Cobb invites 3 Hays female veterans for VIP experience at Kansas Speedway
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Jennifer Jo Cobb dreamed of being a race car driver from the time she used to shadow her dad in his garage as he worked on his own race car.
Cobb, a driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, spoke to 250 women at the Women Who Lead Power of the Purse event Thursday in Hays.
As a little girl, the Kansas City native used to fall asleep in an old race car seat on the garage floor. She attended her first race when she was just 2 weeks old.
"As a toddler down in my dad's garage, I was trying to tinker with my dad's race cars," she said. "There was always a man who would come along and take that wrench out of my hand. ...
"I didn't want Barbie dolls," she said. "I wanted to be right there with my dad and his friends and his race car."
However, her dream of becoming a professional NASCAR racer had a number of barriers, not the least of which was that she was a girl, which is very uncommon in the sport.
Another was money. Racing is a costly sport, and she and her family weren't rich.
Her dad worked as a welder and in auto repair with a passion for amateur racing.
However, Cobb was dreaming big of going fast and racing professionally full-time.
Cobb spent her childhood at racetracks — many at state fairs with the added bonus of corn dogs, lemonade and carnival rides.
"We didn't go to Disney World. We didn't have family vacations like that, but I've seen every race track in the Midwest," she said.
At 9, she helped change her first tire by herself at a track.
At the same time she had her head under the hood with her dad, her mom had her enrolled in dance classes. She said it was like a double life. Her mom said she was the only ballerina with grease under her fingernails.
Cobb said her career has come a little bit at a time, just like her first street car — her mom's 1975 Trans Am. She needed to buy four tires for the car. She got a job at Western Auto. With her employee discount, she bought one tire each paycheck until she bought all four tires and got the car on the road.
"There is a way," she said. "It doesn't all have to be done at one time."
She was looking for a manifold for that Trans Am when she landed in her first race car. She pulled up outside a place in a seedy part of Kansas City to pick up a manifold for the Trans Am. There was a race car — what would be her race car — out front, sitting on cinderblocks.
The next thing she knew, she was racing at the Lakeside track.
In 1997, she hit a low point and thought about quitting. She was racing at Lakeside, and she wrecked in four of the first six races that year. She was going to school full-time and working, and she was tired.
"My dad said, 'You don't quit because it's hard. You don't quit because you're tired.' I was thinking it sounds like a pretty good time to me," she said.
"He said, 'You're getting back in that race car as many times as it takes until you finish up front,'" she said.
Cobb set a goal of racing in NASCAR full-time by the time she was 35. She hit that goal when she was 37.
She quoted George Elliott, "It's never too late to be who you were meant to be."
"You're not done," she said. "Reignite that flame. Reignite that fire. We have way too much living to do."
Today, Cobb, 49, is racing part-time with NASCAR.
She has several competition records in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series, including the highest-finishing female driver in the overall points for a season, the most starts by a female driver in the series and will soon have the record for the most starts by any woman in NASCAR, according to her website.
She has broken into the 200+mph club with a land speed record and has competed in the NASCAR Euro Series in Spain and the United Kingdom. She is one of just a handful of women with a top-10 finish at the highest levels of NASCAR, her website said.
In 2018, Cobb was invited to be a speaking ambassador for the U.S. Embassy and toured the country of Georgia, spreading a message of empowerment and encouragement for aspiring entrepreneurs.
In 2019 she completed a three-week humanitarian speaking tour across Russia, sharing encouragement and diplomacy to students and business groups.
This role led to an opportunity as executive director for a newly formed nonprofit called Driven Diplomacy International.
In 2011, she launched Driven2Honor, a nonprofit organization that recognizes the efforts and promotes female military members. Driven2Honor honors a female military member (past or current) with a VIP behind-the-scenes experience at every NASCAR event in which Cobb competes.
As part of this effort, she invited three female veterans who were in attendance at the Power of Purse Thursday night to join her on May 4 as VIP guests when she races next at the Kansas Speedway.
"Don't do it for money. Don't give up," she told the audience. "The good things will come. Fail. You are born overcomers. When you stood up as an infant or toddler, you fell how many times? You didn't say, 'I tried and it didn't work out for me.' ...
"Keep getting up and keep walking because you are not done yet."