Liz Boeder 

courtesy of Thunder Valley Racing

Liz Boeder's first experience in a race car came during a torrential downpour on a Saturday in February 2000. She was attending an SCCA School at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA, in a rented race car. Out of a field of 30 cars, she finished in the top ten. The next month, she attended a Porsche Club Driving School, also at Thunderhill, also in a rainstorm of Biblical proportions. Her car had transmission and engine problems, but she managed to finish. She was hooked!

Although a relative novice to the sport of auto racing, Liz has a long-standing love of cars. She believes that the greatest, most powerful events to shape her adult life have come as a direct result of a car. In 1991, almost as if pulled fate, she found herself buying an old Porsche 911 and immediately felt a calm sense of coming home. She felt so connected to the tires via the steering wheel and the pedals that it seemed she could do anything in the car. It was her peaceful, stimulating sanctum and her little temple of fun.

Liz became an evangelist for Porsche. She believed that everyone should own one, which led her to the best job in the world, selling Porsches at a dealership in Oakland. She immersed myself in their lore, learning everything she could about how they were built, tested, and sold. When potential customers told her they were saving to buy a house, she said, "Keep renting, and buy a Porsche". When they said all they could afford was a used Porsche, she'd say, "Better a used Porsche than a brand-new anything else." She was on a mission.
After her daughter, Morgan, was born, Liz applied herself to becoming the best mentor-mom she could be. She believed that each person should seek to fulfill her potential. She also believed in teaching by example. So, early in 2000, she sought to fulfill her potential on the race track. From her first weekend racing school event, Liz went from not having taken a weekend off from work in two years to booking herself into every weekend on-track event she could feasibly attend and still keep her job.

By the fall of 2000, Liz had branched out from her Porsche-only racing. She drove in the Women's Global GT Series races at Sears Point and at the Texas Motor Speedway. She withstood the rigors of the Skip Barber Three Day Course in the Skip Barber Formula Dodge open-wheel cars at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. She raced in a NASA Enduro at Sears Point and in a number of other races up and down the California coast

The 2001 racing season will hold many more adventures for Liz as she continues to find herself in the world of racing. Look for her at a track near you.

Liz Boeder is the February 2001 Driver of the Month in Distant Thunder the online newsletter of  Thunder Valley Racing. Thunder Valley Racing is an automobile racing management and marketing company created to develop women race car drivers. They believe there is an untapped market and innovative marketing strategies that are available to sponsors who support women race car drivers. Here at racerchicks.com we applaud them for the great work they do and we encourage our readers to view www.thunval.com,  the best site for racerchicks across the globe.

 This article is re-printed with permission.