Shawna Robinson

As with so many stock car drivers Shawna was brought up in a racing environment, her father, Richard "Lefty" Robinson was an amateur diesel truck racer and race promoter who built and repaired cars in his garage and her mother, Lois, was a race car driver. Shawna was born on the 30th November, 1964 in the town of Des Moines, Iowa. Her parents encouraged their five children to try everything, telling the children that they can do anything if they set their mind to do it. All of the children raced minibikes, snowmobiles and motorcycles and eventually, when becoming of age, drove cars. Her father taught her to drive his 6 ¼ ton truck when she was eighteen and she began racing the truck on short tracks.

By the time she had reached nineteen she made the first of her many "firsts" when she became the first woman to win a Great American Truck Race (GATR) major super speedway point’s race, the Milwaukee Mile Bobtail 100 and was voted GATR "Rookie of the Year". She went on to race big rigs in France and Mexico, winning the GATR Big Rig 100 at Flemington, New Jersey. Shawna always had respect for race car drivers such as A.J. Foyt and Steve Kinser and, later, Janet Guthrie so it was no surprise that she turned her attention to NASCAR racing. She made her debut in the now defunct NASCAR Dash Series in 1988 and that year was named "Rookie of the Year" and was "Most Popular Driver" in 1988 and 1989. She achieved three wins and twenty-one Top 10’s in the Dash Series. Two more "first" for her - First woman to win a NASCAR Touring Series event in 40-year history (1988) and "first" woman to win a NASCAR pole position (1989 NASCAR Goody¹s Dash Series). Shawna made her debut in the NASCAR Busch Series in 1991 at Orange County, starting at 26th and finishing at 15th.

She had a short season in 1993, posting two 11th place finishes and despite her limited season finished runner up to Ricky Craven for the "Rookie of the Year" honours. She ran twenty four races for Mike Laughlin in 1993 when her best finish was 12th at Indianapolis Raceway Park and she gained her highest career point standing at 23rd. In 1994 she became the "first" woman in NASCAR history to win a pole position in the NASCAR Busch Series, Grand National Division, with a track-speed record of 174.33 mph. She also posted her first career Top 10 finish that year in the Fay’s 150.

She retired temporarily in 1995 to start a family, a son named Tanner, in 1996 and a daughter, Samantha, in 1997; she worked in Charlotte, North Carolina, as an interior decorator, where many of her clients were involved with NASCAR. She returned to the track in 1999 racing in the ARCA RE/MAX Series where she finished fourth in the ARCA Bondo/Mar-Hyde Series race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. She also set a record in a pole-winning qualifying run at Michigan International Speedway and finish 6th in points, making her the "first" woman to finish in the top ten in point standings in any national oval-track motor sports series and gained the STP-Prestone Highest Finishing Rookie honour.

2000 was a great year for Shawna when she was the "first" woman to complete a full season in any national oval-track motor sports series, was the winner of the Prestone Highest Finishing Rookie Award at Talladega Superspeedway on October 14, 2000, she was winner of the Talladega Pole Award at the 2000 ARCA Bondo/Mar-Hyde Series Event at the Michigan Speedway on June 10, 2000 and she also broke the track record with a speed of 184.606 mph. She gained the highest finishing rookie honours at Kil-Kare (Xenia, Ohio) Speedway on May 26, 2000. On the 10th of June, 2001 Shawna became the first woman to start a NASCAR Winston Cup race since 1989 when she began the race at Brooklyn, Michigan and when she finished it, she was the first female to do so since Janet Guthrie in 1980. In 2005 Shawna drove in the Busch Series after being out of NASCAR for two years, piloting the #23 Vasarette Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Keith Coleman but she was released after six races. She is one of only thirteen women to have competed in NASCAR’s top division and the first since Patty Moise in 1989.

Her ex-husband Jeff Clarke said of Shawna, "She can. She's definitely got the ability. It's in her blood. She's a driver." When she is not racing she is a mother, an interior designer and speaker and role model for women everywhere. She gives interviews with various media including NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, ESPN¹s RPM 2Night, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and NASCAR Racing for Kids and Health World.

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