Nascar driver Bubba Wallace, the only full-time African-American in the top-flight US motor-racing series, got the organisation to ban the Confederate flag from events.
He said: “No one should feel uncomfortable coming to a Nascar race.”
The Confederate flag has been a common sight at Nascar circuits, particularly in the sport’s southern US heartland, but for many it remains a symbol of slavery and racism.
Wallace, 26, became in 2013 the first black driver to win a Nascar event since Wendell Scott in 1963.