 12 races. So it usually costs me $250,000 to $275,000 a year to race. I sold my business in order to pursue this, and I've since run out of money. So I'm working in the shop that prepares the car and they give me a lot of money off. I also test cars for them, so they help me out in that respect, but it still costs money to compete.

What is your ultimate goal in racing?
My ultimate goal is to make a living racing cars. Whether it be NASCAR or the upper echelon of Grand Am, which is the Rolex [Sports Car] Series. They race $2 million and $3 million cars in 24-hour-long races. That would be my ultimate goal, to get to that level and to make a living being a race car driver; doing that and being able to help support our community.

How has the racing community responded to you as a gay racer?
The racing community has been very supportive. I get a few funny looks here and there, but there are always going to be some people who don't agree with it. They think it's a lifestyle choice, which, as we all know, it's not. You are what you are.

The team that I race with really didn't know any gay people and then I came along. They've always been very supportive; we joke around, we have a good time and I even work for the shop now. It's just a real positive thing. It just takes someone being out there to show everyone that we're all really the same. Who you love doesn"t determine who you can or can't be.

I've gotten some very good emails from racing fans, straight and gay, that are very supportive and say this is a very great thing. I've had some negative feedback from some people. They say things like "Why do you have to do this?" [telling people you're gay.] My response is "Why do you have to tell everyone you're straight?" Just being yourself is the best possible thing you can be.

There are definite signs the sports world is slowly changing in regard to athletes coming out. More and more are venturing out of the closet and doing very well at their sports. How do you see homophobia in sports changing?
I see things changing a lot. Just the fact that people are coming out, others are able to see that it's not just people in the general public; we're everywhere. We are the guy working on your car, the person fixing the road, and we're also the guy racing the car or the one throwing the ball. We're part of life. We're a percentage. The fact that gay people like the same things that straight people like is an eye-opener for some, and the more we do this, the easier it will become.

Sadly, it's always going to be more difficult in a team environment, like football, basketball, baseball and soccer just because you're interacting with these guys every day. Most people coming out in those sports had to hide it. So [teammates are] learning something new about someone they've known, and I think that's what makes it really difficult.

What advice do you have for closeted gay athletes?
Yeah, I would say don't just burst out of the closet. Look at your environment and ease into it. It's something you have to be truthful in if you want to do your best. I've found that being truthful to myself, and truthful to others, I'm able to concentrate more on the sport, as opposed to wondering all the time, or having that in the back of my head. It's one less thing you have to worry about. It's like coming out in general. There are a lot of times people hold it in for years and when they do finally come out their friends say "Yeah, we knew." It would have been so much easier to come out early and be happy for all that time, as opposed to being stressed over it. Be comfortable enough with yourself and comfortable enough to talk to some people about it. Come out to yourself first and come out to others when you're comfortable with yourself.

Was there anyone in particular whom you idolized that helped you make the decision to come out?
It's hard to say. My idols are race car drivers. Michael Schumacher, Hurley Haywood, people who have been very good at what they do. I've always idolized them because of my interest in my sport. But as far as coming out, with the nature of my sport, there aren't a lot of people who are out and race cars. I feel like I'm sort of a groundbreaker. We have Terri O'Conell and Billy Innes who are out race car drivers, but to be on TV on a weekly or monthly basis, and to see someone who's out and doing this stuff, wasn't there. So I thought maybe I could be that person for someone. Regardless of how I do, and I generally do pretty good in the races, it's good to see someone out there and active.

I hear you raced in the Fireball Run Transcontinental Rally.
The Fireball Run was a great thing I did with Joe LaMuraglia, publisher of Gaywheels.com. He contacted me and wanted me to drive a car in this event and it went very well. It was a very positive thing. There were people who were offended by the Gaywheels.com and Glee.com logos and other things on the car and they thought we were kind of overdoing it a bit. In the end, by the end of the week-long race, everyone was very positive and supportive of us. We did really well on the track days; I was able to run the car really well even though it was completely stock. We finished second in our class and 11th overall of 100 cars to enter the race. And it was for a good cause. It benefited the Child Rescue Network, and we had a picture of a child on our car. We had media at every stop and we got the word out.

Is it hard finding sponsorship as an out gay racer?
[Laughs] It's hard no matter what you do. I came out as a gay racer to help the community and be a part of a professional sport. I actually entered into this sport as an out gay man. On the amateur side I didn't hide my sexuality, but I didn't promote it either. I had sponsors from gay bars and stuff like that. But when I went professional last year, my first endurance race was in Homestead, Fla., and we almost won the thing. We ended up getting a driver penalty because my co-driver was speeding on pit lane. It was no big deal; we still finished in the Top 10 (in seventh place). So it was a very good thing, and I got some good media out of that, and the gay issue has never really been a problem. I do think it may have made it a little more difficult to get sponsorship.

How can people reading this donate money to help support your team?
They can go to my website and there is a PayPal link right there. Or they can contact me or my agent through the website and I can discuss what kind of sponsorship we can do. I have some private sponsors and some nonprofits I support so if people want to donate money toward that I can put the Point Foundation [which funds and mentors underprivileged LGBT students] and Trevor Project [a 24/7 nationwide crisis and suicide prevention hotline for LGBT and questioning youth] on the car; those are the two I've been working with, and that way we can really help the community.

I would also like thank my sponsors that helped get me to my last race in Daytona: Chic Optique, Ruff Riders, Dr. Veronica Gipps, my team GSM Motorsports (German Speed Merchants) and Bildon Motorsports.