I have a dark side.

Artistic, literary, fairly-reserved Dodie has “the need - the need for speed.”

I come from a car-loving family. My mom and dad took me to car shows and collector car auctions practically from infancy. My dad worked for General Motors for 40 years. Instead of looking for license plates from different states on road trips, we’d identify makes, models, and years of cars.

After spending a college summer working second shift at the same GM factory where my father worked, I paid cash to Hertz for my first car - a used bright yellow Ford Pinto with red and black racing stripes. Can you imagine anyone renting a Pinto?!

I grew up in the Racing Capital of the World. I’ve attended the Indianapolis 500 more times than I can remember. I’ve seen my share of Brickyard 400s. Phillip started taking me to the NHRA US Nationals back when we were dating and we haven’t missed very many years since. The sound. The power. The feeling of the engines rumbling in your head and chest. The smell of the racing fuel. I have to admit that I love it all.

Being a spectator is one thing. Being the driver is something completely different. I first experienced the exhilaration of pure speed several years ago when we were at Gateway International Speedway in St. Louis for an Impala SS event. We were showing and competing two different cars and my husband had an event conflict. Although our 1995 Impala SS was in line for drag racing, he couldn’t get back over to the drag strip to run it. Our friends coached me on how to watch the tree (the starting lights for drag racing) and what to do. They slapped a helmet on me and, before I had the chance to even be nervous, I found myself lined up at the starting line watching those lights go from yellow to green. I did what our friends had told me to do – “floor it, hang on, and go straight” and, although I didn’t win, I had more fun than I had ever had in my life. So much fun that I drove the car right back around and put it back in line for another pass.

I have done this many times since, at Impala events and Camaro events. I’m not a big fan of rollercoasters (I hate the drops) but the adrenaline rush of drag racing cannot be beat.  I'm not very good at it because I have terrible reaction time, but it's still thrilling!

In my previous daily driver, an LT1-powered 1994 Cadillac Fleetwood
Brougham, on the drag strip at Indianapolis Raceway Park

On the track at the Putnam Park Road Course

All of our cars are rear-wheel drive V8s. There are two of us and four cars. We each have a daily driver and a “fun car.” My current personal daily driver is a 2009 Pontiac G8 GT, sadly, the last of the Pontiacs. It came from the factory with 360 horsepower and 385 lb-ft of torque. Think winter driving might be questionable? Not at all. Slap some winter wheels and snow tires on it and it goes like a sled.

My fun car is a 2002 Camaro SS 35th Anniversary Brickyard 400 track car from the August 2001 Brickyard 400 race. It was  #24 of 44 cars that year and my favorite driver, a “local boy” who we all watched come up through the ranks of Midget car racing, Jeff Gordon (#24), won the race.  He graciously agreed to sign the dash during a practice session for the 2002 race the following year.

Yep. That's me leading several other Camaros
across the famous "Yard of Bricks" at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Because we have participated in some Chevrolet/Indianapolis Motor Speedway photo shoots, I've been lucky enough to drive some of the "real" Indianapolis 500 pace cars and my own Brickyard 400 track car around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway several times.

I started keeping track and I have actually made 98 laps around the famed oval!  Not many folks can say that and I'm proud of it!

To quote Shrek, "Onions have layers. Ogres have layers." Dodie has layers.