As part of the festivities taking place at Champion Speedway's 2004 season finale on Saturday night, four women who are regular competitors in the Legends division will face off in a six-lap shootout for a $100 winner-take-all purse.
Rebecca Parmelee is in her second year of racing and her first year in the Legends division. She followed her father and brother into racing, starting in the Hornets division in 2003 and moving to Legends this season.
She has only raced the last half of the season at Champion after wrecking her car at Las Vegas in March.
Parmelee is a senior at the University of Nevada, and will graduate in December with a degree in Criminal Justice, with plans to go into the parole and probation aspect of law enforcement.
"I like racing the Legends a lot," says Parmelee, who has no immediate aspirations of moving beyond the Legends division.
Katie Crome is in her second season in Legends. She is a senior at Galena, and plans to attend college and eventually would like to become an elementary school teacher - preferrably working with kindergarten or fifth grade students.
"I had a really bad fifth-grade teacher, and I want to make up for it," Crome said, laughing.
She has done hot laps in father, Kenny Crome's Late Model, and maintains that it is much easier to drive than her Legends car. She has a Street Stock car waiting in the wings for 2005. Asked how she feels about being a female in a man's sport, Crome says, "I like racing with the guys so I can show them that girls can do this too. I like to show them up!"
Her best main event finish this season has been a third-place.
Mackena Bell is brand-new to Legends, with only three races under her belt. The 14-year-old Carson High freshman had to wait until her birthday this year to be eligible to drive in the division. However, she is no stranger to racing, having moved from Box Stock outlaw karts to the fast and powerful 500cc Open outlaw division in only three years. She is currently third in points in the 125cc class in the prestigious QRC Cup series and has won an Open Outlaw main event at Thunder Bowl Speedway.
The Legends car intimidated her at first.
"The change from dirt to asphalt was a lot more than I had expected," said Bell, who nevertheless qualified sixth-fastest in her last outing at Champion.
Charlene Baron was unavailable for an interview, having broken her car three weeks ago. Possibly out for the season, she is expected to compete in the Lady Legends race either in her own car or in a loaner from another competitor. Champion general manager Les Kynett mentioned several cars might be available for Baron to drive in the race.
Contact Roger Diez at Racytalker@aol.com
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