Celebrating, promoting and supporting women in motorsports and Moto Enthusiasts

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Horsepower & Heels Blog

Erica Ortiz is a professional drag racer from the all-female pro modified team Horsepower & Heels and strong advocate of women in motorsports. A veteran both behind the wheel and behind a torque wrench, Erica brings over 10 years of experience navigating the male-dominated motor sports arena from the female perspective.

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Gator Nationals Day 2: Friday Recap

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Rain, Rain, Rain.

What every drag racer dreads. Friday ended up being a cold, rainy, muddy, miserable day at the track. They completely cancelled qualifying around 4pm, putting added pressure on racers to qualify in only two session on Saturday.

 

The only good to come of the rainy conditions, were that it gave plenty of time for the meetings I had set up this weekend with different folks. With the rain coming in around 10am and settling in all day, there wasn’t much else to do but sit, talk, and strategize.

 

After mulling around in the rain all day trying to stay warm, we headed back to the hotel early for some food and sleep.

Gator Nationals Day 1: Thursday Recap

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Since I was riding with Ben & Leanne, I got up extra early to get ready, get Spike (my dog) to the boarder’s, and get over to Ben’s house by 8am. I was so excited, I showed up around 7:30, hyper and pumped to get going.

We pulled out of Grant around 9am and started our 10 hour journey to Gainesville. I got the back seat, which meant I had plenty of room to stretch out for a nap. Between packing and the company event I went to the night before, I didn’t get into bed until after midnight, and had to get up extra early to finish off packing. Ben handled driving duty all the way until Gainesville.

We arrived at the hotel around 5:00pm in Gainesville. Leanne and I got changed to head over to the Ale House. The Ale House is always the unofficial hangout for drivers and crew since it is right across the street from the hotels that most all the teams stay with. We got there around 6pm to make sure we got seats, and waited for everyone else to show up.

Since I grew up in Orlando, the Gator Nationals have always felt like my “home” national event. The last couple of years, I use the event to meet up with and spend time with old high school friends, and my family. My sister, Melanie, has a birthday in March like mine, so I treat her to the event for her birthday. Frankie, Tommy, and Mikey are all my high school buds that love NHRA just as much as I do, so they were pumped to come up as well.

Around 9pm, the place got packed quickly, and with 5 dollar buckets of beer, our table had a blast. There were plenty of drivers and teams hanging around, and if you didn’t make it, you really missed out. Just a few that we saw during the evening: Dave Connolley, Morgan Lucas, Ashley Force, Del Worsham, JR Todd, and several others.

Not wanting to ruin my Friday, I decided to call it a night early around 12:30am. Its off to the track for a good wake up whiff of NITRO!

Fired up: subconscious triggers

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There is no doubt that drag racing is an adrenaline junkie’s dream: 3G’s of Breathtaking, neck-breaking power and speed catapulting you across a 1/4 mile in just mere seconds. Its the ultimate adrenaline high… doing the burnout, staging the car, letting it loose at the drop of the tree, rowing through the gears and pulling the parachutes at the end…. but what gets you fired up the most for the run?

For some its listening to an ipod in the staging lanes to get amped up~ songs like Kid Rock’s Bawitdaba or the Pro Mod anthem, Thunderstruck. I, personally, am a techno fan, and the break in DJ Tiesto’s Silence gives me chills as I’m looking down the groove getting ready to run. Its like the quiet before the storm….

 

For others, it may be the act of suiting up and strapping into the car… the rumble of the engine when you fire it up…. or the deep breath you take as you pull into the lights.
Last night, I laughed a little as I realized a strange trigger for me as I was driving home from the gym. It was cold out, and I had just exited my Body Pump weights class, still wearing my little weight gloves. As I started up the car and put it in gear, I had a small, familiar feeling wash over me.

 

Maybe its withdrawals from not racing in so long…. but having that more desensitized feeling of the steering wheel and shifter through gloves definitely sparked that gut feeling you get when racing. My grip of the wheel and shifter changes, my posture in the seat is more erect. Even my sight becomes more laser-focused. Its odd how small triggers can subconsciously change the way your body reacts and behaves, as if it is pre-programmed to do what it does best.

 

I smiled…. and for a brief second, I could close my eyes and be inside the seat of my racecar, ready to stage. I revved my little street GT up a little and laughed, about 300 cubic inches of displacement and 176mm of turbo-whistle short.

 

What gets YOU fired up?

Fiberglass

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I’m not a fiberglass specialist… but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express one time!

This weekend I drove down to Columbus, GA to help with my car. The car is back down at Parker Chassis getting finished up and painted. Among the tasks were filling the cut outs for the door handles and extending the door edges to match/meet the body line. We also made templates around the turbo holes to get them fiberglassed and fitting correctly, so I could take the bare cylinder heads home to get assembled and over to Mr. Moody for the engine assembly.

Upper Body Strength: Fact or Fiction?

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I’ve been seeing a lot of commentary on the subject of upper body strength and driving the nitro cars…. funny car especially. Seems that many question whether women, at a natural disadvantage in the upper body strength department with their male counterparts, are physically able to handle the demands of driving one of these “beasts”.

In fact, earlier last year, when I had my dream interview with Don Schumacher about the possibility of piloting the Oakley Funny Car, one of the questions he asked was did I think I’d be able to “man-handle” the “beast” down the track, and that it was something he found concerning about women driving in funny car. It threw me off, and it was a question that never driving one, I couldn’t guarantee the answer for, and coming from one of the most knowledgeable people in the industry, it rattled me. Sure, if desire could move mountains, I’d be able to steer one with my pinkie and my eyes closed, but would it be a real problem??

Being that I want to best prepare for any possible opportunities, I’ve beefed up my training regimine in the upper body section, just in case. But as an aspiring driver, its a question that I’d like to know the REAL answer to. There has been more than one woman to pilot a funny car, and none I would consider to be overly-built in that area of strength (re: none of them were amazons or anything like that). Yes, women do have less upper body strength than males by nature, but is it really a cause for concern as many imply, on their ability to control the cars at speed?

It was a question that was largely repeated last year for Ashley Force entering the Funny Car Gentleman’s club. She had risen from the Top Alcohol Dragster ranks, and stories circulated about her inability to get the car down the track. That talk increased after her incident in Seattle. But was this more a case of a learning rookie driver or a direct result of lacking upper body strength?

Though I have never spoken to Ashley, nor do I know anyone with inside answers to any of these questions as it pertains to her, I do think we saw some truth to the struggles she had on episode #5 of Driving Force as she was getting her license. But, as I mentioned in my comparison then, I took it more to be the differences between men and women in how we approach learning something different. Women are more cautious, and use our “feel” a little more. Men, just strap in, hold on, and go about it with a more wild abandon. Melanie further backed up my feelings on it in her recent interview. Get us used to it a little more gradually, let us learn what it is we are feeling, and we’re on even footing.

Perhaps Melanie Troxel will be the better indicator as the latest female to enter the funny car world. Melanie was already a respected driver in Top Fuel, and although she seems much smaller in person than her website lists her 5’9″ 129lbs. frame, she definitely would be comparable in size to your average woman. Its too early to judge her driving at once race into the season, but her initial comments seems to disprove the myth of upper body strength being a major hurdle.

“I’d say when you’re actually driving and going down the track it’s not something that enters my mind, I can’t actually sit there and think, ‘Wow I can’t. This is hard to do.” Troxel said.
It’s definitely harder but I don’t think it’s so much harder that somebody couldn’t overcome it if they wanted to do that you could pretty easily.”

Either way, I’m not taking any chances. I’ll continue to go through the extra motions of beefing-up-the-up-top and make it a non-issue.

Source: Competition Plus

Blog Anniversary

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Wow, its been 4 YEARS since I started this blog.   FOUR. YEARS.

I took a stroll down memory lane, and gathered up a few highlights in the archives. Let’s call this the Horsepower & Heels Greatest Hits Album.

Racing Sweeties

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, and since I am spending Valentine’s Day sick in bed with the FLU, here’s my thoughts about racing & relationships.

I’ve heard the horror stories… guys who are one more race or engine part away from certain divorce, and I’ve come to realize in my own life that racers are a special breed that “normal” people just don’t understand. Long ago, I discovered that it was extremely difficult to date someone who doesn’t race or have any interest in racing. They don’t understand the amount of time, money, and devotion we as racers put into our sport. Sure, its cool the first couple of outings, but when you start skipping vacations to the beach in favor of sweating it out at a track all summer, they start to view you as a little unbalanced.

You want to be involved with someone who shares your interests. And in an interest like drag racing that plays such a significant part of your life, its even more important. You want to be with someone who will be there with you to support you, encourage you, motivate you, and work along side you. So, I vowed that any of my relationships would be with a person who also enjoyed the racetrack.

At first, I though the perfect match would be another racer. (Cue fantasy crush on Morgan Lucas) But I changed my outlook on that one. Why? Well, I found it to be too competitive. One driver always views their career more significant that the other. It hard to be supportive when you are both competing for the same goals. I’m sure that it can work for many, but for me, it just never seemed to work out that way.

I’m now convinced that perfect drag racing harmony will be with a crew member. Someone who loves the sport and who enjoys working along side their significant other. Someone who can apprecitate the will to win and can help acheive that goal. Someone who won’t look at me funny for spending way more time than I should chasing a dream that sometimes seems impossible. Yes, I believe in a life happily-ever-after, 1/4 mile segments at a time.

Here’s a few Drag Racing Sweeties that share the 1320 and their hearts.

Melanie Troxel & Tommy Johnson Jr.
They were Nitro sweethearts: her reigning in Top Fuel, him in Funny Car. Married on NYE 2003, it was life in the fast lane for both of them. They knew they’d contend with the possibility of bittersweet weekends… what happens when one does well but the other falters? But this year, the stakes…and possibly long nights on the couch, are raised when both Troxel and Johnson Jr. will battle it out in the Funny Car ranks head-to-head.
Ashley Force & Danny Hood

The daughter of Funny Car royalty and newest Force driving sensation, Ashley Force found her love on the crew of funny car rival, Mike Ashley’s team. The courtship played out on national TV with all the early stages captured on Driving Force.   They are everything right with young, funny car love.  Danny Hood has since joined his fiance on the Force team, as Papa Force continues to keep it “all in the family”.
Shelley Anderson & Jay Payne

Married since 1999, Shelley Anderson, the daughter of Funny Car legend Brad Anderson, and Jay Payne, multiple TAD/TAFC champion make canvasing the 1/4 mile in Pro Mod a family affair. Jay and Shelley both compete in NHRA Pro Modified, with Jay also doing double duty in TAFC under the Valvoline banner. They have two young children who accompany the family operation.
Rhonda Hartman & John Smith

Though not currently competing, Rhonda Hartman-Smith and John Smith were the first married couple to go head-to-head at an NHRA Professional event. Both served time behind the wheel of nitro burning top fuel dragsters, with Rhonda taking the bragging rights in their match up counts. They manage married life and parenthood at 300 mph.

Kisses from home

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In December of last year, Horsepower & Heels Racing teamed up with Email Our Military and their Holiday Love program. We sent over holiday cards and some driver hero cards that went into packages for the service people overseas. It was something that seemed so simple, and yet we received emails from service persons thanking us for the cards and how much they were appreciated.

Well, the Valentine’s Day program for Email Our Military is in full swing, and Horsepower & Heels Racing is excited to be helping coordinate a special tribute from the women in racing called “Kisses from Home”. The program is calling out to all the women of motorsports asking them to “blow kisses” to our military as Valentine’s cards.

I made some quick custom Valentine’s cards that were cheap and easy, but really anything would do. Ideally, you could just take a snapshot of you blowing kisses and send them over like postcards with a quick note.

Its not too late! To get involved, just send them in one envelope to:

“Kisses from Home”
c/o eMail Our Military
8004 NW 154 Street, Suite 344
Miami Lakes, FL. 33016

On Air: El Break 95.1FM Phoenix

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I will be live on-air with the El Break morning show this Sunday, January 27th on Phoenix, AZ radio station 95.1 Latino Vibe.

The show is produced by a group of hipster college and high school students where they talk about latino culture, politics, entertainment, sexuality, education, and much more. It is the only show of its kind in the state and one of the only ones in the country. The show is a biligual mix– Spanglish: both English & Spanish, with my interview done in English (I’m a little rusty on mi español).

They have big brown muscles, big brown mouths and big brown boobs. But most importantly, they have big brains and huge hearts. The hot, hipster crew from “El Break” is the best shot in the arm of political activism for the local Latino community since Chicanos por la Causa. This is a modern day crop of activistas who have their own rough-around-the edges/cutting-edge AM radio show on Sundays at 95.1 FM Latino Vibe. Luis Avila, Nuvia Enriquez, Laura Suarez, Obed Hurtado and others aren’t afraid to launch a hunger strike to support the DREAM Act one week, and then throw a blow-out rock en español bash the next, with free-flowing spiked horchata. You can catch their show on Sundays.

The show will air from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM mountain time.

Visit the show’s myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/elbreak.

Don’t live in Phoenix? You can listen online.