PEBBLE BEACH — The sentence had been stalking her mind since the first time she said it out loud. A simple one-liner, she realized it had no merit, no intention behind it, until it did. Until the day she realized it had gone beyond a passive comment to a pledge.
One day, Renee Brinkerhoff was going to race a car.
Winning wasn’t her first thought. She simply wanted to get behind the wheel of something other than a minivan and hit the gas. Having raised four children, homeschooling them along the way, Brinkerhoff and her husband were beginning to enjoy the reaches of an empty nest. She was becoming accustomed to spare time, to a random run through town, a day at the beach, a bike ride. She wasn’t going to let one run around a racetrack get in the way of that.
One race, and she’d be done with it. She didn’t imagine her idea had any life to it. It would be a one-off, a box checked.
Until she won. Moments after crossing that finish line, first in her class, Brinkerhoff knew that “one race” had merely become her first.
In 2013, at the age of 57, Brinkerhoff became the first woman to win her class in Mexico’s La Carrera Panamericana, an event known as the world’s most treacherous road race. She has stepped up to the podium with every return to the Panamericana start line.
“All my adult life,” said Brinkerhoff, “I’d focused on my children. Suddenly I was having this experience totally apart from my family, with all these incredible highs and lows of emotions. I discovered all these elements of myself I didn’t know I had – skills, strength, stamina. It was as if I’d gone through a time machine and a whole other person came out.”
For three days, Brinkerhoff drove across nearly 1,000 miles of challenging terrain, passing through small villages and open fields, along rainy mountain roads with steep drop-offs, and through forested stretches to the finish line. On the first day of her first race, another competitor was killed.
“I went through a massive personal experience of facing my fears,” she said. “My whole body was shaking uncontrollably. I told myself I couldn’t be afraid; I had to focus. I had to manage my fear, manage a team, learn the rules of the race and how to work with a navigator in my car, all while watching the clock.”
On Friday, Brinkerhoff will join a panel of legendary colleagues to present the “Women Who Love Their Cars,” a Pebble Beach Classic Car Forum as part of the Concours d’Elegance week. The panel will be held at 4:30 p.m. Friday at the Concours Village, near the Pebble Beach Driving Range.
Other panel members include American former racecar driver Lyn St. James, preeminent car collector Jacque Connor, who cofounded an elegant classic car rally with Merle Mullin, owner of a fine art and automotive museum space at the Art Center School of Design in Pasadena; and preeminent Porsche collector Lisa Taylor.
“I look forward to talking about having the guts and determination to pursue your dreams, not giving up, not taking no for an answer,” Brinkerhoff said. “I’ve never considered myself a ‘woman racecar driver’ It doesn’t matter your gender; if you want to do it, then do it.”
Perfect partnership
Brinkerhoff grew up in a rather peripatetic lifestyle with international exposure, having “amazing experiences in extreme places. After going to college in Boulder, she married and remained in Colorado, where she has found stability and a wonderful place to raise children. Yet, her journey into the racing world returned her to an adventuresome life. She might even say, “extreme.”
“I chose to race La Carrera Panamericana in Mexico,” she said, “after my husband’s cousin suggested I check it out online. Once I’d read the first two or three sentences about it, I knew it was my race. I pretty much picked my race the same way I picked my car — I just jumped in, buoyed by intuition.”
When Brinkerhoff saw her 1956 Porsche 356A, it was love at first sight. The pair, born the same year, have since logged in 30,000 miles of racing on six continents. Their relationship, she says, is symbiotic, and she thinks about it and talks to it as if it were alive, with feelings and a personality. They get through their races together, based on mutual trust and respect.
Brinkerhoff has given her car a name, but it remains between the two of them.
During a race in Africa, Brinkerhoff watched the rugged road in front of her, knowing her car had already broken down three times, wondering how she was going to persevere, certain she couldn’t slow down but would have to put it in gear and get through the mud. Yet all the frightening moments, all the accidents she passed and close calls of her own, were paired with the absolute elation of winning and the understanding that she and her car, in this together, had prevailed.
“Every time, I have such emotions and experiences in my Porsche,” she said, “I realize it is my alter ego. And in those moments, I am closer to my car than I am to my spouse and children. I have shared so many things with this car that I’ve shared with no one else. The thought of racing a different car would be a kind of infidelity.”
Fast and formidable
Although Brinkerhoff never planned to do more than one race, after she won, she knew she had to do it again. She also knew she needed a name for her racing team, something that meant something, something she could put on a uniform. While brainstorming ideas with her son, they came up with “Valkyrie,” one of the brave warrior women in Norse mythology, who bring fallen heroes from the battlefield to heaven — “Valhalla” — and give them new life and purpose. She knew she had her name.
Despite the reference to “warrior women,” Brinkerhoff does not see herself as a “woman racecar driver.”
“Making a gender distinction would put me in a position to overcome prejudice as if I had some kind of handicap,” she said. “I choose the mindset of being a person behind the wheel, driving the car as well as I can, bringing everything I’ve got, to be the best I can be.”
After establishing “Valkyrie Racing,” Brinkerhoff realized that a woman who didn’t start racing until she was in her 50s, who won her first race and has continued to climb the podium ever since, was building an audience, a platform from which to address important issues. She also established “Valkyrie Gives,” a 501c3 nonprofit organization formed to aid women and children at risk, with a special focus on ending the human tragedy of child trafficking.
“This is such a difficult topic,” she said, “but it’s also something I can’t ignore. Child trafficking is a growing industry, second only to drug trafficking. But, unlike a drug that’s sold and consumed, a child can be sold over and over.”
Brinkerhoff’s daughter, Christina Brinkerhoff, serves as head of operations and media for Valkyrie Racing and works with her mother on behalf of Valkyrie Gives. “Now I’ve got to get Christina behind the wheel,” she said. For more information, visit https://www.valkyrieracing.com/valkyrie-gives.
“In racing and in life,” said Brinkerhoff, “we encounter many obstacles we want to turn away from. Once we see them as opportunities, we have to stay the course. I don’t focus on what hasn’t been done but on what I can do. And there’s always more we can do. We just have to set our goals and, with guts and determination, go for it.”
