Enrollment for Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex elementary schools interested in participating in Texas Motor Speedway’s award-winning Speeding To Read educational program for the 2018-19 school year will close on Friday.
Speeding To Read utilizes motorsports, NASCAR and INDYCAR drivers, and races at Texas Motor Speedway to incentivize elementary school students to read more frequently through a reading competition among individuals, classrooms and schools that participate in the program.
Speeding To Read enters its eighth year of competition and is coming off a record-breaking 2017-18 where 21 schools and 12,061 students from eight different ISDs – all program highs – took part in the competition.
Since the program’s inception in 2011 with one pilot school, Speeding To Read has had 64 schools and 35,735 students participate, including those in seven of the 25 largest ISDs in the Metroplex last year alone, and they collectively have read more than 5.2 million books.
The program is free and the schools that have previously participated range from affluent areas to economically disadvantaged communities with a diverse student make-up. The competition is multi-layered with individuals, classrooms and schools competing against each other to read the most books and earn the title of Speeding To Read WorldChampion.
The Speeding To Read competition runs through the majority of the school year and it is split into four turns (or quarters) with the top readers being rewarded at each of those turns.
At the conclusion of the competition, the individuals and classrooms that read the most books cumulatively, along with the school that had the highest percentage of its student body meet the year-long reading goals, are crowned world champions.
The champions are rewarded with a variety of items, including trophies, NASCAR and INDYCAR race tickets, driver school visits, ice cream and frozen custard parties, and motorsports merchandise, among others, for excelling in the program.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.