I wish her all the luck but the article and several others that I have seen the last two days are hyping her above and beyond her place in history. First off Jen has had a number of women who have gone over the wall for her on the 10 truck. I just finished an article on Christmas on UPI where they refer to her as the first full time female over the wall crewmember in NASCAR. I hate it when stick and ball reporters and bloggers try to cover NASCAR. I’m afraid the distinction of first full time over the wall female goes to Nicole Addison who was a front and rear tire changer on the number 10 truck for David Starr and Rick Crawford from 2004 to 2009. A number of women have gone over the wall since then on a full and part time basis, mainly on the lower funded teams in Trucks and Nationwide. Jay Robinson racing has a number female crewmembers. Uneducated reporting like this will make it hard on her in the garage. Folks working around her will know she is not really a first nor is she anything special. It is also unfortunate that she probably doesn’t even realize she is being set up for failure. She will be fine as long as she doesn't believe her own hype. A lot is also made of the fact that you have to be built to work over the wall. Most of the male changers are only 140 to 160 pounds because changing really only requires rhythm and hand eye coordination; the carrier does all the lifting. Most changers are fast small guys the only reason we don’t see more females doing it is because almost everyone you talk to has a misconception of how much strength you have to have. Women are almost perfectly suited to be changers. Another problem is the teams normally want someone who can also turn a wrench on the car at the shop and not many women have that skill, and many who do don’t apply because they believe the stereotype.

As far as women working pit support we have had a bunch of real good ones a few that I can think of are Ashley Parlett former car chief for RAB racing in the Nationwide Series. Ashley also went over the wall in ARCA and the Truck Series, at the same time as Nicole, as a tire changer; she currently works for Speed TV. Lisa Smokstad is possibly the best know tire specialist in the garage. She started NASCAR in 1999 after become something of a guru on bias-ply tires in the late model series. She started at Hendrick in 1999 and is still there. Katie Muri is a current shock specialist at JR motorsports. Tiffany Daniels who, by the way is hot, worked as an assistant engineer at EGR before continuing here driving career back in 2010.

To keep up to date on the women in NASCAR and racing in general you can go to the site linked below it’s called appropriately enough skirts and scuffs. Take Care.

http://www.skirtsandscuffs.com