Without a doubt, the 2020 campaign has been a surreal experience for young Gracie Trotter. The 19-year-old has confessed that the success she achieved still feels like a dream that she never wants to wake up from. She took her maiden win in the NASCAR-owned ARCA Menards Series West and was a picture of consistency.
To be precise, she never finished lower than 10th in all 11 races this year. Additionally, Trotter can boast of a late model race win on the home tarmac; she won at the Hickory Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
All this has culminated in the teenager receiving the 2020 Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award, which goes to an outstanding minority or female driver in NASCAR. Needless to say, she was proud to have proved her mettle among her male counterparts, and her on-track performances showed it.
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What did Gracie Trotter say about winning the award?
Speaking about getting more women involved, she said, “They’re trying to get more females and minorities into the sport which is really good. What I’m hoping, and what everyone else is, is that eventually it’ll become a norm and it won’t be talked about, that it’s not normal for females to be in the sport.”
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Trotter has been in the racing arena since the age of eight. However, she acknowledged that the 2020 season proved that this was no longer a hobby, but the start of a budding career.
Why Trotter is a strong prospect for NASCAR in the future
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She has raced for Bill McAnally Racing and delivered consistent and strong performances. Admittedly, the COVID-19 shutdown made things difficult for her. However, Trotter proved her resilience and was eventually rewarded with a hard-fought race-win.
When that race kicked off, she started ninth, but slowly began to scythe her way up the order. Additionally, winning the race at Hickory was quite special. This was because her father raced there when he first moved to North Carolina. In a way, her triumph was extremely poetic.