Michelle Molinari

Driver/builder/owner: Michelle Molinari

Residence: San Mateo, CA (SF Bay Area)

Michelle began her racing career just after graduating from college in 2001. With all the excitement of school gone, she needed something other than her 9-5 job. She purchased her 1969 Camaro and began drag racing it 28 days later. The first year of ownership was a mix of rebuilding her Camaro to her daily driving and drag racing expectations and drag racing every weekend she wasn’t working on it…a street/strip car is no easy task. She built, from the block up, her 350 small block chevy, a ford 9” rear end, installed a TH350 trani, replaced and upgraded the cooling system, added all MSD ignition/wiring, and replaced most of the suspension parts. In her first year owning the car, she spent most of her race time at the two local tracks, Sacramento Raceway and Sears Point Raceway (Infineon) looking for faster time slips and working on cutting a light. Not enough track time led to a little local street racing looking for seat time. Her best time to date is a 12.5 all motor, she has no plans for any power adders or installing a cage in this car she still wants to take it to work every day so the 11s will have to wait.

In her first Nation wide even in Reno, Nevada for the Hot August Nights 1/8 mile Drags she won a first place trophy in the Eliminator Class. She made the front page of the Reno Gazette for her interview alone. In her quest for more competition on the west coast she stumbled upon the Pacific Street Car Association (PSCA). Reading over the classes she found the Open Competition class and decided Arizona and Nevada weren’t too far to go for bracket racing.

Declaring this season as her rookie season she has been to two PSCA events thus far, the first one postponed. But in the second event in Las Vegas, Nevada she qualified 3rd and landed 8th in points total for that event. With over 35 participants at each event she hopes to finish the season in November in the top 15. Michelle hopes to be a yearly participant in the PSCA as well as other ¼ drag leagues but her racing career is self funded and buying a house might interfere…hopefully a few sponsors will pick her up!

Drag Racing has become a huge part of her life but she still makes time for her photography, writing, and off roading in her first car, ’92 Jeep Wrangler. Michelle has incorporated her photography practice and her track time to prepare for her future career in ‘event photography.’

Sponsors: Red Line Oil

Pit Crew: Chris Molinari (younger brother)
Kevin Keller (best friend)


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