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.

Guest on Pit Crew Conversations Blog Talk Radio

August 5, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

Today, I had the pleasure of being a guest on Parent Driven School‘s Pit Crew Conversation Blog Talk Radio Show.

Parent Driven Schools is an organization that believes parents are the solution to the education crisis in our country. The group gives parents the information, tools and resources they need to make sure their children receive an education that prepares them to succeed.

I’m a huge supporter of education and helping children acheive their dreams as Lifelong Learners, so I can really support what PDR is going for families and children out there. I was able to chat with the listeners about how I chose drag racing and what I do to continually learn and grow on an ongoing basis.

Listen to the show here: [Direct Link to Podcast]

In addition, a quote from one of my blog posts on what fueled my passion will be displayed in the California Auto Museum at Parent Driven School’s documentary premiere of “Creating Lifelong Learners” on Thursday, August 20th.

For more information on Parent Driven Schools, please visit http://www.parentdrivenschools.org/

Congrats Force girls

July 21, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

You know, nitro Funny Car driver Ashley Force-Hood has been having a heckuva year. She’s won several events, led the points chase, been to a handful of finals…. Girl is on Fire. (not literally. That would be BAD.)

Love it.

courtney-force — Courtney Force scored a win

But there are 2 more Force girls out there racing worth the mention, and one looks to me to be making quite the splash too. Younger Force spawn Brittany and Courtney are both competing in Top Alcohol Dragster while they are attending college. Courtney is also all over the internets with a column in USA Today and participating in all sorts of cool Fiesta Movement shenanigans. (check out her twitter here or youtube antics here)

This past weekend in Seattle, both younger sisters made it to the semi-finals, having to face off against each other. With Courtney taking the win in that pairing, she would be the lone Force car left heading to the final rounds for that day.

Courtney Force defeated Chris Demke in that final to score her first TAD win, the lone Wally in the JFR pit for the day.

I’m a huge fan of all the Force girls, but something just stands out to me about Courtney, and I’m really excited to see her move up and join her dad and sister in the nitro categories. I *suspect* it may just be in a JFR dragster and not the typical flopper, but its just a hunch and would be cool to see. My fear is that her eventual move to funny car may be filling the seat of her retiring dad, and I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.

Where ever she ends up, she seems to have the whole package: trademark Force good looks, articulate, engaging, and royal drag racing blood to boot.

Congrats Courtney on the first of many wins!

Pro Mod is tougher than it appears

June 11, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

The biggest lesson I’ve learned in the past few years of downtime is to fully appreciate how much it takes to build/race/maintain a racecar at this level of competition. The costs, the devotion, the hard work, and the risks are just mind-blowing. And it can all be gone in an instant.

Nowhere does logic pay off in this sport… you build a costly car that runs for mere seconds, you race for a purse that more often than not will never pay back the expenses, and even the most skilled driver gambles that a split second will not destroy all that hard work, or result in injury or worse.

This year at the NHRA Gateway race in St. Louis, a seasoned Fuel driver Melanie Troxel walked away from a crash in Raymond Commisso’s 5.8-second Pro Modified entry, an incident she attributed to her “inexperience. I just didn’t have enough laps.” She went on to say “these cars are a handful,” a sentiment that Rick Stivers would probably agree with given his own spectacular crash that same weekend in the Get Screened America Pro Mod Challenge at the O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals.

His 2006 Stratus hit the wall and flipped — what Stivers described as “all hell [breaking] loose – literally.” Both incidents illustrate that in a class of promods with tremendous power (Troxel’s car put out 2,500 hp), crashes are often simply beyond the driver’s control. Both Troxel and Stivers were wearing their seat belts and are lucky; their injuries could have and probably should have been severe.

Not surprisingly, the major factors in this class are the inherent danger, the expense of repairs, and how attractive these high class machines are to thieves. So what makes it worth all the risk?

The remark that I hear across the board is that Pro Mod is the most difficult class to navigate. The cars make a ton of power, and don’t have near the downforce of their bigger nitro brothers. They are a handful to drive, but they are the fastest true doorslammers in existance. Several nitro drivers such as Mike Ashley, Scotty Cannon, Matt Hagan and others have gotten their starts in Pro Mod. And several nitro pilots have also learned much like Melanie how much these cars are underestimated.

With cars now reaching 250mph with ease, these cars continue to put on a wild, fun-filled show that remains unrecognized by NHRA as a professional class. It only takes a quick look to the stands during Pro Mod to see that it is a class the fans really enjoy, a point further proven by the ADRL’s sell out successes outside NHRA confines. Speculation behind why the NHRA refuses to grant professional class status includes complications from the Pro Stock truck lawsuit, and competition to their own pro stock class, but when will the NHRA wise up and see what a fan pleaser it has in Pro Modified?

Top Gun to Top Fuel: Mixing my two favorite things

June 3, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

My parents may not have ever guessed that I’d grow up to be a total hopeless gearhead Drag Racer, but I think they had some idea that I wasn’t a “normal” little girl.

While most kids dreamed of growing up to become veterinarians and doctors, I was awe-inspired at the tender age of 6 by what would be a classic 80’s Hollywood movie… oh yes, wait for it…. Top Gun. [cue Danger Zone music]

I very clearly remember watching it with my family one night, and even though I was a restless 6 year old, was absolutely transfixed by what I saw. My dad was a career Air Force officer, and had retired from the Air Force before I was born. Perhaps my love of aircraft and speed came subconsciously from him, but I don’t think they expected what came out of my 6 year old mouth after watching Maverick and the rest of the characters lighting up the sky in those F-14’s.

And no, it wasn’t the Volleyball scene, or a actually still relevant at the time and hot Tom Cruise, I had zero desire to be a Kelly McGillis lusting after some flyboy (though admittedly, I DO have a thing for men in flight suits as an adult). Top Gun was Navy, but whatever, I had decided at age six I wanted to be an Air Force Fighter Pilot.My dream was rather crushed when my dad told me (at the time) that women were not permitted by the military to be combat pilots (something that changed in 1993). It wasn’t because he didn’t want to encourage me, I’m pretty sure it was also his dream growing up, and his eyesight was the disqualifying factor for him, so he didn’t want me to be disappointed by the rule in place. Talk about a crushing blow… but instead of becoming an Ace Pilot, I later would settle on becoming a pilot of a different sorts… a drag racing pilot.

Maybe its not a screaming jet with supersonic speed and all kinds of fun G’s, but drag racing at 200mph is still pretty thrilling. (Here’s to hoping I get my chance in a Top Fuel Dragster and get to that 300mph thrill) And now the Air Force has figured out how to get the average person to merge these passions together with their latest recruitment tool: The Mustang X-1.

Designed by the same people responsible for the new gen KITT car (Galpin Autosports), this car has been totally redone for the USAF. On the exterior a radical lowered stance and low profile tires make for the aggressive aircraft-inspired theme complete with carbon fiber body, aerodynamic air intakes, and gull-wing doors. The flight cockpit interior completely replaces the Mustang interior with flight-stick, a touch-screen interfaced control system, and a single driver ejection seat center-mounted setup. GPS and nightvision technology is also found on the high-tech console.

At first, I was rather curious how they were “driving” via a flight-stick, but I read on to discover that there is a hidden regular motorized steering wheel that pops out for the “pilot” to steer with (slight disappointment that its not stick-driven, but whatever). The stick is actually a very nifty shifter for the manual transmission. I was also surprised that the car is only hopped up to 500 hp with cams and exhaust, which by my hotrodder standards does it zero justice… I mean why not twin turbos or something cool!

Alas, its a pretty cool recruitment tool if you ask me… they also have a Charger called the “Vapor”, but the X-1 is definitely the more radical of the two.

Now that I’m grown and have spent the last 10 years chasing my dream of drag racing, I wish I would have had the level of determination applied to pursuing my dream of being a fighter pilot. I had no way of knowing then, but CAN’T just means you have to try a little harder…. Its still on my “Bucket List” to ride in a supersonic jet at some point, to cross off both me and my dad’s dreams together. Or maybe I’ll land a Top Fuel/Air Force sponsor and get to combine both dreams at once. (Keep your fingers crossed folks!) Regardless, I feel pretty lucky to be participating in the land-version of high speed flight in drag racing, because as Goose and Maverick put it oh so well….

“I feel the need…. the need for SPEED!!”

Photos: USAF

The Brickyard

May 26, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

So, as is my norm here lately, I had another whirlwind weekend in celebration of Memorial Day festivities. (I’m almost dizzy looking at my calendar anymore)

Originally, I had planned to make a trip to Indy all weekend, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had been added to the Dixie Derby All-Star team. We had a home bout on Saturday, which I played in and we ended up winning 154-41. Great night for sure. Thanks for everyone that came to watch, I had a great time!

I didn’t get to celebrate long at the afterparty, because after that tiring day, it was up bright and early headed out to Indianapolis, IN. I had a few different reasons to be going to Indy, but one of them was to definitely catch part of the Indy 500 in person. I’ve never seen an Indy race live, especially not at the hallowed Brickyard, so I raced the 6 hours up there early Sunday morning to catch the race. (thank GOD for radar detectors…. and drafting… and fun travelers with the same idea in mind)

I arrived around lap 90, but by the time I got parked and hiked the 2 miles to the track, it was somewhere around lap 140 or so. To my luck, they weren’t even checking tickets anymore, so I just walked in and grabbed an empty seat on Turn 2. I had a bunch of friends there that I hoped to meet and sit with, but unfortunately, you can’t exactly hear a cell phone well from the track, so I just gave up and sat in the stands next to some *interesting* people.

Of course, I learned after I made it about 1.75 miles of my hike that I’d hauled my camera with me for NOTHING, being that I had conveniently left my only CF card in the USB reader at work back in Huntsville. Grrrr….. I can be thoroughly brain-dead sometimes. But I did catch some of the *BIG* Meira crash, as it happened right in front of me. They took awhile to get him out, I had a sick feeling as they don’t make it a point to say anything about the driver’s condition over the PA. I thought I saw him moving on the stretcher, so that was a hopeful sign. Thankfully, he’s okay, just has some broken vertebrae and will have some therapy to go through for the rest of the season.

So, the best evidence of my 1st trip to an Indy car race comes from my negative 3.0 mega pixel camera phone. And let me tell you how hard it is to actually CATCH a 2oomph car whizzing by with that sucker too. ::Shakes head in disgust::

Danica Patrick again did really well, landing in the 3rd spot at the race end behind Helio and Wheaton. Helio had a huge lead, but I was secretly hoping for some last lap antics by Danica that would’ve moved her into 2nd. Sarah and Milka both finished the race, but out of the top 10. Oh well, next year for my girls!

Monday’s rainy trip home was far from fun, as I was thoroughly exhausted and had to fight some pretty crappy conditions. (Hello Mustang, time for some new tires!) I made it back into town around 8pm, snuggled up to my little chihuahua, and tried to unwind before heading back to the grind.

And it doesn’t appear that my schedule will be letting up any time soon! Next weekend: Evansville, IN for Derby. Following weekend: Knoxville, TN for derby, where I’m actually skating with the Knoxville team, who was short players. Week after? FLORIDA for fun, sun, family…. and oh yea, WORK too. Then possibly a bonzai run back to Bowling Green, KY for the nostalgia race. Yippeee-aye-ahhh!

Derby Photos: Angela Zaborny; Indy Photos: My crappy Blackberry.

Traveling the country one track at a time

May 22, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

One of the great things about racing, is that it has allowed me to travel the country, one racetrack at a time. I tried to sit down and think of all the tracks I’ve been to, which isn’t an easy task. Sad part is, that although I’ve been all over the U.S., I couldn’t tell you much about the cities I’ve visited BESIDES which track surfaces are good and how the pit parking was.

The list that I can remember is about 40+ right now, including a few over the ocean in Puerto Rico. I’m hoping to add to it as the years go by. (or as I can remember where else I’ve been!)

Racetracks — A look at all the tracks I’ve been to in my brief career

US 19 Dragway — Albany, GA
Goodtimes Drag Strip — Baileyton, AL
Houston Motorsports Park — Baytown, TX
Beechbend Raceway — Bowling Green, KY
Bradenton Motorsports Park — Bradenton, FL
Bristol Dragstrip — Bristol, TN
National Trails Raceway — Columbus, OH
Atlanta Dragway — Commerce, GA
One Way Dragway — Cottonwood, AL
Cordova Dragway Park — Cordova, IL
Southeastern Int’l Raceway — Dallas, GA
Darlington Int’l Dragway — Darlington, SC
Dothan Dragway — Dothan, AL
Douglas Drag Strip — Douglas, GA
Texas Motorplex– Ennis, TX
Gainesville Raceway Park — Gainesville, FL
Huntsville Dragway — Harvest, AL
Emerald Coast Dragway — Holt, FL
O’Reilly Motorsports Park — Indianapolis, IN
Carolina Dragway — Jackson, SC
Route 66 Raceway — Joliet, IL
Lakeland Motorsports Park — Lakeland, FL
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — Las Vegas, NV
Twiggs Co. Raceway — Macon, GA
Gateway International Raceway — Madison, IL
Montgomery Motorsports Park — Montgomery, AL
Summit Raceway Park — Norwalk, OH
Orangeburg Dragstrip — Orangeburg, SC
Orlando Speed World — Orlando, FL
Phenix Motorsport Park — Phenix City, AL
Pomona Raceway — Pomona, CA
Ponce International Raceway — Ponce, Puerto Rico
Maple Grove Raceway — Reading, PA
Silver Dollar Raceway — Reynolds, GA
Old Dominion Raceway — Richmond, VA
Rockingham Dragway — Rockingham, NC
Puerto Rico International Speedway — Salinas, Puerto Rico
Alabama International Raceway — Steele, AL
Heartland Motorsports Park — Topeka, KS
South Georgia Motorsports Park — Valdosta, GA
Palm Beach International Raceway — West Palm, FL

I don’t even want to think how many road miles that adds up to!

My favorites are Bristol’s Thunder Valley for the beautiful scenery and awesome atmosphere as the cars race through the mountain valley, and Norwalk’s Summit Raceway Park because of the midway and great hospitality (and because it was my first 6 sec, 200mph pass there). The ultimate package has to be Ponce Int’l Raceway in Puerto Rico, its a drag racer’s dream! More on that in another blog post though…

I’m hoping to add the rest of the NHRA tour onto my list at some point (in the not-so-distant future).

A photo says a thousand words

May 5, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

In addition to the crew chiefs and drivers, one of the other groups of greatly talented professionals you get to meet at the racetrack every weekend are the guys and gals that are risking their butts hanging on the guardwalls to give us great images of the action. Though I know absolutely NOTHING about photography aside from point-and-click, I’ve always had great respect for these guys and gals, and always truly admire their work.

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting my absolute favorite Professional Sports Photographer, Mark Rebilas. I’ve been a fan of his and have been following his work for quite awhile now, but I didn’t realize how cool a guy he actually is until recently.

Mark hails from Phoenix, AZ; the son of photographer Gil Rebilas, who first put a camera in his son’s hands at age 10. Mark quickly learned the trade, enlisting as a Photographer for the US Navy, and leading a team of 22 photographers on an aircraft carrier during a wartime deployment across the world.

Now, you can find him high above the tri-oval at NASCAR races, capturing some of the crazy crashes, or on the sidelines at baseball games and a wide variety of other sports. A very recognized name in the business, Mark’s won the NMPA Motorsports Photographer of the Year award twice, and has been featured all over the industry in ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and many other publications. Mark has also covered a few drag racing events, and his images are absolutely stunning. His photo blog is really impressive, and tells a great story about the events he covers. Though he told me he originally started the blog for other photographers, any sports fan can really appreciate his detailed blogging style and the great story his images tell.

Someof my favorites are the unique portraits he’s done with my favorite NHRA drivers. His approach is drastically different from our regular drag racing photographers, and from what he outlines in his blogs, his techniques are much more complicated and a lot harder work. But the results are amazing:

Angelle Sampey last season in the staging lanes

Now-retired Funny Car driver Gary Scelzi

The action shots are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. With drag racing being the fastest moving of all the motorsports, I imagine its quite difficult to catch all the action coming at you at 300mph. But these are just the most vivid and spectacular I’ve ever seen…

Tony Schumacher explosion — Tony Schumacher in Top Fuel

Fuel Altered explosion — Fuel Altered Engine Explosion at March Meet

Clearly, I don’t have to do much talking. His work speaks rather breathlessly for itself. I couldn’t possibly post all of my favorites, so you really need to head on over to his blog to check them all out.

Other than the fact he drives a Corvette (::groan::), Mark is one of the coolest people I’ve had a chance to hang out with in some time! I’ve already made him promise that if I strike the lotto and go Top Fuel racing, he’s going to be the official Photographer with sole mission to make me look like a resident bad ass! Thanks, Mark!

Check out Mark’s Blog: www.markjrebilas.com/blog
Or better yet, subscribe to it free here.

Soggy weekend gamble

May 3, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

The past month or so has been such an incredibly hectic time for me. I feel like I’ve been on the go for weeks. Between Roller Derby and trying to attend a few races here and there, I haven’t had much time to recharge.

Dan Parker Promod — Parker/George Pro Mod 1st round ADRL

I started out by attending the ADRL race in Valdosta. I forgot how badly I missed these events. Its so much different than attending the “all business” national events. While the ADRL is a huge show, and just as professional, it still retains the level of fun and comraderie that isn’t as apparent in national events. I got to chat with a lot of the guys I’ve been racing with for years, and even rounded up a few more parts to finish my car. I spent the weekend hanging out with Dan Parker/Bill George’s team. They made the show, but had to take on the #1 qualifier, and shook just a bit at the top of low for a close race at the finish. [photo Competition Plus, Roger Richards]

Next up, I headed out to Vegas for a work-related tradeshow. I handle marketing for a broadcast equipment manufacturing company, and the NAB Show is our largest tradeshow of the year. Its always a very long week, with 2 after-show events that I manage for our dealers/customers. I did get a few hours out by the hotel pool at the Sahara, as well as skating with the Sin City Roller Girls at one of their practices, dinner at Tao and dancing at Pure Nightclub in Ceasar’s Palace one of the nights as well.

From Vegas, I hopped a plane over to Columbus, OH where I was playing my very first Roller Derby Bout against the Ohio Roller Girls. We lost, I broke my finger, dislocated a knuckle and pulled a tendon in my hand, and I was way tired, but it was still a good experience. My friend Chuck came out along with my cousin Ana and her boys, so it was great seeing family and friends as well.

Then, on top of all of the craziness, I had 2 days once I got home to move to a new house my roommate and I were renting. With a broken finger. NOT fun. One of my coworkers and his wife helped me move most of it Monday night. I had to be out by Wednesday, and after a trip to Atlanta on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning to pick up my badly missed little Chihuahua, handle some work, and meet a special new friend (more on that next blog), it has been an exhausting month.

Stevens Top Fuel — Missed my team qualifying because of weather

Which brings me to this weekend: the St. Louis NHRA race. I went to this race last year, and was planning to go this year as well. The Stevens Family Top Fuel Dragster, which some may remember is the team I have been working with to get a top fuel ride once we find funding to license and run, had a one-race deal for St. Louis, and I had planned to go there and shoot some video of the team and me with the dragster to put together a promo reel for the sponsor chase. However, Friday afternoon when I was getting ready to pack up and leave, the weather sirens started going off, making the drive not look like such a great idea. That fact, combined with the radar outlook for Saturday showing rain all day long, made me decide to stay home after lots of back-and-forth. A decision I instantly regretted the next morning when Dave Stevens called me saying it was clear blue skies and sunny there. DOH! [photo Competition Plus, Roger Richards]So the team ended up qualifying and getting into the show. They went out first round to Morgan Lucas. Of course, I missed all the action. I’m super sad. 🙁 So much for luck… I gambled and lost in Vegas, Ohio, and St. Louis! DARN!

Season 2 kickoff with Ashley Force-Hood

May 1, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

You may remember a few months ago (where the heck is time going lately!) that I had a chance to sit down with NHRA Nitro Funny Car driver Ashley Force-Hood for some gal chat to kick off Season 2 of Horsepower & Heels TV…

Its been a hectic few months, but the folks at PNN just finalized the episode. Though I wish we could have included all 20 minutes of great insight from Ashley on a wide variety of topics, PNN and I chose to give some insight to viewers from Ashley into the very unique side of being a woman at the races.

Hope you enjoy!

WATCH SEASON 2, EPISODE 1 of HORSEPOWER & HEELS TV!

Sad day in history

April 8, 2009 // by Horsepower & Heels

Today marks a very sad day in my racing world.

American Autosports, the longtime producer of the legendary Fun Ford Weekend Series and more recently Battle of the Brands, has just announced that due to current economic climate, they have ceased operations.

Fun Ford Weekend began in 1991 and spearheaded the Ford Drag Racing movement that gave so many of us a great competitive place to race. We watched PRO 5.0 grow from just a 10 second class into the low 6’s at over 200mph, Outlaw from true 10.5″ 9 and 8 second rides, into the high 6 second class on 10.5W’s that rivaled the Pro from just a few years back, and huge advancements in Renegade, Warrior, Drag Radial, and my favorite, True Street.

Fun Ford Weekend is where I cut my teeth drag racing, starting in the Street Bracket. From there, I moved into True Street, where I won my first race at Gainesville in 2002. With the addition of a drag radial class in 2003, I runnered-up in my first heads-up race, became the first woman in FFW to break the 8 second barrier on a drag radial, and runnered-up for my first championship. In 2006, I moved up to Pro 5.0, becoming the first and only woman to pilot a 6 second, 200 mph car in Fun Ford history. I runnered-up for the Pro 5.0 championship as well that year as a rookie in PRO 5.0. Fun Ford Weekend made me what I am today, and I’m eternally grateful for everything I learned all those years and all the people who made racing with FFW so much fun.

But, in additon to that, it created a home for a huge family of people, a tight group of the very best friends I will ever have. Unlike the stringent and regulated NHRA/IHRA events, Fun Ford events were filled with commraderie and fun, and some of the best times happened after the racing was finished for the day.

I’m sad that we no longer have FFW/Battle of the Brands to bring us together, and hope that all of my racing counterparts still continue on somewhere when this mess of an economy picks itself up and dusts off.

Thanks to Bill & Cheryl Alexander, Crystal, George and the rest of the FFW crew for a decade (and more) of priceless memories!

We will miss you!