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Highlands Today

Drivers Face Same Challenges On Race Day

Jasmina Meyer, Highlands Today

From left: Roberston Racing driver Andrea Robertson speaks to her team manager, Andrew "H" Smith, on Thursday at Sebring International Raceway during a combined practice.

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By LAURA NESBITT

Highlands Today

Published: March 20, 2009

SEBRING - Each woman - Andrea Robertson, Melanie Snow and Robin Bonanno - has a twinkle in her eye when she talks about the thrill of racing cars.

Robertson was wearing her driving suit and had just walked off the racetrack on Thursday. Under a shock of white hair and with sweat running off her face, she said she loves the competition of racing.

"This is my passion," she said with a smile.

"When you love something, or you're very passionate about it, your whole aura reflects it. I always wanted to be faster, swing higher. Whatever competition I was in, I always had to win it."

Robertson is part owner of her team and will be racing a Ford GT MK7 Saturday in the 12 Hours of Sebring. Her husband, David, and David Murry make up the rest of the team's drivers.

Robertson is a 49-year-old grandmother of two who began drag-racing as a teenager with a "group of guys."

She called the sport "a man's field."

It may be, but it's obvious that she has boatloads of determination. About four years ago she smashed her car into a wall on a wet track because she was feeling over-confident.

"But I qualified fifth," she said. "The car was pretty busted bad, but there was enough time to put it back together," she added.

After qualifying, Robertson got back into the driver's seat and won the race.

On Saturday, before the 17-turn race, what will be going through her mind? Driving well for her team, she said.

"There is no 'I' in racing," Robertson said.

"It's teamwork - all of us together. What I want most is to do a really good finish for the team."

Melanie Snow, who is 36 years old and has four children, has been racing for 15 years. Because she couldn't race with small children, she and her husband took four years off. But her passion for the sport was too great and it pulled her back.

The Snow Racing Team drives a Porsche 911 GT3. The team includes Snow and her husband, Martin, and Patrick Heisman.

The most exciting thing that ever happened to Snow was at the Sebring track when they were 1999 GTS class winners. They're the only husband and wife team who have won, she said. Then she admitted that the Sebring track does have "its ups and downs."

Several years ago she wrecked at the start of a race when the car in front of her hydroplaned and spun. She totaled her new car and caused a six-car pile up. She was also left with a bad disc in her lower back from the accident.

"For me it was hard emotionally to get back into racing" after the accident, she said.

Although not for too long - Snow is racing in the Patrón GT3 Challenge, which is a support race that's run on Thursday and Friday afternoon.

Both the female race drivers said that in pro racing, a woman race driver is treated no different than a man.

"But you definitely have to earn their respect," Snow said.

"My first year back, it took a while to earn. But now they know it has nothing to do with gender. And it's all the same on the track. When I club-raced, there was a little male ego that you deal with."

Robin Bonanno is a 46-year-old race driver with Sports Car Club of America who has been racing for 10 years. Bonanno didn't mention any difficulty racing against men drivers, but she said that the good thing about club racing is that it's affordable.

To race at the pro level, Bonanno said she would need sponsorship.

"To get to the next level you need a lot, a lot, of money - and you need to know somebody," Bonanno said.

Before the race begins, when she's sitting in her car on the grid, or the staging area, along with the other race cars, she's very calm.

She is so calm, in fact, that she fell asleep once before her husband, Carl Lunderstadt, gave her the five-minute warning on their two-way radio.

"I am now very, very calm," she said.

"I get almost sleepy calm on the grid. But everything else goes away when you step on the gas pedal. You're just out there and it's just fun. It's just a lot, a lot, of fun."

Highlands Today reporter Laura Nesbitt can be reached at 863-368-5857 or lnesbitt@highlandstoday.com.

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