All she wants to do is drive - fast

NEW CASTLE, Ind. - She's walking and talking with a young man, pretty much your typical 17-year-old high school girl. Long brown hair, shorts and a tank top. Bright smiles and a wave to another friend.

But a half-hour later, the Miamisburg High School senior's bright brown eyes are focused and serious, her hair is in a ponytail, and her outfit is a snug fire suit.

Shannon McIntosh has morphed from girlie girl to her mission in life: race driver.

"I took her to a race when she was about 4 years old, and she loved it," said her father, Tim McIntosh, while checking the tire air pressure of the midget race car Shannon was about to hop into at Mount Lawn Speedway. "So I bought her a quarter-midget when she was 5, and we haven't stopped."

Quarter-midgets gave way to micro-sprint cars, and she's now behind the wheel of a USAC Ford Focus midget. While some of her friends hang out at the pool in the summer, Shannon is racing every Wednesday night in a regional series in Indiana and on weekends in the Midwest Ford Focus Pavement Series.

"My friends really don't understand what I do or what it means to me," Shannon said. "I want to be a full-time race-car driver. I want to go to NASCAR, but right now I just need to get experience."

On a recent night, she got that experience. Shannon was joined by about 20 other racers on the one-third-mile bullring. She started fourth in her heat and finished fourth, but after the race she and her father/crew chief/adviser got together to talk about the car.

"It's plenty fast, but it just isn't turning good in that real tight fourth turn," she told him. "It just pushes to the wall."

Other drivers joked with their crews. Shannon was serious, watching everything her father did to the car.

"I don't work on it. I just tell them what I feel, what the car did, and he makes the adjustments from there," she said. "That's the way it works on big teams. The driver has to tell the crew what is going on so they can go faster. I just have a smaller crew."

Smaller crew is an understatement. The McIntosh racing team is strictly a grass roots outfit.

"We thought we had a sponsorship deal all set for the season, but that fell through. It didn't stop us. We're committed to racing," Tim McIntosh said.

While other young drivers have development programs and sponsorship, they also have the luxury of four new tires every week and deluxe car haulers, driver coaches and full-time race mechanics. Shannon and her father drive a 1990 Chevrolet Suburban with 150,000 miles on it and only buy two new tires each week instead of the full set.

"New tires can take a half second off your lap time," Tim McIntosh said. "Right now, it's all coming out of my pocket. Two tires, gas for the Suburban, fuel for the race car, entry fees and pit passes, that's $500. If we win, we win $500."

Shannon appreciates what her family is doing for her.

"My family has sacrificed a lot for me," she said. "My mother and sister are always with us, and they are behind me 100 percent. I couldn't ask for more. I just need to win to get some attention."

About 20 minutes before the start of the 25-lap feature race, the serious Shannon became even more focused.

Bob Clemmer, a family friend who volunteers on the crew at the racetrack said, "Just watch her. She gets in a zone. Watch those eyes. They say everything. She is so focused, so serious. She's the real deal when the helmet goes on."

Shannon got a good draw and started from the pole position, with another young female racer outside. Alison MacLeod, another teenager, is in the Ford Driver development program.

Shannon jumped into the lead in the first turn and hung on for four laps before Alison got by on the inside. The three-car battle for second sent Shannon and two others spinning on the seventh lap. With his daughter relegated to the back of the field, Tim said, "Look out, she's gonna be mad now and she's gonna go."

On the restart, Shannon passed one car. As the laps passed, she picked up seven more until she was eighth. Another three-car tangle caught her. Her car was undamaged and sat on the backstretch as they cleared the two other cars off the track. When racing resumed, Shannon couldn't get past any other cars and finished the night in eighth.

"Not what we were hoping for," was all she said before she walked down the pits to talk with another driver.

Maybe not, but the race was another step in the right direction.

"It's really the experience and exposure," her father said. "If we win, the development programs will notice."

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