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Or maybe you did. In any case it is a one of a kind story in Motorsports I think...
There was a racer name of JT Hayes who ran one Winston Cup race back in 1990 at Rockingham for Junie Donlavey. Finished dead last in that race. However the driver had an impressive career leading up to that one race.
That is not the story. This is:
Terri O'Connell, a slender strawberry blonde, wants to race. She wants to feel the heat of competition— all 120 degrees of it. She wants take a 720-horsepower engine and push it to the limit. O'Connell also wants to model in TV haircare-product commercials and design sportswear for female racing fans on the side. But when in 1997, she announced to the racing world her plans to get into a stock car, she was denounced O'Connell as a "freak show and sideshow." The racing world said, "didn't want any part of it," according to Karen Myers. Myers, a motor sports journalist, was personally contacted by NASCAR's former director of competition Mike Helton and asked to keep O'Connell's story quiet.
What is the big deal about O'Connell racing? After all, women, although few and far between, have been racing cars since 1946—even before NASCAR was officially founded—when Louise Smith went "head-to-head with the good ole boys and showed them what a good ole girl could do." And O'Connell has rather impressive racing credentials. She has over 500 career wins and beat Jeff Gordon, NASCAR's Michael Jordan, in the midget circuit. In 1990, at the pinnacle of her career, O'Connell raced in the prestigious Winston Cup series.
The big deal is that when O'Connell dominated the tracks in the 1980's, she was actually a he, and he was T.J. Hayes—son of legendary driver Jimmy Hayes—a $100,000-a-year daredevil driver with his own race car and a bright future. O'Connell, who had suffered from gender dysphoria, a sexual identity crisis, for her entire life, underwent a sex change operation in 1994. What she represents now, aside from gender and social status questions, is an unqualified threat to the NASCAR community.
NASCAR was born south of Daytona, Fla. in 1948, when "Big" Bill France took the South's outlaw driver heroes—who, fueled on moonshine and regional pride, raced stock cars on the backwater dirt tracks—and molded them into a sanctioned body, with guaranteed prize money to make the standardized rules go down easy. NASCAR remained limited in reach until 1979, when France's son convinced CBS to broadcast the Daytona 500 live. Sixteen million viewers tuned in that year, teaching corporate sponsors and advertisers a valuable lesson—don't underestimate the buying power of rednecks. This year, racing fans will spend $1.2 billion on licensed t-shirts, key chains, beer steins and RV window shades bearing the likeness of their favorite car or driver.
Therein lies the rub: the NASCAR marketing department can't see a beer-bellied, mulleted man of the South, coming out of his luxury camper on race day, clad in a matching Terri O'Connell v-neck and cap—available in pastel for the little lady. No thank you; NASCAR marketers claim that their organization is "the last bastion of maleness" and that "it tells guys it's okay to be macho." I assume that means there is no place for O'Connell or her transgendered kind in the track gift stores. Fine. Economics is economics. You can't argue with a hard dollar or the hillbilly behind it. But how does NASCAR justify keeping O'Connell away from the track itself?
In today's mass media-controlled, profit-driven, hyper-commercialized athletic arena, there is scarcely room for pure sportsmanship. Organizations such as NASCAR seem to care more about the buck they will turn than the actual sport they promote. At the major sanctioned races, it is the driving that becomes the sideshow; the personalities pushing the goods become all-important. In such a world, how can drivers, regardless of gender, race, or social status, enter the race solely on their talents? As a NASCAR marketing consultant told George magazine in an October interview, "Look at NASCAR: how many black people do you see? How many Hispanic groups? Tell me how many women do you see driving that go anywhere? Boys ain't gonna let that happen."
To race again, O'Connell must not only prove that she can still perform—and in the sport of racing, anyone who makes it as far as O'Connell (Hayes) made it doesn't lose his edge with a cut of the surgical knife—but also that her sponsor won't lose his shirt and his customers by backing such a controversial driver. O'Connell says she still has the skills and, more importantly, the desire. What she doesn't have is a backer. Despite sending out hundreds of homemade press kits and making incessant follow-up calls, not a single sponsor has had the guts to take her on. Even relatively trendy and tolerant companies like Hard Rock Cafe, VH1 and Virgin have turned her down.
Their reasoning? O'Connell won't be able to connect to the fans, i.e. sell the product. What's a girl to do?
There was a racer name of JT Hayes who ran one Winston Cup race back in 1990 at Rockingham for Junie Donlavey. Finished dead last in that race. However the driver had an impressive career leading up to that one race.
That is not the story. This is:
Terri O'Connell, a slender strawberry blonde, wants to race. She wants to feel the heat of competition— all 120 degrees of it. She wants take a 720-horsepower engine and push it to the limit. O'Connell also wants to model in TV haircare-product commercials and design sportswear for female racing fans on the side. But when in 1997, she announced to the racing world her plans to get into a stock car, she was denounced O'Connell as a "freak show and sideshow." The racing world said, "didn't want any part of it," according to Karen Myers. Myers, a motor sports journalist, was personally contacted by NASCAR's former director of competition Mike Helton and asked to keep O'Connell's story quiet.
What is the big deal about O'Connell racing? After all, women, although few and far between, have been racing cars since 1946—even before NASCAR was officially founded—when Louise Smith went "head-to-head with the good ole boys and showed them what a good ole girl could do." And O'Connell has rather impressive racing credentials. She has over 500 career wins and beat Jeff Gordon, NASCAR's Michael Jordan, in the midget circuit. In 1990, at the pinnacle of her career, O'Connell raced in the prestigious Winston Cup series.
The big deal is that when O'Connell dominated the tracks in the 1980's, she was actually a he, and he was T.J. Hayes—son of legendary driver Jimmy Hayes—a $100,000-a-year daredevil driver with his own race car and a bright future. O'Connell, who had suffered from gender dysphoria, a sexual identity crisis, for her entire life, underwent a sex change operation in 1994. What she represents now, aside from gender and social status questions, is an unqualified threat to the NASCAR community.
NASCAR was born south of Daytona, Fla. in 1948, when "Big" Bill France took the South's outlaw driver heroes—who, fueled on moonshine and regional pride, raced stock cars on the backwater dirt tracks—and molded them into a sanctioned body, with guaranteed prize money to make the standardized rules go down easy. NASCAR remained limited in reach until 1979, when France's son convinced CBS to broadcast the Daytona 500 live. Sixteen million viewers tuned in that year, teaching corporate sponsors and advertisers a valuable lesson—don't underestimate the buying power of rednecks. This year, racing fans will spend $1.2 billion on licensed t-shirts, key chains, beer steins and RV window shades bearing the likeness of their favorite car or driver.
Therein lies the rub: the NASCAR marketing department can't see a beer-bellied, mulleted man of the South, coming out of his luxury camper on race day, clad in a matching Terri O'Connell v-neck and cap—available in pastel for the little lady. No thank you; NASCAR marketers claim that their organization is "the last bastion of maleness" and that "it tells guys it's okay to be macho." I assume that means there is no place for O'Connell or her transgendered kind in the track gift stores. Fine. Economics is economics. You can't argue with a hard dollar or the hillbilly behind it. But how does NASCAR justify keeping O'Connell away from the track itself?
In today's mass media-controlled, profit-driven, hyper-commercialized athletic arena, there is scarcely room for pure sportsmanship. Organizations such as NASCAR seem to care more about the buck they will turn than the actual sport they promote. At the major sanctioned races, it is the driving that becomes the sideshow; the personalities pushing the goods become all-important. In such a world, how can drivers, regardless of gender, race, or social status, enter the race solely on their talents? As a NASCAR marketing consultant told George magazine in an October interview, "Look at NASCAR: how many black people do you see? How many Hispanic groups? Tell me how many women do you see driving that go anywhere? Boys ain't gonna let that happen."
To race again, O'Connell must not only prove that she can still perform—and in the sport of racing, anyone who makes it as far as O'Connell (Hayes) made it doesn't lose his edge with a cut of the surgical knife—but also that her sponsor won't lose his shirt and his customers by backing such a controversial driver. O'Connell says she still has the skills and, more importantly, the desire. What she doesn't have is a backer. Despite sending out hundreds of homemade press kits and making incessant follow-up calls, not a single sponsor has had the guts to take her on. Even relatively trendy and tolerant companies like Hard Rock Cafe, VH1 and Virgin have turned her down.
Their reasoning? O'Connell won't be able to connect to the fans, i.e. sell the product. What's a girl to do?