Circle Track — 12 August 2010


Courtesy of MercedSunStar.com
By MIKE ADASKAVEG
Merced Speedway

Don’t tell Shannon Porter she can’t play with the boys.

The Atwater native races with tough company at Merced Speedway every Sunday, driven by the words of Marilyn Monroe painted across the trunk of her battle-scarred Camaro stock car:

“I don’t mind living in a man’s world, as long as I can be a woman in it.”

Porter set her sights on a sport not offered by Buhach Colony High School. Her dad, Tim, and grandfather, Wayne, were stock car drivers. Her brother Brian was starting his career. Shannon wanted in.

“Racing consumed my life — even in high school,” she said. “I spent the weekends at the track helping my dad. He told me it was just a few years ago that women weren’t allowed in the pits.”

It was a half decade ago that Porter began her racing career in a “women’s only” division, which she felt wasn’t for her. She wanted to race with the boys.

Her dad knew she had to be tough to succeed.

“He told me I had to ‘man-up’ and go for it,” Porter recalled. “He said ‘no crying’ and ‘no girl fights.’ He was laughing, but I took it that he was serious.”

Now a top contender in the Hobby Stock division, Porter sees more and more young women racing against the men.

“You’d run into a woman racer here and there a few years back,” she said. “But, now, there are more and more of us.”

Women racers learn from each other, Porter found.

“There is a connection. Women know what other women are going through when they compete with men,” she explained. “Women seem to watch other women, compare and criticize. In racing, it helps us to learn how to go faster.”

Porter became friends with Silver Dollar Speedway (Chico) Street Stock champion Heather Bartlett through racing.

“A woman racer can go up to another woman racer and start a conversation like they knew each other for years,” Porter explained. “It’s from sharing common experiences in racing and in life. That’s how Heather and I became great friends.”

Porter survived the biggest tragedy in her life when she lost her biggest fan to cancer. Her mother Denise passed away last year at age 47. There are purple angel wings painted on her car in memory of her mom.

The loss of her mom has kept her life’s goals in focus. She’s studying for her Master’s Degree in Accounting while working in the accounting department at Foster Farms. Come Sunday, her mom’s there for her spiritually.

Last Sunday night, Porter was leaning over the engine, checking her car. Next to her in the pits, boyfriend Raul Rodriguez was readying his car.

Two young women approached her about driving.

“Don’t ever give up on your dreams,” Porter tells the other women. “Go out and show the boys what you really can do.”

And then she recited another Marilyn Monroe quote, one that is painted on her back bumper.

“Well behaved women rarely make history.”

Merced Speedway Notes

Sprint Car racing debuts this Sunday evening at Merced Speedway. The popular 360 “Spec Sprint” division will join the lineup along with modified stock cars, hobby stocks, four bangers and street stocks. Racing gets underway at 5.

Dave Press of San Mateo, two-time winner in the 360 Spec Sprints at Antioch Speedway, is excited about Merced’s new quarter mile high banked track. “There will be a lot of tight, close racing.

I seem to do well in traffic. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I hear the track has multiple grooves, so you can find your own line,” said

360 Spec Sprint car driver Brian Gray of Vallejo. “It will make for a lot of passing.

I hear the track is banked and racey. It will be an exciting show.”

Read more: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/08/06/1520859/porter-blazes-trail-for-local.html#ixzz0wCznsLvk

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