Name:            Stefany (Stevie) Malanka

Hometown: Ottawa, Ontario

Age: 19 years old

Education: In September 2006, Stevie will start her third year as a student at the University of Ottawa; she working towards a Baccalaureate in Science degree, with honours in Biochemistry.

Current car/series:  Stevie is competing in the Ontario FF1600 series in a 1992 Ray. If budget permits, she will also run in 6 pro/national FF1600 events. She also has run in the GT-D and the Touring series in a Datsun 510. The team is building a tube-frame Camaro to run in the GT-A class.

A conversation with Stefany Malanka:

When and how did I first get involved in racing?  I was at a local go-kart track with some friends, and I saw a flyer for a karting club where people drove their own karts, and I thought, “Wow! Those look faster than these karts!” I showed the flyer to my father, who has a background as crew chief of a formula Atlantic team some years ago; he never thought I’d be interested in racing cars, since I was a competitive figure skater, but surprise! He bought me my first kart, an old Honda 5.5 hp kart, when I was eleven, and so I started racing.

Describe your racing history. I did five years of karting before I made my debut in formula cars in 2003. My first year in karting (1998), I drove locally a kart with a Honda 5.5 hp engine, and I continued with it in 1999, as well as running a 100cc Yamaha 2-cycle class. It was in 1999 that I started to travel around to race in Quebec and Toronto a few times. In 2000, I started driving an 80cc shifter kart locally, and in 2001, I was picked up to race for a local team on the SuperKarts!USA (SKUSA) ProMoto tour in the 80cc junior class; that year I finished 11th in class at the World Finals in Oklahoma. In 2002, my final year in karting, I ran the SKUSA ProMoto tour again, this time in the 80cc senior class, and the ICC 125cc class. That year, I was the champion for the ICC 125cc class in the Atlantic zone. In 2003, I ran FF1rst for half a season, and GT-D and the Touring class in the Datsun 510 for the remainder of the season in the CASC regional series. In 2004, I ran my 1992 Ray FF1600 in the Ontario FF1600 Challenge, finishing 11th overall. I also competed at the Molson Indy (Montreal) in the FF1600 support class and finished 18th. I ran the Datsun in a few GT-D races as well.  Last season, in spite of only running in nine out of the FF1600 series’ 12 races, I managed to finish 6th overall.

What else do you do to prepare for the track? As well as driving these cars, I put in a lot of time at the garage, working on the cars and learning all about them. Last winter, I even learned to design and bend components of tube frames.

What has been your proudest accomplishment so far?  There have been many moments in my racing career where I have felt proud, but I think one of the biggest moments for me was winning the 2003 CASC-OR Driver Development Award. It was then that I realized just how much support I’m getting from the entire region, as well as from my team. I’m really lucky to have so many people who help me in my career, and who believe in my dreams.

What would be your favourite story from your racing career? Again, I have many “interesting” stories (what can I say? Racecars are exciting!).  If I had to pick a favourite story, it would be my experience at the SKUSA 2001 world finals in Oklahoma. I was flying down to Oklahoma where I was going to meet up with the rest of my team, and this was not even a week after 9/11, so I didn’t know if I’d even be able to make it down to the track at all. When I eventually did get to the track, the weather was horrible and I didn’t get much practice time. When it came time to qualify, I was at the back of the pack. We actually had to move the seat forward in the kart, because there was a succession or right-hand corners, which got continuously tighter, where you held 3 Gs for about 14 seconds, and my arms were getting really tired. Eventually, everything came together for the final race, and I was able to move up from the back of a pack close to 30 karts all the way up to 11th spot. It was the first big race that I was able to do really well in, and it was a great end to a stressful week.

Do you encounter any difficulty as a woman driver?  Generally, everyone I have encountered at the racetrack is really supportive of me, even as a female driver. There are always a few people who aren’t too fond of the idea; in my travels across North America, a few male drivers have actually told me to “get back into my kitchen”. It’s all taken in stride though, as I tend to find these things more amusing than offensive, and I must admit felling a certain satisfaction when I beat those people. I have not met one person while racing the CASC regional series who is threatened by the fact that a 19 year-old girl is racing against them. Everyone is so supportive of me, and I am really lucky to form friendships with the other drivers, male and female alike. The way I see it, we’re not men and women racing on the track, we’re all just drivers on the track.

What are your plans for the future? Within the next few years, I would like to be driving in the Formula Mazda series, or the Formula BMW series, and even in Formula Atlantic or Formula 3000 in Europe. My ultimate dream is to be the first woman to win a F1 Grand Prix; however, I am not going to quit school unless a really good, serious offer presented itself, and it looked like I’d actually make a career for myself in racing. Even if I do not fulfill my dreams, I still plan on racing for as long as I can. As far as school goes, I plan on obtaining my M.Sc. in Biochemistry and then I would like to attain a Ph.D. in a specialized field such as immunology or virology.