"But since November is Native American Heritage Month, we thought we'd make an extra effort to highlight the contributions of Native Americans and to close out this year's Native American Heritage Month, we want to tell you about A.J. Russell. He's believed to be the first Native American driver to compete in one of NASCAR's top three series and he's certainly part of the first racing team to have both a Native American owner and driver.

And if things work out as hoped, A.J. hopes to someday have every single member of the team be of Native American heritage and he's with us now from Fresno, California.

Welcome. Thanks for joining us. Congratulations on everything.

A.J. RUSSELL: Thank you, Michel. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

MARTIN: Now, I understand that you don't come from a racing family, but you were bitten by the racing bug really early. How'd that happen?

RUSSELL: You know, my dad's a mechanic. My dad's a gear-head. You know, I'd always been around cars and motor sports and we were happening to watch a television program, a motocross event, and I wanted a motorcycle. So my parents, for my Christmas present, got me - at the age of five - got me a motorcycle."

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Need For Speed: Native American Joins NASCAR (NPR 11/30)