Sunny Hobbs
NASCAR Winston Racing Series Driver
 
Sunny Hobbs is a professional female racecar
driver competing in two very different racing
divisions in 1999. Her first challenge is
NASCAR's Winston Racing Series, Eastern Seaboard
Division, in a Late Model Stock Car. She drives
the #32 Monte Carlo at Caraway Speedway in
Asheboro, North Carolina every Saturday night.
Late Model racing is a very competitive series
and is a stepping stone for many of NASCAR's
Winston Cup and Busch Grand National stars. It's
a good place to prove yourself and Sunny plans to
use this stock car experience to move into the
NASCAR Goody's Dash series next year. Goody's
Dash is a touring series, a step up from Late
Model Stock.
Sunny is also competing in the Women's Global GT
Series, a series featuring the fastest women
drivers from around the world in identical
Panoz/Ford Grand Tourismo Race Cars. The series
runs as a support series to the American Le Mans
Series, which is also launching its inaugural
season in 1999. Sunny and her competitors race at
road courses on the east and west coast of the
United States.
Sunny has been racing for six seasons now and she
feels that it is just the beginning. Racing is
all about experience, seat-time and discipline.
It is a tough sport and Sunny wants to be able to
race full-time. Up until now, she has had to
support her own efforts in racing and hold down a
full-time job at the same time. She has had
marketing and sales jobs in the contract
furniture and architectural fields. Somehow, she
has managed to balance this with her desire and
ambition to succeed in racing.
Sunny recently relocated her race team, SHE
Racing, from Richmond, Virginia, to High Point,
North Carolina to take advantage of the greater
opportunities for circle-track racing down. She
reports that, so far, it's been a good move.
SHE Racing shares a shop with a Busch and an ARCA
team. Besides racing and tending to her race car
and team, Sunny is doing as many things as
possible to be successful in racing, including
doing TV broadcasting (being the interviewer, not
the interviewee), crewing for other teams, going
to other teams' test sessions and making as many
contacts in this sport as possible. Sunny wants
her talent and determination to be recognized by
the right people.
Sunny began her racing career at Southside
Speedway in Richmond, Virginia in the Charger
division of NASCAR. She had recently graduated
from the American University in Washington, D.C.
with a degree in International Relations, but got
suddenly side-tracked by racing after going to
some local races outside of Washington, D. C.
She bought her first car with a credit union
loan. It was a 1980 Chevrolet Malibu that she
raced as the #11 Awful Arthur's Seafood Company
Malibu. Awful Arthur's, a local restaurant,
sponsored Sunny for two seasons, paying her just
enough money for tires and gas.
Since then, Sunny has been working her way up
through the ranks of local stock car racing
including two years in the Pro Truck Series at
Southern National Speedway in Kenly, NC and last
year's rookie effort in a late model stock car.
She also has experience in sports cars, with wins
at Rockingham (on the road course) and Summit
Point Raceway in an Eagle Talon.
Sunny's family always has and will continue to
support my racing. Her Dad is part of her four
person crew for the late model stock car and
drives down to North Carolina every weekend for
the race. Her Mom takes tire temps and keeps lap
times. Sunny knows that she couldn't do what she
is doing without the involvement of her family.
She'll be the first one to tell you that they
support her on the good days and the tough ones.
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