What is your name?
Shelby Redding
What region do you belong to?
Snake River Region, Boise, Idaho
Which Motorsports do you participate in?
Autocross
What class do you drive? What car?
Street Touring Sport / 1988 Honda Crx Si
When did you start? How did you start?
This year 2023 (May 30th was my first event driving the CRX). As for how I got started? Mostly peer pressure, our club has a lot of women drivers who co-drive with their spouses and it took about a year of folks asking when I was going to do it, before giving it a shot in an E Street MR2. It was near the end of our last season and towards the end of the event the club told me to just give it a shot and go. Once I finished that run all I could think to ask was if I could go again.
Any words for newcomers or someone hesitant to motorsport?
Just do it, if you find yourself asking if it’s something you may or may not be into, just give it a try. There’s no better time to start than right now and no better car to do it with than the one you have! (obviously once it passes Tech)
What is your favorite racing memory?
Probably would be our club’s 2nd annual Winnemucca Wildcard event that took place back in May 20-21, 2023. I was the most improved driver from day 1 to day 2 in terms of raw time improvement, jumping up 21 total positions! Our July 2nd event would probably be a close 2nd as it was the first time I was less than a second behind my husband’s final time (.481 to be exact)
What are your plans for the rest of the 2023 season?
Becoming a better driver. Obviously everyone wants to be the fastest on the pavement, but lots of bad habits can be learned just trying to get there so learning the right techniques and skills to be able to compete with anyone and charging for top spots would be great! Attending my first nationals ever and running with the rest of the class while not finishing last!
What are you focused on improving on the off season/next season?
Driving skills and techniques. We’ll need to set the ol' racing sim rig back up so I can work on my skills in the off season to not only improve them but to also keep them fresh and further develop them so I don’t accumulate as much rust during the down time. For next season it’s going to be about picking up where I leave off at the end of this season and improving upon it to keep climbing the class and PAX boards to catch folks off guard.
When you’re not racing what can you be found doing?
I work for a small clothing business “TheBuckSkinBabes” (I’m the only employee after the owner) as the shipping and customer service rep. I also do lots of different vinyl cutting now that I have a Cricut and can play around with it, my biggest customers are from our region making numbers. I also bowl during off season and in between event times as well. I’ve bowled in a few state and local tournaments, having come out as the top female bowler at times, and getting close to the top bowler at others.
How does the Driving Forward Together initiative align with your views?
Having been there from the beginning of my husband’s journey into the sport, we got connected with David and Kim Whitener from Texas. I’m sure by now anyone knows who and how fast they are as a duo, and while life has delayed my entry into the sport, everyone I run with now has encouraged me to continue to “run with the boys” as a means of being able to learn, grow, and get fast of course. What DFT does is you guys open the doorway and encourage exactly that, in my opinion. Seeing all the various women running open classes and creeping to the top or flat out just winning classes is amazing, given women’s history in the sport. I’m fortunate enough to be running in the same region as past and current national champions, as well as some fellow DFT reps and beneficiaries as recent as Laurie Matthews who killed it at last year’s Packwood ProSolo, taking it all the way in the Super Challenge to fall just short to Kevin Dietz. It’s an amazing sport, with amazing and friendly folks that has an energy and atmosphere that is hard to match in terms of positivity and you would hardly find that in many other sports.
Anything else you'd like to share?
As if this sport wasn’t challenging enough, I have been deaf since birth and hearing and/or speaking hasn’t come naturally for me and makes for an extra hurdle when it comes to driving. Most folks can hear what their car is doing, what it likes or doesn’t like on a course, feel what it is and isn’t doing, and so on, but that doesn’t come naturally to me. So on top of having to learn this sport fresh this year and everything it can throw at you, I also have the added challenge of learning how to speak and react with the car and not against it. It makes things difficult at times and going to a national event definitely makes me nervous about all the sounds and conversations, will I hear a call that’s made, what positions would I be or not be able to do, etc but regardless I’ll push on because having fun is the name of the game and if you aren’t having fun, then you’re doing something wrong.
