"So, on my first lap, I went out and flatfooted it down the straightaway, and when I got to the turns I would lift a little bit. My second lap was the same way. I'd be flatfooted on the straightaway, and I'd lift just a little bit less that time. Then the third time around I held it down all the way around. It took me about three times, but that first time when I went into Turn 1 my whole stomach went whoosh, right into my throat. It was pretty neat."
Gordon qualified her No. 22 Sticks N Stuff Furniture Ford in fifth place for the Talladega race, at a speed of 182.947 mph, and ended the weekend with a 10th-place finish.
"We were running third most of the day," she says. "But we ended up with some engine trouble. We could have finished better. However, we also could have finished a lot worse. I am just so happy with how the whole weekend went. We had a great car."
So what's ahead for Tina Gordon? Whatever the future holds, in ARCA or some other series, rest assured her days competing in the Powder Puff division are long gone, as is her reluctance to climb into a race car.
Built For SpeedDriver Sunny Hobbs Finds Satisfaction In Both Building And Racing CarsOne of the most satisfying things Sunny Hobbs ever did was not accomplished on the racetrack, but in the shop. She built a car from the ground up, along with the help of her crew chief/fabricator/mechanic Jason "Trooper" Turner.
In 1999 Hobbs moved to High Point, North Carolina, to pursue her racing career. After racing a hand-me-down Late Model Stock at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, North Carolina, to moderate success-a few Top 10s, no sponsor, tired engine-Hobbs and Turner decided to build their own car over the off-season.
For the next few months, Hobbs and Turner found themselves holed up in a cold, drafty shop with an unbelievable amount of work ahead of them. Turner, a welder and fabricator during the day, used some of the advice from his fellow Bill Davis Racing buddies.
Starting with the framerails, then the cage, the front and rear clip, the two built and hung every piece of sheetmetal. Turner even built some of the suspension parts, mostly spindles and control arms. They made sure every angle was exact and measurement precise.
"It can't be 'It's close enough' on a winning race car," Hobbs says.
They measured, re-measured and made sure their craftsmanship was top notch.
Day and night almost every night of the week and all weekend, the pair worked, even when the kerosene ran out in the shop's heater. They worked on building some adjustability in the car to make it easier to work on during the racing season.
With that, the two figured out all of the customization that goes into fabricating a car. You can build it for truck arms, or a three-link, big springs or coilovers, left-side or right-side exhaust. It was a creation that belonged to just them. It was their car, so they could put everything where they wanted it, from the seat to the pedals to the shifter to the steering column to the gauges.
Slowly their car started to take shape. A lot of head scratching and re-thinking was done to get their creation to come alive. Hobbs compares the first time the engine came to life as a feeling akin to giving birth.
They ended up racing their car only seven times before a lack of money and a big wreck forced them to sell it. Hobbs knows that won't be her only car. There will certainly be others, but from that one car she felt the satisfaction of building something with her own hands. She could take that racer out on the track and know that other competitors and fans were admiring what she built.
"To take that car to the track and drive it around and feel it roll and grip and roar-that's what it's all about," Hobbs says.