FORT WORTH, Texas — NASCAR’s All Star race speeds into Fort Worth this weekend, and the new top guy at the track wants this one to be the start of them drawing a more diverse fan base at their events.

Texas Motor Speedway’s general manager, Rob Ramage, just took over the job last year as only the second person to hold the title in the track’s more than 25-year history. One of the first priorities he announced when taking the reigns was to increase the number of Hispanic fans at the races — a population NASCAR has struggled to draw in over the years.

“When I first started here, our event attendee population that was Hispanic, or identified themselves as being Hispanic, was 0.0002 [percent],” said Ramage.

That’s an especially low number in the Lone Star State where the Hispanic population makes up about 40% of the total population.

Ramage said he’s been working to improve the track’s Hispanic outreach since he served as general council there, and now that he’s head boss he wants to take those efforts to new levels.

“Our vision is: we want our grandstand to look like our city,” said Ramage.

For the All Star race, Ramage said the efforts have started with a lot of extra marketing toward the Hispanic demographic in the DFW area; advertising the race more on Spanish-speaking and targeted media.

Ramage and his team have also worked to create more events at the race that cater to the Hispanic demographic. They’re highlighting Hispanic drivers on the circuit and setting up several concerts and specialty events during the race weekend.

“Banda MS is gonna play a post-race concert,” said Ramage.

Ramage hopes this race will be the start of bringing in a more diverse fanbase to NASCAR by presenting options for other tracks to expand their fan base as well.

Jason Rivera, who’s been attending races at the speedway for more than a decade, said he’s never really given much thought to the lack of other Hispanic fans, but would be glad to see more people of any race embracing the sport.

“I guess being Hispanic, it’s not any different,” said Rivera. “I don’t think there’s anybody that sees color when it comes to the race, you know? You just love the races and enjoy the sport.”

Removing long-standing stereotypes about the sport and its fans likely won’t happen overnight, but Ramage hopes just getting people to enter the gates and try it will make a big difference.

“And when they leave they’re gonna realize: this is a great place, these are great people, they want us to be part of their family and they’re welcome,” said Ramage.