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A few years ago, Michelle Taylor didn’t know a restrictor plate race from a dinner plate race.

The former softball standout for Lathrop High School wasn’t a fan of NASCAR. Stock car racing, she said, wasn’t her “cup of tea.”

“I didn’t know anybody who watched it; I didn’t know anything about it,” Taylor, 22, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Taylor’s NASCAR naivete didn’t deter her employer, General Mills of Minneapolis, from placing her in promotions and marketing for Cheerios Racing, its team on the Sprint Cup Series, the top motorsports series in North America.

The 2003 Lathrop graduate plans promotions and events around General Mills products relating to NASCAR.

Her responsibilities can range from distributing product samples at a race to coordinating the Web site for the Chex Most Popular Driver contest (www.chexmostpopulardriver.com).

She recently planned a General Mills street fair on May 22-24 in Charlotte, N.C., in conjunction with the Coca-Cola 600 there on May 25. The fair is scheduled to have 280 feet of displays, promotions and games.

“You try to keep the context of the brands, make sure it’s fun, it grabs people’s attention,” she said, “and you make sure it speaks to the NASCAR consumer.”

Taylor can now speak of restrictor-plate racing, which involves decreasing a car’s horsepower and speed by placing an aluminum plate between the base of the carburetor and the engine’s intake manifold to reduce the air and fuel into the combustion chamber.

“I know it slows down the car,” she said with a laugh.

She can rattle off some NASCAR statistics, too, such as Bobby Labonte, who drives the Cheerios/Betty Crocker No. 43 Dodge, is ranked 19th in the latest Cup standings.

She’s not quite reached gearhead status, but she’s enjoying herself like a driver with a checkered flag.

“It’s really fun,” she said. “The fun part of the marketing is that it’s sports related. You get to travel to tracks, where you’re treated like a VIP, and you get to interact with people.”

Like NASCAR drivers, whose fans treat them like royalty.

Two of the first drivers that Taylor met were Labonte and the legendary Richard Petty at a race last year in Richmond, Va.

“I wasn’t head over heels about meeting them like some people would be, but they’re great people,” Taylor said. “Richard and Bobby are very down-to-earth and they’ll chat with you and joke around with you.”

Labonte, she learned, was familiar with Taylor’s home state, as he has fished in Alaska.

The General Mills administration was familiar with Taylor’s athletic background, as she played softball for Lathrop and competed on the club team at Washington University in St. Louis, where last spring, she graduated with a degree in business administration in marketing and human resources and a minor in Spanish.

The company placed her in its NASCAR department in promotions and marketing last August. Taylor was surprised because before then, she knew about Total cereal but she was a stranger to Turn 1 at Talladega.

“All I knew about the sport was that it took up all the time on TV on Saturdays and Sundays,” she said. “I didn’t care for it all.”

She did care to do her job well, so she immersed herself in books, including “NASCAR for Dummies,” and articles and Web sites about the sport.

Her perception of NASCAR changed quicker than a pit crew in action after she went to Richmond last year for her first race.

“It was like a whole different experience; I don’t think watching it on TV best describes it,” she said. “The atmosphere is fast paced and even if you don’t have a favorite driver, you’re hoping somebody passes the guy next to him.”

Taylor was a spectator near the pit area when she experienced her first race.

“You hear what the drivers are saying to the crew chief and the spotter, and you see how they make adjustments,” she said. “It adds a whole new element and makes it more exciting to watch it live as opposed to watching it on TV.”

The former Lathrop outfielder, third baseman and catcher can relate to the team aspect of NASCAR.

“The driver is only a small part,” she said. “There’s the team owner, the spotter, all these people behind the scenes and the sponsors who provide the money.

“I think I learned a lot by being on a team at home. I learned to love sports and competition, and I think it definitely prepared me and got me excited for this.”

Rod Avery, who was Lathrop’s head coach from 1993 to 2004, isn’t surprised that Taylor became adept at marketing and promoting for General Mills in NASCAR.

“She was definitely a good influence on the team and she was a leader as a senior,” said Avery, who now coaches at North Pole. “She was also one of the more intelligent girls on the team.

“When her dad told me she was involved in NASCAR, I said ‘Wow!’ To still be involved in a sport field and to utilize her education in that fashion is something really cool.”

CAMPUS TRAILS: Western Oregon senior outfielder Shanley Young, a West Valley graduate, was recently named to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Softball All-Academic Team. The chemistry major carried a 3.49 grade-point average this past semester.

Western Oregon lost 9-0 to the Humboldt State on Sunday in the “if necessary” championship game of the NCAA Division II West Regional in Arcata, Calif. Western Oregon advanced to the title game with a 7-0 win over Cal State Dominguez Hills in Friday’s winner’s bracket final of the double-elimination tournament, setting up a championship contest against Humboldt State, which advanced through the loser’s bracket. Humboldt State won 1-0 on Saturday to force the “if necessary” title game ... Senior left fielder and Chugiak grad Courtney Waters accounted for both hits for Ohio University in a 5-0 loss to Kent State (Ohio) in Saturday’s championship game of the Mid American Conference Tournament in Akron, Ohio ... Infielder and team captain Niki Winburn, a Lathrop grad, is the only sophomore for Olympic College (Wash.), which faces Highline Community College (Wash.) on Friday in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges Tournament in Portland, Ore. ... North Carolina A&T sophomore second baseman Lillian Bullock from Service had a hit, a run and an RBI in losses to Delaware State (5-1) and Florida A&M in the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament last Thursday in Ormond Beach, S.C.

• Georgia Tech junior Alana Clooten, a Lathrop alumna, qualified for the women’s hammer throw of the NCAA Division I East Regional by placing second Saturday in the Orange and Purple Classic track and field meet in Clemson, S.C. Clooten’s effort off 180 feet, 2 inches earned her a spot in the regional on May 30-31 in Tallahassee, Fla. ... Nebraska junior and Soldotna grad Ari Goldstein placed fourth in 4 minutes, 40.21 seconds of the women’s 1,500-meter run in the Nebraska Invitational on Saturday in Lincoln, Neb. ... Sophomore long jumper and Colony grad David Registe is among five Alaska Anchorage athletes who qualified for the NCAA Division II National Championships on May 22-24 in Walnut, Calif. Registe placed 12th in last year’s nationals and he recently set a Great Northwest Athletic Conference record of 24 feet, 8 1/4 inches at the conference championships in Ellensburg, Wash. ... Five of Registe’s Seawolves teammates — sprinters Eric Walsh from Monroe Catholic and Michael Madrid from East Anchorage; middle-distance runner Mick Boyle from Kenai, and junior hurdler Nathalia Echavarria and senior thrower Jessica Houston from Dimond — were named last Wednesday to the GNAC Track and Field Academic All-Conference Team.

Walsh, a junior, carried a 3.20 GPA as a management major in the spring semester, while Madrid, a senior English major, had a 3.67 GPA and Boyle, a junior, earned a 3.46 GPA as a economics major. Echavarria worked to a 3.56 as a psychology major and Houston, a physical education major, had a 3.51.

Seattle University sophomore jumper and Monroe Catholic grad Mara Becker was also honored after posting a 3.42 in her general science major.

• Juneau-Douglas senior midfielder Colin Flynn was named Tuesday as the Gatorade Alaska Boys Soccer Player of the Year. The Gonzaga recruit has recorded 16 goals and nine assists this season for the 10-0-2 Crimson Bears.

WORLD HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS: Anchorage’s Brandon Dubinsky, a New York Rangers center, scored a hat trick for the United States in Monday’s 9-1 rout of Norway in a pool play game in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The three goals were all the points Dubinsky contributed in four games for Team USA, which placed fifth after a 3-2 overtime loss to Finland in a quarterfinal Wednesday.