(See my purple dolphin car? XD I loved that car...) When I moved into Senior Honda, I was 10 years old. My brother was 8. He was racing two classes, Junior Stock and Light Modified. While my class used a Honda engine, his were Deco. I can't quite explain the differences, partially because I don't know the details myself but mainly b/c I don't think you all will understand anyway. Basically Honda motors were slower and functioned differently - it was more about getting your momentum up and keeping it. Deco engines had more horsepower - they got up and went when you needed them. Think Prius v. Mustang. Sure, Honda engines (that Prius) were more economical and required less upkeep, but those Decos (the Mustang), man were they fun to drive.
For some reason, my brother kinda ruled Jr. Stock. I swear he would break every track record at every track we went to. There were a few times he broke his own track record. No kidding. My dad would bring both of us up to the local track, not more than 20 minutes away from where we lived, and have us just run laps at night.
Even though I had access to this extra practice, I wasn't so great at Sr. Honda. Not right away. I have a very different driving style than my brother. You see how tight those shocks are compressed in the photo above (or below)? That (among other things) makes the car tighter - harder to spin out, but also means it has a lot of "push" towards the wall. My brother's shocks did not look like that. They were at least an inch less compressed, if not more. That's a big difference. But my dad didn't know any better when I started racing, so he set my car up like he set up my brother's car. It took my brother driving my car, after I complained so much about it not driving right (and spinning out a few times), and him saying it felt fine for my dad to realize he couldn't set up our cars the same way.
Once we figured that out though, I was golden.
In 2000, there was a little while where I raced Sr. Stock instead of Sr. Honda. I can't quite remember why this happened, but I wasn't too bad. My dad considered getting me another car to race, so I could do both classes, but he didn't want to be running 4 cars. By this time my brother was racing Lt. Mod and Lt. B. There was more competition in Sr. Honda, however, and I pressured my dad to let me go back to racing that class.
(Wow, I was so flat.) In 2001, I started racing 2 classes, Sr Honda and Lt. 160. Lt. and Hvy. 160 were new Honda classes. Whereas the normal Honda was 120cc, these were 160cc. How original! How exciting! I got a new car, a bigger car that went faster and was just so much fun! In 2001 I also started taking racing seriously. Before racing was just a fun new activity to me. I got to drive a car! And I was only 10! It's a novelty! I'd bring in my trophies for my classmates to see and brag about how cool it was. But then I started caring about where I finished and the points and remembering who crashed into me. And I started taking racing seriously. I wanted to win. I wanted to break track records. I wanted to have championships to my name. I always wanted to race cleanly, fairly, kindly, but I wanted to prove I was a force to be reckoned with in this sport.
So I did. In October of 2002 I became the only girl to win a Monza championship that year. No girl had won a Monza championship in a few years, actually, and Sr. Honda, though a lower level class, had the most cars, the most competition. During the awards ceremony later that afternoon, I sat next one of my competitors and one of of my brother's competitors. My competitor ignored me, leaned away. My brother's congratulated me, posed for pictures with me. That day, I learned that some boys don't like getting beat by girls, and I learned it the hard way.
For the most part, I've avoided talking about my feelings and experiences outside of the race car. But I remember this weekend vividly. I set the track record, but one of my close guy friends qualified second. He briefly held the track record, but I stole it away. He teased me relentlessly the rest of the weekend, and the competition between us heightened. After the heat race, which I won, one of his friends made some comment about how I must have been cheating, there's no way a girl could do that. He stood up for me. After this photo was taken, he came up and hugged me and said good job. He finished third, in the race and the series. My only other girl racer friend finished second, in the race and the series. She never congratulated me. Our relationship dwindled after that. Suddenly I had all the male attention, not for my looks which she relied on (remember, I was a board, you saw!), but for my accomplishments.
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