RacingForTheWin.com Exclusive
The thrill of racing and the need for speed bit Alli Owens early in her life. She began racing at 8 years-old and has managed to climb into stardom in the ranks of ARCA Racing. She is one of the 3 most-viewed drivers on ARCA Nation. RacingForTheWin.com had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with ARCA rookie sensation Alli Owens.
She made her ARCA debut at the Daytona International Speedway, but the race didn’t go as hoped. Owens spun early, but managed to save the car and bring it home without a scratch on it. Just last week, she raced in the Inaugural ARCA Carolina 500k, which marked the reopening of the historic Rockingham Raceway Park in North Carolina. She was never a contender for the win, in face nobody had anything at all for rookie Joey Logano who dominated the entire race, but she did finish in a respectable 15th position.
Mario Gosselin is the owner who gets the credit for finding Alli Owens and bringing her on board. Her potential as a driver is sky-high. She has managed to bring home all her racecars in one piece, and has yet to even place a scratch on her ElectrifyingCareers.com Chevy.
We started off discussing the impact of Danica Patrick’s win in Twin Ring Motegi and if that had any immediate impact in the ARCA garage. Alli says its helped women drivers as far as sponsorship opportunities and Corporate America that it’s “opened a lot of doors for us.” Inside the sport, well, that’s a different story. Alli says she hasn’t seen “a big roar” in the ARCA garage. The impact of Danica’s landmark victory has been limited to media; Alli says the changes haven’t been to the extent everybody was hoping for.
“Females, they don’t get the chance to be rookies and they don’t get the chance to make driver mistakes,” Alli said. After Daytona, Alli Owens faced a firestorm of criticism after she spun out, twice. Both times, she managed to avoid causing any damage to the racecar. To clarify this a little more, I’d have to go back to my interview with IHRA and Maryland racing legend Bunny Burkett. It very much seems that the industry has higher standards for a female driver. If they don’t come out winning races and getting top 10s every week, they’re written off and fade from the spotlight quicker than they got in it. That said, improvements have been made in this area.
Alli Owens is confident and optimistic. She stated, “The racecar doesn’t know if I’m a guy or a girl so why should anybody else care, you know, my car’s going to act different or handle any different because I’m a female behind the wheel. It’s not go any faster or do anything crazy with a guy behind the wheel. The racecar doesn’t know, therefore it shouldn’t matter if I’m a guy or a girl.” Alli says this is very much the attitude in the garage. While that response to Danica’s win, within the sport, hasn’t been remarkable, the response to having female drivers hasn’t been negative, either. “It’s not like we’re not wanted any we’re not being accepted,” Alli states.
Dreams of Daytona: Mission Accomplished
If something were to happen, Alli could walk away from the sport with a smile on her face. She made it to a starting lineup at the Daytona International Speedway, a dream come true. Will she? Well, racecar drivers, male or female, race because it’s what they love to do.
“Daytona was my dream, and to do that, I was going to do whatever it took,” Alli told me about testing there. “People seen a different driver at the test than they had seen my entire career.”
“If I had to walk away and was told that was the last time I’d ever drive a racecar, I’d walk away with a smile because that’s all I ever wanted to do was be at Daytona in a racecar,” Alli also told me. Going to the racetrack for ARCA qualifying, she was not guaranteed a spot, and there was a record field attempting to make the big dance. Alli Owens qualified for the Daytona ARCA 200 on time, qualifying 29th out of a record 65 drivers attempting to make the race.
“I’ve never experienced the draft, I’ve never been used to anything like that,” Alli said in one of only a few interviews that she has gotten to discuss the Daytona 200 at length. “Not only was I getting used to single car draft, side-by-side draft, multi car draft, 3-wide at 185mph and all that. On lap one, it was raw. I had never experienced anything like that in my life. What happened? I believe it was truly a rookie mistake. I was so eager to prove myself and I probably put myself in a position that I didn’t need to put myself into at that time of the race.”
Personal idols
Alli says she can relate to Dale Earnhardt and his story. She also has admiration to Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin. In fact, Mark Martin gave her advice about stock cars and stock car racing when she was 12.
“I guess I owe a lot of my career path to him,” Alli said of NASCAR legend Mark Martin.
Alli also noted it is different for those outside the sport to relate to a racecar driver and what they do. Most of her friends are at the track on any given weekend. Alli has built many relationships on and off the track with fellow competitors, though she will note everything changes once she and her fellow drivers put on their helmets and strap on their head and neck restraints. That’s when friendships are put aside for the task at hand, and all 43 drivers have the same common goal: Victory lane.
It all almost came to an end
For Alli Owens, on a dark night in Florida, her racing career almost came to an abrupt end. She was riding her motorcycle, one of her many off-track hobbies, when the unthinkable happened. She also spoke about that with me.
“As soon as I flipped the last time and went through the fence and woke up and didn’t seem right, the first words out of my mouth were ‘oh my god I’ve got to be at Rockingham next week.’ The second words out of my mouth were ‘I cannot believe this is happening.’ The only thing I could think about was my racing career. I looked down at my knee and it was almost completely gone and there was hardly anything left of my knee. I didn’t know what the extent of my accident was but I didn’t know how to react because I’ve never had to live without racing.”
Alli Owens would survive that terrible crash, and leave a Florida hospital much sooner than anticipated. At one point, she was left wondering if she would ever race again. She would. Her doctors told her it would be four months before she would get that chance.
“I said ‘I don’t have four months’ and at this point I don’t know what my sponsors were going through and what my team was going through and what they were thinking. All I knew is that I had to be in that racecar.”
So, the recovery began. She was told she would have to use a walker for four weeks. After a week and a half, she tossed the walker away. “I pushed myself as far as I could. I worked myself to tears working with my knees and just working.”
Her recovery was much quicker than doctors anticipated, but she still had not gotten the clear to race. So she put herself through more nights of tears and agony. Alli called it “Alli Owens therapy.” The old saying “no pain, no gain” worked and she would race a little over a month after her near-tragic accident at the Iowa Speedway.
“My family’s the most important thing to me. Becoming an icon and a professional racecar driver has changed my life personally. Now, people recognize me and know who I am. My little brother loves it, he tells all his friends and he’s (one of) the most popular kids in school.”
Her family stood by her through the good times and the bad. Now, good times may be ahead. Alli Owens continues to run a part-time ARCA schedule in 2008, she will race at Pocono and will race at New Jersey Motorsports Park later this summer. She hopes to run full-time in 2009 in ARCA, and to run up front and win races. Isn’t that what every racecar driver likes to do? Win races?
She wants to go at her own pace, go slowly and gain experience until she can win. After a top-15 finish at Rockingham, both Alli and Mario (Gosselin – car owner) are going for the win. Her goal at Pocono, score a top-10 finish. Then, score a win.
Alli admits her team owner has set her cars up a little to the tight side. She has proven that she is a capable driver. In every race she’s run, she has not even put a scratch on her ElectrifyingCareers.com Chevy. Now, her cars will be a little more to the free side. And to quote Harry Hogg in Days of Thunder, “Loose is fast but on the edge of out of control.” That has given Alli renewed confidence that she can race for the win.
The ARCA Re/Max Series is at Pocono this weekend, alongside the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The ARCA Re/Max Series race at Pocono can be seen at 6pm EST on Saturday night on SPEED and will be followed up the next day with NASCAR on TNT Live. She will also race at Michigan the week after, and that race will be televised live on SPEED.
For RacingForTheWin.com, I’m Andy Marquis reporting.
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