Sprint car pioneer Cheryl Lynn Glass should still be here

Cheryl Lynn Glass remains a strangely unknown name in motorsport. Unfortunately, in the history of car racing, there are so few women among the competitors that it’s very easy to remember most women, but Glass is overlooked despite its success. It tends to be. She may be because her life ended tragically early. Maybe because people don’t know her. But she paved the way that she hasn’t caught up yet, from the fact that broader motorsports are on track and superior to helping black students enter the STEM field.

Here’s what you need to know about Glass: She was one of the very few black women competing in professional motorsport, but unfortunately it hasn’t changed much since her time.As Road & truck Reported a few years ago, she dreamed of racing at Indy 500 Courageously invaded higher levels of motorsport like Indy Lights While running her own small business and teaching young black students. However, she often struggled to compete outside the oval track and never reached the top level of the race.

Then in 1991, her house was robbed while she was asleep, and the Nazi symbol was painted on the wall with her own lipstick. She accused two of the rape robbers, but was not charged. Later, her life fell into a downward spiral, and she tragically committed suicide in 1997 at the age of only 35.

Given that she has retired from racing in the last few years and is directly linked to aggressive racism at the social and structural levels, her death is too often raised as a mystery. She should still be alive by all rights — the end of her life was meaningless, premature and cruel.

Jim Miller via Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum

Teen genius chasing frustration

A January 1980 edition ebony When she was still alive, she still offers one of Glass’s most thorough views as an entrepreneur, model, and successful racing driver. She was only 18 when it was written — very few at the beginning of her career.

Born in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she took part in a short oval sprint car race as a teenager and quickly established herself as a very formidable competitor. By 1980, she had been racing for nine years and funded her entry into the Quarter Midget (sprint car entry level) with her own business revenues earned from the manufacture of her luxury ceramic dolls. She won this year’s rookie award. This is the first time for a woman to start racing a sprint car, which is somewhere between a sports car and a more formula-style car. As a teenager, she paid her own way through lace with her own money and later ran her own custom wedding dress business in Seattle.

One of the key points of Glass was that he was an incredibly successful person, not just the woman who raced, especially the woman who was notable enough to be black. She won a trophy through a junior rank and started a sprint race without stopping. at first.

When Glass first entered the Top Sprint category, it successfully raced around the short oval Washington’s Skagit Speedway. She continued to beat her peers (white and male) as she did in the junior competition. But she didn’t come from the racing background and had a hard time getting a chance to make progress. This is a very important factor, as it is today.

Her first experience racing a sprint car outside a familiar track was the miserable appearance of the border at Hoosier Hundred. There, Glass was almost unprepared for the event and wanted her talent alone to overcome it. Unfortunately, motorsport is too complicated for that. Any professional driver can say that once he gets out of the cart, the difference between hope and knowledge can’t get in too early or is destined to fail. Racers like Glass hate failure and her dissatisfaction Seen by her then team boss She had a hard time competing in the race.

Glass never got a chance again. She bought her own Indy Lights entry as her Cheryl Glass Racing in the late 1980s and competed several times, but her frustratingly slow pace and eventually a serious crash. I did. She never reached her teenage goal, the Indy 500, but she ran in several CART races. 1990..

Given that she was a celebrity in her racing career, it’s strange how much of Glass’s history is lost or difficult to track down. Prentice-Hall has published a book about her for children. To the race Her achievements were very impressive. It’s hard to imagine that the same book about a black female racer is published today, but critics write it down as unrealistic or too “awakened”. Is easy to imagine. But the real Glass was as well as her achievements.

too fast

It’s hard to stick to the fact that Glass is dead. Her story has two sections in most ways it is written: track on and off success and fame, living to the limits, living with great enthusiasm.When she designed her 20-year-old wedding dress in 1982, she Said“Most of my life wanted to put all my efforts into something and go bankrupt to make it the best.”

The death of glass was the exact opposite. She died of an obvious suicide. Her body was found on Lake Union on the outskirts of the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, Washington, but there were no notes of her intentions. Her official cause of death was drowning.

The last six years of Glass’s life were different from the previous 29 years. Her house was robbed in 1991 and a racist slogan was scribbled on the wall. She tried to impose rape on the intruder, but she turned her back on the police. R & T report.Her situation DeterioratedMore violent incidents occurred, including police harassing her and her mailbox being blown up. Her life in Glass couldn’t continue as before, and after enduring it for more than five years, she died.

She shouldn’t have She has a little serious tendency to try to rationalize it, but she shouldn’t. It couldn’t have happened in the just world.

Shining example

I think one of the reasons Glass appears so many times is that life is more mysterious than her death. Why didn’t she accomplish that? Glass has the track record that drivers need to accelerate their race ranks. She was very marketable, smart and able to play PR games.

There is this line when someone comes with the result From the underrated groups in the race (ie white, candid, non-cisgender men), they are quickly snapped to a higher level of luck and fame. That is not true. Anyone who knows the race can know that you can check all those boxes to get results and even have financial support, but for some reason you may not go anywhere. increase. DNF on the path, a junior career that seems to be drawn into the pits and never literally return to orbit, began with a cart.

So maybe it was to borrow a popular racing phrase in case things go wrong. But there’s something strange about how someone who succeeded didn’t pass the lawn in her house. You can say she wasn’t really talented (impossible), or stepping up to a big car was too difficult (probably she needed training), but that’s as simple as that. There are no details.

When Glass entered Hoosier Hundred, it was her most notable event. She was also one of the hottest events on the sprint car calendar at the time, including her decision to make her debut on the Indy 500. It’s no exaggeration to say that Glass was set to fail, but she was definitely not in her best position. To be successful.

Inevitably with society Racing, Glass faced prejudice.She Asked Whether she faced gender or race prejudice when she was competing for a silver crown in Indianapolis and said “both.”

“Women are not sprint drivers, most men [in prior racing] “I didn’t really like me,” she continued. But I have been accepted around professional drivers. I grew up with a very open mind and never saw “I was black and couldn’t do that”. I am determined to prove that I can handle it. “

The glass didn’t stop on its own. She worked to actively promote and encourage black students. Her obituary (above) details multiple speech gigs, including promoting voter registration and direct activities. Glass wasn’t just successful for herself, she turned her attention to tackling the structural problems she was keenly aware of. Definitely for the greatest racing driver in the world..

What we never know

Cheryl Lynn has been dead for 25 years.

Reading the obituary of reading glasses, my hair stood behind my neck. Some of them are just 35 years old, so I know it’s not the age that people talk about. Also, Glass’s death is so unjustified that it seems to prevent her from being remembered for something else. Her death is awkward and seems inconvenient to the story of racist cruel and sexual violence overcoming many of her prejudices with great success just to end her life. .. People don’t want stories where the odds aren’t overcome. Recall that it’s just unfair and there’s no great way to go beyond the stacked fields for you.

Being extraordinary is complicated for everyone. And if Glass can’t be here today, what the rest of us can do is remember who she was and respect her heritage today.

Do you remember Cheryl Lynn Glass?Drop your memories in the comments or email hazel @ thedrive.com

https://ift.tt/0cihuEW Sprint car pioneer Cheryl Lynn Glass should still be here

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