Female race car driver wants to empower women drivers

Shayhorn, 33, got her first taste of the racing industry at age 17 when she started dating a dirt bike racer. He taught her to drive a stick shift in the mud holes of Ocala, Fla., and how to hill-climb in his truck.

After high school, Shayhorn moved to Atlanta and fell in with a fast crowd headed for trouble, she said.  She worked as a cocktail waitress at the Gold Club to make ends meet, and while partying at a dance club one night, she met Dan Willie, a DJ and Georgia Tech chemical engineering student who flipped cars for a living.

While on their way to a car show one day, the two ended up street-racing a Toyota Supra — and losing -- but the seed was planted, and Willie began building race cars with Shayhorn as his sidekick.

“Here I was, this tough little gangsta chick looking for people to race my man,” Shayhorn said. “We were the Bonnie and Clyde of street racers, kicking everyone’s [behind] in town.”

Eventually Willie turned pro and began competing in drag races. As his reputation grew, other drivers began asking Willie to work on their cars and Batlground Motorsport Engineering, specializing in customizing performance cars, was born. Nevertheless, Willie had difficulty landing sponsors for his racing career.

“I remember driving home from a race and thinking about how I could change things and make it better because Dan’s upset and he’s my baby,” Shayhorn said. “I thought, ‘Why can’t I drive and maybe make some money?” At first Willie vetoed the idea, but two months later, when they were driving home from a race with little gas in the tank and bald tires, he changed his mind.

Shayhorn began competing in drifting events in which drivers oversteer and propel their cars sideways into turns at full throttle. Sure enough, sponsorships began to roll in.

Eventually Shayhorn and Willie, along with local drifters Andy Sapp and Aaron Sanford, began performing drifting demonstrations around the country, and in 2007, Shayhorn was granted a professional drifting license by Formula Drift, the premier drifting organization. That’s also the year Shayhorn lost her sponsor, so she decided to go back to school and focus on marketing to help her secure sponsorships.

“You can’t deny that Tracy knows what she wants and goes after it with full orce,” said Sapp. “That’s something that demands respect for sure.”

Fast-forward two years and the cable channel SpeedTV came calling, casting Shayhorn in “Bullrun,” a competitive reality show about road rally racing. For the show she partnered with a female in Pennsylvania because she couldn’t find a woman in Georgia who could drive a stick shift and handle a 600-horsepower vehicle. Frustrated by the experience, Shayhorn got Ford Motor Co. to give her a special-edition Ford Fiesta to test-drive for a year and showcase at a show in Las Vegas. In return, she would teach women how to drive a stick shift, lead the Auto Intuition workshops and host a female driving event.

“Tracy has a lot of energy and she’ll be able to get the message out that female drivers are out there,” said Eric Reinker, a program manager at Ford.

“I know how empowering it is to go out there and race, and I want other girls to feel that, too,” Shayhorn said. “Women shouldn’t have to fit into the ‘sugar and spice’ mold and be all ladylike — they can be themselves and be powerful. Look at me: I should be a crack head prostitute, but instead, I’m a rock star racecar driver!”

Although Shayhorn was eliminated from the competition in “Bullrun,” her TV career isn’t over yet. She competes in Discovery Channel’s “Ultimate Car Build Off,” which airs Mondays at 9 p.m. starting June 21.

“Ultimate Car Build Off”

Mondays at 9 p.m., starting June 21 on Discovery Channel.

Auto Intuition Workshops

2-4 p.m. Sun., Aug. 1. Free. Batlground Motorsport Engineering, 1770 Atlanta Road, Smyrna. 770-319-9605, www.batlground.com.