Photo Credit: TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Dirt Track Racing Champion, Amber Balcaen is giving up the dirt and heading to NASCAR! The 24 year old racer, has a dream and has the determination to follow through! Amber Balcaen comes from a long line of family dirt track racers. However, she has always had that NASCAR dream.
“I’ve got really big dreams. Pavement is how you make a career out of it,” Amber stated,”It’s really hard to make a career out of dirt-track racing. I want to make a career out of my racing, not just a hobby. Moving to pavement, I am able to work myself up. Hopefully, I can race against Jimmie Johnson one day.”
Amber Balcaen was the first woman to win a dirt-track racing championship in the province. She also won 75% of the races she competed in back in 2013. She was named NOSA Sprint Car Rookie of the Year in 2014 and was the only Canadian to compete at the 2014 NASCAR Drive for Diversity combine and the 2015 Bill McAnally Racing drivers’ expo. In addition, Amber Balcaen has obtained her Automobile Racing Club of America license at Daytona International Speedway.
“People don’t take us as seriously,” Amber stated regarding female race car drivers, “There’s a stigma that women can’t be as good as men in sport. People hear you’re a woman driver and they automatically think you’re not as good, even if you are. Women empowerment, companies that have really strong, female-oriented messages,” she says of her preferred choice of sponsors. “I want to make (girls’) lives better and show them that, no matter what, they can go after their dreams.”
Be on the look out for Amber Balcaen, as she will begin competing in the NASCAR Late Model series. Rumor has it she is moving to North Carolina next month and her racing will commence soon after.
