Mary Mossey

“Racing is stupid. All you do is go around in circles,” “Race car drivers aren’t real athletes,” and “You couldn’t pay me to even sit in a race car,” all summarize what Mary thought of racing until about four years ago. (Oops, never say never.) Following in her brother’s footsteps, she began racing Quarter Midgets late in the 2000 season. After almost three seasons, Mary has countless top three finishes and several wins under her belt. At nationals, she finished twelfth, out of about 50, in 2001, and fifteenth, out of about 40, in 2002. Missing too many races, Mary could not compete for the points championship in 2000 or 2001 but rebounded in 2002 with a solid third place at the end of the season.

Mary’s desires changed after the 2002 Quarter Midget season. She converted over to the world of road racing. She began racing the Rotax Jr class at the beginning of the North Florida Challenge this 2003 season. Currently, she runs the Central Florida Challenge in Ocala and is looking for a chance to qualify for Nationals in Texas.

In addition to the Rotax Challenge, she competed in two, six hour Endurance races put on by Johan Schwartz. The race in Jacksonville ended superbly; Mary and her team, “3 guys, a girl and a kart,” finished in second place ahead of an accomplished team from Portugal and the famous Brumos Porsche team including Hurley Haywood. Under the name of DDM Racing, she competed in the six hour race at the infield of Lowe’s Motor Speedway and ended with a well earned third place finish.

Recently, Mary competed in the Redbull Formula 1 driver search. She qualified well enough in the local competition, at an indoor karting track, to move onto regionals at Lowe’s Motor Speedway (in late July). Overall 104 drivers are competing for 10 spots to race for Redbull. If she continues to do well, she will be trained to be the first great American Formula 1 driver the world has seen.

Overall, Mary has a little less than 4 years worth of racing experience, at about a dozen different tracks, with wins, top 3 finishes, and nothing worse than fifteenth, and with all of this behind her, she only looks to go forward to the Pros and Formula 1. David Coulthard, Eddie Irvine, and Bernie Ecclestone have been quoted several times stating that women cannot handle the physical or mental demands of Formula 1 racing. Mary begs to differ and plans to prove them wrong. Watch out, here she comes!