Drivers, start your engines!
Jackie Heinricher has long held an idea for auto racing: an all-female team of drivers. Her dream is about to become reality. Heinricher Racing debuts later this month in Daytona at one of the most important endurance races in the world.
Heinricher is an Air Force veteran, scientist, and founder of her own biotech company, Booshoot Technology. She’s also a racing fan who pays her own way to race against professionals.
But Heinricher quickly realized racing was the same as the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field: Women are a bit of an oddity. “I started having this vision to bring these top women professionals together to race,” she says.
First, she had to sell it to drivers and sponsors. Caterpillar and Meyer Shank Racing jumped on board.
British driver Katherine Legge agreed to join Heinricher because, for once, it looked as if the pieces were in place for something to come together. Still, she worries. “I am scared that it will be gimmicky, and we won’t be taken seriously,” Legge says. “That’s why we made sure we had everything to do it right.”
In addition to Legge, the roster for the Daytona race includes the following first-rate drivers:
—Simona de Silvestro. Former IndyCar and Formula One test driver.
—Bia Figueiredo. Race-winning driver who set the fastest qualifying time last weekend—giving Heinricher Racing “pole position,” or the inside lap, for their upcoming race.
—Christina Nielsen. Two-time International Motor Sports Association class champion.
Heinricher Racing enters the January 26-27 race determined to further opportunities for women, become STEM role models for young girls—and prove they can compete.
Nielsen says, “Kat [Legge] and I frequently quote the saying, ‘Once you are behind the wheel, the car can’t tell if it is a man or woman driving.’”
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. — 1 Corinthians 9:24
(Katherine Legge waits to drive during a test session at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. AP Photo/Mark Long)
