NASCAR driver inspires middle school girls
NASCAR driver and team owner Jennifer Jo Cobb spoke at a girls-only assembly at Nevada Middle School on Thursday afternoon.
“Girl power is not quiet,” Cobb said. “Girl power deserves a little hooting and hollering so let’s hear it for girl power.”
The students responded with a round of cheers and clapping.
Cobb holds records in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for the female driver with the most series starts, highest series finish, and highest finish by a female driver in any of NASCAR’s top series at Daytona International Speedway. She is also NASCAR’s only female team owner who is also a driver.
“Growing up as a girl that wanted to be a race car driver I was told many many times that it wasn’t exactly possible and one day I was in a sponsor meeting and I look up on the wall and saw a saying and it said ‘it’s kinda fun to do the impossible’ and do you know who said that? Walt Disney. I bet you all of the big names you’ve heard of failed many many times. Do you know what they all have in common other than failing? They got back up and they didn’t give up. My motto in my racing career is ‘never give up’.”
Cobb asked if any of the students were NASCAR fans and a large number raised their hands. She explained NASCAR’s three top series, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and the Camping World Truck Series. Cobb races a full schedule in the truck series and part time in the Xfinity series.
“I get to race against really big names like Kyle Busch,” Cobb said. “I’ve raced against Kasey Kahne. I’ve raced against some of the best drivers in the world. I’ve beaten some of them — mostly because they crashed out — and I’ve been beaten by them but the point is I was out there.”
Cobb called herself an “unlikely” race car driver, not simply because she was female but because she started with no money, no influence, and she lived in Kansas while most of NASCAR is in the southeast US.
“My dad was a race car driver and guess where he raced — Nevada, Missouri,” Cobb said.
She continued, “At eight years old I knew what it was I wanted to do and over all the years through school through college through everything I just knew I wanted to be a race car driver so what I studied and what I did was I figured out to take my education and make that work for me to figure out how I was going to be a race car driver.”
Cobb said it didn’t matter who your parents were or where you lived, what mattered was whether or not you could afford tires for the race car and the cost of hauling it across the country to the next race.
“It came down to money,” Cobb said. “Don’t you hate that? Money stands in the way between what you want, what your love is, what your desire is and you’re standing there without any.”
Cobb said she studied marketing and sales and figured out how to get sponsors.
She told the students of her first NASCAR Busch series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Despite the team owners instructions otherwise, a race official ordered her transporter (tractor-trailer) be parked so that it was easy to get out saying she would not qualify for the race. Of the 53 drivers, 10 would fail to qualify and be sent home.
“I qualified 28th out of 53 cars in my first NASCAR race,” Cobb said. “Guess what, my teammate went home. It was really hard for them to get that truck out.”
“I want to tell you that especially the bigger that you dream — I don’t care what it is, you don’t have to dream of being a race car driver or professional athlete or an actress for life to be hard,” Cobb said. “It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s kind of a rule or law in life that just before you get to the finish life, something is going to be there to push you back. It’s not just you, that’s how life is. What that is there to teach you is how to push through the pain, how to push through the negativity, how to get across that finish line and when you do, you’re going to be rewarded greatly and guess what, there is more than one finish line in life, there’s more than one race.”
She said the challenges life presents will be continuous.
“What you have to do is you have to gain that strength and you have to keep walking inch by inch and you get through that finish line … so when you’re in the middle of that adversity just think to yourself ‘man, imagine if I can just get through this how much better it’s going to be on the other side’ and know that you’re equipped to make it happen,” Cobb said. “Don’t take the easy road. Don’t take what you think is going to be the easy job because you’re still going to have adversity no matter what you decide to do so you might as well dream big.”
Cobb talked about money.
“I’m going to tell you, I own my race team so I can kinda pay myself whatever I want, but I pay myself $500 a week … I bet most of your parents make more than that,” Cobb said. “Sometimes they think being a race car driver means you’re rich and famous but the reason I only pay myself $500 a week and have such a fast life but also a glamorous life is because that most of what I do is on the road. It’s an expense. I have to fly around the country to races, sometimes I ride in a van to the races, sometimes I ride in our big rig tractor to the races. Honestly, that is a lot of fun. It’s all about your perspective and what you do with it. I order pizza, I bought a disco ball so I can DJ for the person driving the big truck … it’s all about what you make of it.”
Cobb said that when she flies home to Kansas City because she flies so often, she gets upgraded to first class which does not cost the team any money.
“I really feel like I live kind of like I am a millionaire and that I pay myself $500 a week. Don’t get caught up in the money. Be responsible, have your savings, have your insurance, have your reliable car. I drive a Porsche, but it’s a 2006 … I love it. I am able to buy and do what I want because I have worked really hard to maintain being a race car driver, being a team owner, and not get caught up worrying about money … make decisions based on what is going to make you happy, not what is going to make money.”
Cobb asked for questions from the audience. The first was what her car number was.
“I am number 10. And do you know that there are two women that race full time in NASCAR, do you know they are both number 10? And do you know that one of them is really rich and famous and the other one is right here with you today.”
Asked if she ever got scared, Cobb said, “I don’t think I finished my thought when I talked about my sister giving the great advice. She said to me, ‘you know what you’re doing, you wouldn’t be where you are if you didn’t know what you’re doing, and right before you go to qualify just look up to the sky and give a wink to God and say ‘I’ve got this’ and that works for me every time. I don’t naturally have a lot of confidence but I have a lot of faith and that gets me through a lot.”
Cobb answered several more questions before the students were dismissed back to class. She stayed and took pictures and selfies with students.
Following the assembly, several of the students offered their thoughts on Jennifer Cobb.
“I thought that the speaker, Jennifer Cobb, was very inspirational,” Brooklyn Kutina-Smith wrote. “She really made me think that I could do whatever I put my heart to. I got a selfie with her and she gave me a hug. Jen was very sweet and pretty, and we all thought she was a lot younger than what she said she was.”
Answering a question from the audience, Cobb had said she was 44 years old which brought gasps of astonishment from the students.
“I thought Jennifer Cobb left [the impression] among the girls that I was with that you can be anything you want to be,” Keria Lancaster wrote. “That no matter how many times you’re told no, you need to get up to the next level and be ready for the next one.”
In closing Thursday, Cobb said the race official that once said she would not qualify, later told her she was a great role model for his daughter.
“It was such an amazing turnaround,” Cobb said. “I just goes to show that you might be judged immediately but you can change minds and you can overcome. I want you to now consider yourselves over-comers so you’re going to get to that finish line, you’re going to meet resistance, you’re going to overcome, and you going to cross it and know that you have what it takes to get over the next finish line.”