Shawna Robinson – The First Lady of Nascar

Shawna Robinson was trapped in a Los Angeles hotel room. “Quarantined” is how she described it. She hadn’t been kidnapped. Quite the opposite. Robinson actually had placed herself in this confining situation.

Late in 2009,the Charlottean whom countless gearheads know for her accomplishments on NASCAR’s top race tracks had applied to be a contestant on the popular CBS reality television competition “The Amazing Race.” Together with her potential “Race” teammate, Jennifer Jo Cobb, Robinson had flown to Hollywood to participate in a weeklong series of interviews. Though they’d been recruited for the show, Robinson and Cobb still had to make a pitch to the show’s hosts, producers and directors.

Until that meeting, they were under lock and key. They had designated pool and gym opportunities, as well as windows of time during which they could eat. Otherwise, they were confined to their rooms.

“It was so weird,” said Robinson, 45. “You could not talk to any of the other people. You obviously knew the other (contestants). Like the two cowboys. … You knew they were cowboys because they even wore cowboy hats with their bathing suits on. And then there were two cops from (New England). I don’t know if you saw the latest season (of the show), but that was the one that we would have been on.”

Amazing as this sounds, Robinson’s mind wasn’t focused on “The Amazing Race,” despite the cramped living conditions. Her thoughts had drifted more than 3,000 miles away to her hometown of Charlotte, where NASCAR’s dignitaries were preparing to cut the ribbon on the sport’s anticipated Hall of Fame.

A stock car pioneer who had blazed a trail for female drivers, Robinson had been invited by Hall of Fame marketers to donate memorabilia to display in the hall. Yet she had neglected to send the materials to NASCAR’s marketing team before embarking on her California trip, and her ongoing participation in the “Race” audition meant she’d missed her window of opportunity to be part of the pomp and circumstance.

The hall opened to the public on May 11, 2010. Robinson’s memorabilia remains in her garage.

Family circus
Before Danica, there was Shawna.

Danica Patrick, the pretty brunette sitting behind the wheel of the No. 7 GoDaddy.com car, receives more than enough ink by competing in the IndyCar, ARCA and NASCAR racing series. But 20 years before Patrick became the first woman to win an IndyCar race in 2008, redheaded Robinson was burning rubber on top NASCAR tracks like Talladega, Darlington, and the Daytona International Speedway.

“In Daytona, during my first time racing that track, I finished third,” Robinson exclaimed. “In my sixth race (the AC Delco 100 in Asheville), I became the first woman ever to win a race in a stock car.”

You could argue that racing is in Robinson’s blood. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, as the youngest of five children, she always was around automobiles. Her father, who raced late-model cars, made sure the Robinson clan spent their weekends at Midwestern racetracks.

“I was the little girl playing in the infield with my sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins. It truly was a family ordeal,” Robinson said. “I knew how to ride a motorcycle at age 4. That’s just what we did.”

The Robinson family wasn’t wealthy. But they were known for inventing automotive routines to entertain crowds at stock car shows. Some of their creations even scored them national acclaim. One of Shawna’s brothers jumped so many trucks during a live race event in the early 1980s that the television variety program “That’s Incredible!” featured him in a segment.

“We always called my father the circus leader, because we were the circus, and he was our leader,” Robinson said. “It was very strange. But that was just my dad. He was so full of life.”

And full of ideas. Robinson said it was her father who first put her behind the wheel of a truck so she could warm up the track and introduce racers. He believed that truck racing – and the site of a female, teenage driver – would only increase fan appeal at stock car events.

Two days after graduating high school in 1983, 18-year-old Robinson drove her first truck around a short track in Toledo, Ohio. The love affair that would span three decades had begun.

A steady climb
One year later, Robinson launched her official racing career when she joined the GATR Truck Series.

“That’s when I came to realize that I was going to be a racer – when I came to terms with the fact that this is what I was going to be,” she recalled.

Not that her truck-driving competition wanted her there. “They hated me,” she said of the other racers. “They thought that a woman’s place was in the kitchen, not on the race track. … It was nasty, but it was fun. It was competitive. They didn’t intimidate me.”

On the racetrack is where Robinson consistently proved herself. Pocono, Atlanta and Bristol were just a few of the big-league tracks Robinson conquered in her debut year. She earned Rookie of the Year honors in 1984, moving from Iowa to Pennsylvania so she could continue to market her talents on Northeast truck tracks, in trade shows and at racing exhibits. Her owners also tolerated Robinson’s presence because a female driver in a male-dominated sport scored valuable media attention.

It only took four years for NASCAR to notice. Robinson made her stock car debut in 1988, racing in the now-defunct NASCAR Dash Series. She competed at the Daytona International Speedway that year with the Daytona Dash Cars, a series that previously had hosted Michael Waltrip and Kyle Petty, to name a few.

If there were obstacles to overcome in transitioning from trucks to stock cars, Robinson didn’t notice. She’d already familiarized herself with dirt and asphalt racing on short and long tracks in the truck series. Once she learned how to properly draft – or ride behind other vehicles – in her car, the difference in weight (trucks, obviously, are much heavier than cars) was negotiable. In her first two years on the NASCAR circuit, Robinson earned Most Popular Driver honors.

With each passing year came another climb up the NASCAR ladder. Robinson moved into the Busch Series in 1991. Highlights of her tenure included a second-place qualifying at Rockingham in 1994 and, two races later, her first career pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“My butt was always in a seat,” she said. “It was always driving, and always on a different type of race track. … I wasn’t consistently a frontrunner, but I was always near the Top 10.”

Her run, however, was short-lived.