Benny Scott - Early Career

Early Career

In 1968, Scott quickly recognized the enormous sums of money it took to race cars, so he earned his master’s degree in psychology. He taught psychology at Los Angeles Harbor College while competing in foreign stock car events in Southern California at the height of the Vietnam War, driving a Renault 4CV. He finished the season ranked 10th in points. In 1969, he returned with an advanced tubular chassis Renault with a Gordini engine and won the Foreign Stock Car Association of Southern California title, his first championship. Shortly thereafter he transitioned into road racing, driving an Austin-Healey Bug-Eyed Sprite in the H-Production class and Formula B cars at Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California, earning his Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) license.

Mel Leighton, a Los Angeles-based African American racing pioneer whose career had begun before the Second World War, introduced Scott to Leonard W. Miller, an African American businessman and president of Dynamic Programs, Inc., a manpower consulting firm in Trenton, New Jersey.