Two Fallbrook students picked for all-female Athena Racing team

Two Fallbrook Union High School students were chosen by Athena Racing to be part of the all-female auto racing team formed by Loxley A. Brown and based in San Diego County.

The team was created for high school students who are on career paths related to automobiles, engineering, robotics, or design.

Senior Stephanie Salgado and sophomore Maddy Gaul were chosen for the team.

"This is the beginning of it all here in San Diego County," Brown said. "I just basically came up with the concept six months ago. This has been very fast forward work. The prerequisites were they had to have an interest in motorsport, a proven track record of either wrenching or racing, something related to automotive transportation motorsports."

Brown's organization is working toward creating a bright future for these young motorsports enthusiasts.

"I'm taking them behind the scenes to all of the different manufacturers and aeronautical, marine, train, automotive, everything you can think of and showing them how all of this works," Brown said. "You know, most of them when I started talking to them were like, 'Oh, well you can either be a professional driver or you can be a mechanic.' I'm like, no, there's a whole lot more to it than that."

Brown said the one year program consists of 10 tracks to be completed in that year.

"They learn the driving and the mechanics and the safety," Brown said. "But there's also another seven tracks that are just like the basic building blocks of life skills that you need that aren't really taught to you in high school. And this is to open up doors so, if they do want to go to university, we kind of show them the different options of how to get there so they don't get out with this huge, massive student debt. Or if they do want to become technicians, then I automatically link them up with an apprenticeship and a dealership pays for them to go get their certifications and then they get out and they're going to have a six-figure job within three to five years."

Salgado is excited to get started.

"I've always been into cars and my dad is a mechanic," she said. "Every time something would go wrong on our personal vehicles, I was there. I was always watching him and I really liked the fact that he took it apart and was able to put it back together at the same way it came out."

She said she's also a big fan of the "Fast and the Furious" movies too.

"I've always been that child that liked the adrenaline rush," she said. "Just watching that and knowing that, 'Oh my God, like that's possible that someone can actually do that.' It just really like sparked that little spark plug in my brain and then Mr. Johnson (FUHS automotive technology teacher) introduced me to it, brought it to my attention and I was like, 'There it is. That's what I've been looking for.'"

Gaul has been oval racing since she was 8 years old.

"We kind of took a break from it a little bit and I just kinda want to get back into a racecar and improve my engineering skills," she said. "Because those are very useful skills."

She said she is interested in the racing and engineering part of the program.

"(I wanted to join) to pursue my dreams and hopefully I'll learn a couple more things about working on cars," Gaul said.

"They're gonna be on a path that's a decade ahead of their peers after being in this for a year because they're going to be connected to all the heads of the industries of everything in transportation," Brown said. "It's just like creating that personal Rolodex at an age of 17 so that you're on this better trajectory through college and career than anyone else would be. It's girls only and it's really just giving them that safe place to learn because they don't really have that right now."

For more information on Athena Racing, visit athenaracing.org.

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].