Joshua Lewis still aspires for a job in NASCAR.

Yes, the 20-year-old black student in North Carolina A&T University's motorsports program has heard about this week's lawsuit that alleges racist and sexist allegations against NASCAR.

No, he won't abandon his goals. Instead, the lawsuit motivates him to help change the stock-car racing series.

"I want to be one to bring about more diversity," says Lewis, a Greensboro resident.

He's not alone. Other classmates echo his comments. Even Mauricia Grant, who cites racial, sexual and gender discrimination in her suit against NASCAR, says she'd recommend that minorities be a part of the sport.

"We have to work together to change the racist culture, and, anyone who has an interest in motorsports, they should be allowed to work in that environment without having to deal with racism or sexism or racially ignorant people," Grant said this week in a conference call with reporters.

She alleges that series officials called her "Nappy Headed Mo," that two co-workers repeatedly used a racist epithet and that one co-worker often made references to the Ku Klux Klan. NASCAR Chairman Brian France said earlier this week that Grant did not report the incidents to the proper officials. NASCAR is conducting an investigation into her claims.

On Friday, two officials named in a $225 million racial discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit have been placed on administrative leave for violating company policy, according to the Associated Press.

The officials, who were not immediately identified, were sent home from Kentucky Speedway on Friday evening, a person familiar with the NASCAR investigation told the AP. The person requested anonymity because NASCAR's investigation is ongoing.

What Grant has alleged doesn't scare Johnnie Wade, a High Point, N.C., resident who graduated from A&T's motorsports program last year.

"It does raise the awareness of who I am and what industry I want to belong in," he says.

Wade admits he's heard similar comments at race tracks and elsewhere in the racing business. He says he's "not surprised" about the comments Grant alleges in her lawsuit.

Neither is Thurman Exum, the director of A&T's motorsports program, which provides the most comprehensive racing curriculum at a historically black college. He teaches his students about NASCAR's checkered history. Wendell Scott is the only black driver to have won a NASCAR race -- that came in 1963 -- but he was not declared the winner until a few hours after the race. "Everybody in the place knew I had won the race," a 2005 NASCAR.com story quoted Scott as saying years earlier. "But the promoters and NASCAR officials didn't want me out there kissing any beauty queens or accepting any awards."

NASCAR, which is predominately white, has faced questions about racial attitudes for years. NASCAR supports a driver diversity program, has a diversity council and provides internships to minority students.

Those programs are not as visible as the sport's problems. In 1999, David Scott, a black motorcoach driver, said he was the victim of a racial prank. He said he was subjected to racial slurs from white motorcoach drivers and was confronted by one at a race track who wore a white pillowcase over his head, imitating a Ku Klux Klansman.

Such incidents are why Exum says A&T's motorsports program is needed "to develop African-Americans to be involved in ... NASCAR is even greater today than it has been."

More inclusion can help change attitudes and perceptions.

The allegations in Grant's lawsuit, though, raise questions of how far NASCAR has come.

"This is, in some ways, an exclamation point for those who want to think what NASCAR is," said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. "It's hurting (NASCAR) in the short term."

Lapchick notes that NASCAR's investigation into Grant's claims needs to take actions against those responsible if the allegations are found to be true.