In revising the points system for its three national series, NASCAR decided to require drivers to select one of the three – Sprint Cup, Nationwide or Camping World Truck – as the series in which they would compete for the championship. If they raced in the other two series, they could not earn driver championship points for those runs.

Initially, Cobb planned to run for the championship in the Truck Series, where she finished 17th in the standings last season. She also planned to run a handful of races for 2nd Chance Motorsports team owner Rick Russell in the Nationwide Series, but, as they talked at greater length, they decided to run the full Nationwide schedule to give Cobb a shot at winning the series rookie of the year award.

So Cobb declared for the Nationwide championship and entered both series’ season-opening races last month at Daytona International Speedway.

Then the strange sort of gremlin that impacted several other drivers across the three series bit. On Friday of race weekend, Cobb failed to qualify for the Daytona Nationwide race. That night, in the opener of the series in which she had planned to pursue season-long points – the Camping World Truck Series, she finished a surprising sixth, scoring the best finish by a woman in the history of Truck racing.

It was an odd dichotomy – Cobb doing so well in one series while failing to qualify in the series of her “choice.”

At 37, Cobb, a native and resident of Kansas City, Kan., is seeking to take the next step in a racing journey that has consumed much of her life. She started racing in 1991 and has been trying to get a foothold in a national series for almost a decade. She also has worked as a driver for the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and she keeps her Truck team – and her life – afloat by making appearances as a motivational speaker.

In a way, she now is listening to herself.

“I’ve been pursuing racing nationally since 2002, and I’ve had to really take a long, hard look at how much do I want to chase the dream versus live the dream,” she said. “I try not to let a day go by now and not stop and be grateful for it. You’re doing it. You’re living the dream.

“My life is lived on the road, so I keep my ‘home’ expenses low. The past two to three years, my income has pretty much solely been the Richard Petty Driving Experience and speaking engagements. And the best thing about the speaking engagements is that the more my career advances, the more stories I have.”

In a racing world in which Danica Patrick has made some noise but fans still wait for that big breakthrough win by a female driver, Cobb has made a little history herself, scoring the top finish by a woman in the Truck Series and, at the same time, becoming the first woman to score a top 10 in any of the three national divisions in a race at Daytona.

She hopes to be in a Sprint Cup car for next year’s Daytona 500.

“The million-dollar question is – can a woman do this successfully and where is she and what’s it going to take for that to happen,” Cobb said. “There is a saying I’ve been quoting a lot lately: ‘If you have talent, you might race. If you have talent and money, you will race.’ It’s getting that right combination of talent and money behind you.

“I think it will happen. I think the time is coming. I feel very fortunate to be on the cusp of it and to somehow be involved in some of the history that’s being made. So many things are happening.

“I think something you get with the female drivers is they’re a little more under the spotlight, and they don’t get to have the learning curve in place. That’s OK. We’re used to it, and we persevere on.”

Shawna Robinson made the last Daytona 500 appearance by a female driver – in 2002.

“It’s a good, big goal,” Cobb said. “There’s no harm in dreaming big. If it doesn’t happen, we’ll just keep digging away.”

[Source]