Women not just watching more, many are playing vital roles
By Denise Wood
NASCAR Women: At the Heart of Racing January 2

They all have the looks of models.

Hair that defies the ravages of Daytona Beach in July. A smile that belies the discomfort of the chill wind of Atlanta in March. Their creamy skin, manicured nails and perfectly tailored outfits have become the standard of the NASCAR Winston Cup driver's wife as the spotlight seems to shine brighter and brighter on them with each passing week.

The camera follows her as she walks in a relaxed manner down pit road trying to ignore the ever- present intrusion. It watches intently as she unabashedly sheds tears when her husband makes his way to victory lane for the first time.

Buffy Waltrip with husband Michael at Pocono

Though the camera helps create celebrity it often distorts our perceptions of the individual, whether she is a high-fashion supermodel or the wife of one of NASCAR's elite. Each woman has her own hopes and dreams and fears that are not unlike our own. And each cares deeply about her friends and families and would drop everything to lend support.

My own involvement with racing began as a journalist in 1989. I became a sponsor public relations representative in 1995. Three years later I was a crew chief's wife, and I was thrust more deeply into this life than I had ever imagined. When I began this book in 2000 it was with the thought of showing you how involved most of the wives are with the race teams. I noticed through the years that many of the driver's wives were intimately involved with the day-to-day activity surrounding the race teams. They time laps during practice and help calculate fuel mileage on race day. They keep the books back at home and handle appearance schedules. They are also raise children on the road and attempt to maintain some sense of normality for their kids. All of this, despite the fact that they are constantly in the public eye and some of their faces can be found on cereal boxes or in advertisements.

Some of these women I knew well before I married James Ince, others I was meeting for the first time. But as I began spending more time with each of them, I discovered that the ways in which they help their husbands' race teams paled in comparison to what remarkable women they are. I also grew to understand that there is not a racing wife out there - whether she is married to a driver, crew chief, or tire changer - who has not felt that she plays second fiddle to the business that Debbie Benson refers to as a "disease, not a sport."

NASCAR Winston Cup racing is not a job to these men, it is a life, at times an obsession. To most it is all that they know and the notion of "leaving the office at the office" is just not possible. More times than not, the wife's home life is directly affected by how things are going at the race track. Winning is everything.

The core racing community is a small tightly, knit group. The life is an odd one. Thursdays are spent traveling and the rest of the weekend is spent racing before returning home Sunday night after the race, only to get up Monday morning and prepare to do it all again. If you ever catch a glimpse of your neighbors at home you are lucky, but finding time to get to know them is difficult at best. NASCAR is the neighborhood and the neighborhood of everyone's children 36 weekends a year.

An organization that provides continuity for families in this pell-mell environment is Motor Racing Outreach.. To say MRO is a religious group oversimplifies what the organization is and even elicits a negative response in some. Chaplains perform a non-denominational church service at the track each Sunday before the race for those who want to attend. There is also a youth group, which organizes camping trips and outings for the older kids. A mobile community center filled with toys and a group of extraordinary women takes care of the younger ones during qualifying and the races. and quite frankly any time someone needs a helping hand. MRO also has a traveling fitness and rehabilitation center that helps treat injured crewmen and offers weights, a treadmill and stationary bike to workout on the weekends. But possibly the most important thing MRO offers to everyone in the community is an understanding of this indescribably difficult life and someone to talk to about life at any time. You will notice a lot of references to MRO in the pages of this book. It has become a part of the life, "the glue that holds us all together," says Ann Schrader.

Buy the book :NASCAR Women: At the Heart of Racing here

In the two years that I have spent putting this book together I have seen the wives on the following pages go through tremendous tragedy and find incredible joy, sometimes at the same instant, and I was often impressed by the openness with which these women shared their emotions.

Adam Petty was alive when this project began and my first interview with Pattie was at Texas Motor Speedway on the weekend of his Winston Cup debut. I saw Buffy Waltrip share the incredible joy and unbelievable pain of Michael's first Winston Cup triumph at the same time that his car owner, Dale Earnhardt was killed in a crash in turn four of the 2001 Daytona 500. I listened as Stevie Waltrip reminisced about long ago days on the racetrack that were fun and the recent years that had not been.

A not-yet 21-year-old Katie Kenseth spoke unsurely about herself. Still new to racing and freshly engaged, she was unable to hide the overwhelming feelings that being thrown into this community can often bring. But she has since blossomed into a very confident, but still quiet, young woman, much wiser than her years.

Yes, all of these women are beautiful. Yes, they live extraordinary lives, and they want for nothing material. But in the pages that follow you will see a broad-based group of women whose beauty is much more than skin deep. They are raising children and running a household like any other mother in America, it is just that their daily grind is bit different. They deal with unimaginable stresses with a strength and courage that is to be admired.

I hope you will see that these are very real women. I think that is what they want you to see too.