GREENFIELD — With all eyes on the first mostly female team racing at the Indianapolis 500 this weekend, local race driver Ashlea Albertson said it’s a great time to be a woman in a sport long dominated by men.
The 22-year-old spends most of her free time working on her black and blue three-quarter midget car, with hot pink lettering, in a large barn at her father’s rural Greenfield home.
She scored her first feature win in her first race of the year, at the Thunder Valley Raceway in Salem, in April. She came in second at a later race in Columbus.
If she accumulates the most points by the last race in her series on Oct. 2, she’ll be the first female TQ champion in the state.
Albertson got hooked on racing at an early age and hasn’t let up on the pedal ever since.
“It’s the experience behind it all; you meet so many people who become like family,” she said.
The speed is great, too.
“That’s an adrenaline rush, that’s for sure,” she said, breaking into a wide grin.
“Before each race, I get a nervous tick in my leg, but as soon as that green (flag) drops it all just stops, and I’m facing forward, game on,” she said.
A collection of 3-foot-tall trophies she’s won lines the wall of her race shop.
On Saturday, she’ll go for another when she competes in the Some Gave All race at the Richmond Raceway in Kentucky.
Albertson has never finished outside of the top 10 in her 11 years of racing, said her dad and crew chief, Todd Albertson.
She started out in quarter midgets, and hopes to move up to a larger sprint car someday.
Her dream is to become a professional driver, competing year-round for substantial prizes that can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Albertson credits the female drivers that came before her, from Lyn St. James to Simona De Silvestro, the only woman in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, for paving the way for young women pursuing the sport. De Silvestro has appeared in the 500 before, but this is her first race with Paretta Autosport, which is owned by motorsports executive Beth Paretta. It is the only 2021 Indy-car team run by a woman, and many members of the team also are women.
Albertson remembers the first time she won a heat at the age of 15, driving a Kenyon midget at the Anderson Speedway in 2014. When she removed her helmet to smile and wave to the cheering crowd, revealing her long hair, a noticeable silence fell over the crowd.
“They seemed shocked, but then the women were going crazy cheering,” she recalled with a grin.
Albertson fell in love with racing at the age of 10, the first time she ever climbed behind the wheel. A friend of her dad’s invited them to a track event where prospective drivers can test midget cars, and Albertson was hooked.
Her dad remembers the huge smile on his daughter’s face that day.
“She got behind the wheel and just took off. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever experienced,” he said.
He knew she was hooked, and so was he.
For the Albertsons, racing is a family affair.
All four of Todd and Shelly Albertson’s daughters — Kaylea, 25; Ashlea; Emilea, 15; and Tara, 10 — enjoy the sport, and serve as Ashlea’s pit crew.
Emilea used to race quarter midgets, and hopes to get a TQ midget someday.
Todd Albertson said it’s a great way to spend quality time with his daughters, doing something they love, especially Ashlea, who has excelled at the sport.
“We’ve spent the past 11 years in a truck and a trailer, going to races,” her dad said.
Albertson has no desire to drive in the Indianapolis 500, or any races on pavement, for that matter.
“I like to drive in the dirt. The sliding is the best feeling ever. There’s nothing like it,” she said.
While she enjoys watching the Indianapolis 500 with her family, she’s more passionate about the Little 500, traditionally held the day before the Indy 500 at the Anderson Speedway.
On her 22nd birthday last September, Albertson had a shot at beating racing legend Tony Stewart in a midget car race, but came in second place, four laps behind the famous driver.
After the race at the Bartholomew County Fairgrounds, as she sat in her car a few moments to soak it all in, Stewart came over and playfully banged on the car. It’s a moment she’ll never forget.
He’s the kind of driver who always gives it 100%, said Albertson, and coming in second to him was a huge accomplishment.
“To be able to race against him, it’s just the best experience,” she said.
Stewart bought out the car series Albertson is racing in, The All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget series, in which she’s the sole female driver.
“The series has taken off ever since he bought it out,” said Albertson, who has driven a couple of Stewart’s cars in competition.
Stewart has encouraged Albertson to never give up on her hopes of going pro, despite the roadblocks she’s hit in pursuing sponsors to take her racing to the next level.
Despite strides being made towards equality in the sport, she still faces sexism when approaching sponsors who don’t believe she’s in racing for the long haul.
“Every time I go somewhere and ask for sponsorship support, they say, ‘You’re just a girl, this is just a hobby for you,’” she said. “They think it’s a hobby, but I want to make a career out of this. This is my passion.”
Sprint cars don’t come cheap. The V8-powered, 900-horsepower cars can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000, said her dad, which makes finding sponsors so critical.
Both he and his daughter agree that the best part of racing is being part of the racing community, where they’ve made some of their closest friends.
Todd remembers the first time he saw a car break down at a quarter-midget race, and eight dads descended on the car, working together to fix it. “I thought, this is the kind of community I want to be part of,” he said.
When Ashlea suffered her first and worst wreck to date five years ago — when she he flipped her car and barrel-rolled down the backstretch, hitting the wall — a friend within the community connected her with a doctor who treats Indianapolis 500 drivers. The doctor treated her and helped her return to the track within a couple of weeks.
Todd Albertson said he gets asked quite a lot why he lets his daughter participate in such a potentially dangerous sport.
“At this point we don’t really have a choice. It’s her passion,” he said.
Albertson loves to share that passion with others, especially the young kids who line up to greet her after a race.
“Little girls’ faces light up when they see me. A lot of them say, ‘I want to do this,’” Albertson said.
“I want to say to them, ‘Don’t let someone else tell you you can’t do it,’” she said. “I’ve been told so many times I couldn’t do it, and here I am.”
