Diane
Dale leads the way in her 1971 Datsun last year at Mosport's VARAC
festival.
A
rising star in vintage racing Dale shows gender no
barrier to win
Competitor of the Year tames Track Dog
ELLEN
MOORHOUSE SPECIAL TO
THE STAR
She lives in a trendy penthouse loft on Richmond St.
in downtown Toronto.
She commutes to New York City
each week, working as a systems analyst for a company
developing software for the American Stock Exchange.
But two or three
weekends a month over the summer, 38-year-old Diane Dale dons three
layers of fire-resistant Nomex clothing and
straps herself into the cockpit of her 1971 blue Datsun 240Z, to hone her
driving skills and compete in vintage car races in Canada and the U.S.
Today she's at Mosport
International Raceway with more than 220 other drivers at the 26th annual
Vintage Automobile Racing Association of Canada Festival.
For Dale, who's 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds, her
four-year foray into racing is addictive, not just for the adrenalin high
that competition brings.
"There's so much
about it," she says. "It's intellectual: I'm learning about the
car and I've started working on the car with the mechanic, fixing it. And
there's all the social part of it, which is huge."
Dale competes in the
70-plus category, which includes production-based and purpose-built race
cars built between 1973 and 1987. From Corvettes to Mustangs, and Datsuns to Porsches, they exhibit a wide range of
power and speed.
That variation among
the vehicles in most vintage categories, not to mention the drivers'
concern for their carefully maintained cars, has led to an ethos at VARAC
events where intentional contact between cars is banned and winning isn't
everything.
"The vintage race
last year, we didn't even have trophies," Dale says. "In
regional racing, you pick a car because you want to win. In vintage
racing, you pick a car because you're in love with it.
"So it may not go
as fast as other cars, but the great thing about vintage racing is that there
are many other people who are in the same place as you are and the same
car as you are and it's still competitive, and it's still very much
racing."
Among a handful of
women racing drivers in the province, Dale has earned recognition from
her peers. She topped a field of 17 racers from across North America at a
vintage event last summer in Virginia
despite searing track temperatures of 53C.
She placed third in
her class at a vintage meet at Watkins Glen International Speedway last
year. And the umbrella group, the Canadian Automobiles Sport Clubs
— Ontario Region, named her competitor of the year last winter for
her enthusiasm and promotion of the sport.
"She's very
passionate about it, and she works very hard to grow the Group 70 field
of cars," says John Bondar, CASC-OR
president. "For lack of a better name, that's her pet project."
With the help of
Whitehead Performance, a North York Z-Car specialist near Weston Rd.
and Sheppard Ave.,
she's steadily shaving seconds off her lap times.
Owner Greg Whitehead,
a staunch supporter of Dale's talents, recently upped the Datsun's horsepower to 280 from 250 with a rebuilt
engine.
"Once this car's
set up, she'll surprise us beautifully," says Whitehead. "She
has the racer's attitude, the passion. It's really a team sport."
Her best speed so far
is the 1.39.118 minutes she clocked her first time out this year behind
the bigger engine on the Mosport four-kilometre circuit, down from her 1.40.447 record last
year.
Whitehead and his
colleagues at the shop have been indispensable for Dale. "There's no
way I could have done it without them. I don't have the mechanical
ability to rebuild an engine and with a vintage car, that's a large
component of racing."
She also "did the
Martha Stewart thing," cleaning out the inside, stripping off the
paint, rewiring the interior.
The genesis of Dale's
racing passion can be traced to her search in 1998 for a second-hand car
that would be fun to drive but less expensive than a new vehicle.
She ended up with a
Nissan 300 ZX, and then hooked up with the Ontario Z Car Owners
Association, to find a good mechanic. That led to a day at Mosport, she
recalls.
"They put
instructors with you and you learn about your car and its limits on the
track.I was hooked, completely
hooked."
Her new enthusiasm
took her to more driving schools, and the decision, with a friend, to buy
a car that could be modified for better track performance.
Their choice: a 1971
Datsun gathering dust in a Rochester
barn. They saw it in 2000 and "we fell in love with it and brought
it back to Canada."
The cost: $9,000 (U.S.)
for the car, parts, an extra engine, trailer and canopy.
More training followed
to improve her driving skills and earn a regional racing licence. By 2001, she was ready for competitive driving.
Now Dale, who budgets
about $10,000 a year for her racing activities, has taken over ownership
of the vehicle with the number 13, dubbed Track Dog.
In her biography on
the VARAC website, she affectionately lists it as her significant other.
She also has Street Dog, another 1971 Datsun 240Z for fair weather street
use, a red Ford F150 truck for towing, and a Jeep TJ.
She's a little
embarrassed by the number of vehicles. "Actually, I prefer to ride
my bike in the city. And I walk to work every day in New York."
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