8/10/04 Rising Sun - NSB-Based Holzer Motorsports is becoming a leading team in NASCAR's diversity campaign - By Matt Kane, The Observer, August 10, 2004

SAMSULA - Beauty and brains are two of the three parts that make up the chemistry of Sunny Hobbs. The final ingredient? A lead foot.

Saturday night at New Smyrna Speedway Hobbs disproved the on-running joke that women can't drive by racing a black, number-77 Monte Carlo to a sixth place finish in the late model division. At the same time she proved to herself that she can still corner a racecar around an oval track.

A one-time competitor in the ARCA series - Hobbs has a 31st place finish at Daytona and a 33rd place finish at Atlanta - Saturday morning marked the first time she squeezed her slender frame through a racecar window in almost two years. "It's been awhile," Hobbs said Saturday morning before a practice session. "It feels good in there, though."

That's exactly what the New Smyrna Beach based racing team Holzer Motorsports wanted to hear." I cried," Vanessa Thompson, one of the three owners, said, referring to Hobbs' sixth place finish. "That's how emotional I got. I was very impressed. For a girl who hasn't been in the car in two years, it looked like she never got out of the car."

Saturday was Hobbs' first audition for her new bosses at Holzer, a company incorporated in 2002. It owns the number 54 in the NASCAR Busch Series and already has veteran driver Dan Pardus and Scott Seither on the roster. Hobbs' performance only added to the confidence that Holzer will reach its goal - putting together a team that can compete in the Busch Series." She's already run in NASCAR's ARCA series, so she's familiar with it, but she's been off the track, so today we are getting her feet wet," Thompson's fellow owner Sonny Panholzer said during Hobbs' practice Saturday morning. "Our intention is to take her all the way." Thompson, Panholzer and third partner Mike Mueller aren't sitting around looking for a race to run late in the season. Instead they have their eyes focused on Aug. 27 for the running of the Food City 250." We're working real hard with sponsors and it looks good for Bristol," an optimistic Panholzer said." To me, the toughest competition is in the Busch Series," the easy on the eyes Hobbs said. "And I'd like to get my fair shot in that series."We've got two companies real interested in doing it. We've got a team and we've got the equipment, it's just a matter of putting the money together, which is always the case," She added. "If we get it together, I'm ready to go. I need to get that first one under my belt."Panholzer estimates that the cost to run just one race on the Busch circuit will run his team a minimum of $75,000 but more likely will require close to $100,000. Sponsorship deals are currently being discussed. Thompson even got a call from an interested Big Kenny, the blonde-haired wild half of the country duo Big and Rich. Holzer also hopes to benefit financially from NASCAR's campaign to bring more diversity - racially and gender-wise - into NASCAR. With Thompson making the calls and Hobbs steering the car, Holzer is certainly doing its part to promote the plan. Saturday they had another XX-chromosomer, 14-year-old Rachel Allnutt, daughter of crew chief Gene Allnutt, adjusting springs and checking tire wear on the car owned by her father's company, A&M Motorsports." I've been hearing talk about the diversity (program), but I haven't really seen anything from it," Hobbs stated. "It would be nice (if it would help me). I think there are a lot of sponsors out there who, if they just knew more about the sport, would get involved. We just need one company to take a risk. But taking a risk on a female driver is not anymore of a risk than it is on any other driver. I'm looking for someone who will step up and do it."

Hobbs knows first hand how important deep pockets are in this era of racing. It was a lack of funds that forced her to step out of her ARCA car. The phone call from Thompson was exactly what Hobbs needed to prompt a comeback. " We ran ARCA under-funded and I didn't want to keep doing that, so I decided to wait until I got a big sponsor," she said. "I had sold all my equipment and I'm just now getting out of debt from all the racing I was doing. I just couldn't do anything without sponsorship."

Now, she just wants an opportunity." I just want to get back in the car. I know I've got what it takes and I want another chance." A chance is exactly what got Hobbs involved in racing in the first place. After graduating from American University in Washington, DC, where she worked as a presidential intern for George Bush Sr., a trip to Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Va., prompted her to push her International Services degree aside so she could delegate left turns and sling-shot passes on the asphalt. Like the Robert Redford character of the same name, Hobbs found out early that she was a natural.
" I took out a loan and bought my first car," she explained. "A friend of mine had a car and let me test it. The first time I got out of the car my dad knew that that was it." To go after the checkered flag, Hobbs moved to the more race-friendly city of Richmond, Va., where they currently reside. " I was just doing it for fun and as a hobby, but then I got more and more serious and that's when I started looking for big money and bigger tracks."
She finally got on the big track in the form of the 2.5 miles at Daytona International Speedway in February of 2002. " It was incredible. It was totally different than short track racing because I had never drafted before - I didn't know what that was all about," she recalled with a genuine smile. "I couldn't believe the way you never get off the gas. It's more like a high-speed chess game than short-track racing."

For now, the lack of track time in a stock car will limit Hobbs to short-track races, but Allnutt, who also worked with Hobbs in the ARCA series, is confident she will get the necessary time behind the wheel to qualify for the entire Busch circuit. " She's never sat in the seat of this type of car," he explained. "She's got some things she needs to get comfortable with. The way we have the car set up, it's in preparation for a Busch run."
Allnutt is the man responsible for linking Hobbs and Holzer. Having worked in the Busch Series, where he has helped teams to two top-five and nine top-10 finishes, Allnutt has seen, in the seven years of working with her, a winning style of driving from Hobbs.
" She thinks out there. She uses her head. She's very calm and cool. She doesn't want to make anybody mad. She's got the conduct down. Plus she's not afraid to will the car - she will rub with you," he explained of Hobbs, who carries with her a harmless, gentle demeanor off the track. "We had a problem when she first started racing where people wanted to tear her up every weekend, but she fixed that problem."

Aside from her experience in ARCA, Hobbs has raced in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and in the National Auto Sports Association (NASA), where in 2000 she won the Valentine's Day 200 endurance race at Virginia International Raceway, driving a Factory Five Cobra.

If Holzer has its way, Hobbs will be able to add Nascar Busch Series to her resume.