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High heels and helmets, a winning combination

Written by Kym Oberauer.

Fiona Reed - at picture of concentrationFiona Reed - at picture of concentration (Photo courtesy www.dragphotos.com.au)

When you think about drag racing and drag racers you tend to picture blokes, blowers and big burnouts.

However, when the smoke clears, sitting behind the wheel you'll sometimes find a woman who's putting a lot of these blokes on the trailer.

One of the great things about drag racing is it doesn't discriminate. If you can cut a light and run the number then you're in with a chance to go rounds. It doesn't matter how old you are, if you've eaten a few too many pies, or in this instance if you're of the fairer sex – drag racing just doesn't care.

With back-to-back Willowbank Supercharged Outlaw track championships, Fiona Reed is a perfect example of what can be achieved when you combine a passion for drag racing, personal sacrifice and an unwavering dedication to your goals.

The drag racing journey begins

Fiona's drag racing journey began in the 90's when her dad Brian Keating was approached by then Top Fuel competitor Robin Kirby to help with the transport of his dragster. Not surprising really when you consider that Brian owns and operates Keating's Transport located in Bendigo Victoria.

So began the Keating family's long relationship with drag racing. For Fiona, once she started high school drag racing became "a way of life. Your whole life revolves around the racing calendar. Your friends are all involved in the racing and they become family as well."

Travelling from track to track it's almost inevitable that you're going to develop strong ties with other members of your extended drag racing family. So it was during this time that Fiona met Daniel Reed, son of Top Alcohol stalwarts Steve and Debbie Reed.

When Robin Kirby retired in 2001, Fiona and Daniel officially became an item and Fiona toured the country as Daniel's number one supporter as he chased an ANDRA national championship in Supercharged Outlaws. The long distance portion of the relationship continued until 2007 when Fiona moved from Bendigo to Daniel's home town of Brisbane.

In the driver's seat

Fiona preparing for a run at the 2012 WinternationalsFiona preparing for a run at the 2012 Winternationals (Photo courtesy www.dragphotos.com.au)

While crewing for and supporting your family are great, Fiona always wanted to get behind the wheel of her own drag car and take to the quarter mile as a driver. Having been involved with drag racing for years, Fiona knew it wasn't going to be cheap and sacrifices needed to be made.

"I don't have a dishwasher; we hardly ever go to dinner with our friends or get to go on a great holidays. Sometimes you look around and see people with new cars and big houses but then I remind myself to focus on what I really want - to go drag racing."

So Fiona saved and saved, and went without until she had enough tucked away to buy Debbie Reed's dragster and a naturally aspirated engine she could comfortably learn the ropes with.

When Daniel sold his car and began building engines for Triple Eight Racing, it was the perfect time for Fiona to make the move into the driver's seat. So in 2007 Fiona took to the track for the 1st time and became a regular at Willowbank Raceway's test and tunes.

Under the ever watchful eye of Daniel, Fiona recalls "we must have done 100s of passes as I got used to the dragster, staring off slowly and getting quicker and quicker as my confidence grew."

Once the team was satisfied that she was ready Fiona made the move into modified, competing at track championship rounds at Willowbank Raceway. The team always had aspirations of running a blown motor, so after a few years in modified Fiona had pieced together the necessary parts and funds to take the next step in her drag racing career.

"Modified taught me how to be a good driver, how to race your own race, drive the car to suit the competitor, race conditions and time of day. I was only just getting the hang of the delay box when we finally got everything together to step up to Supercharged Outlaws. I would love to go back to Modified one day and have a real go at that title."

Making the move to Supercharged Outlaws

Fiona Reed accepts her 2011/2012 Track Championship Trophy with husband DanielFiona Reed accepts her 2011/2012 Track Championship Trophy with husband Daniel (Photo courtesy Greg Jack)In July 2010 Fiona made the move into the Supercharged Outlaws running consistent 7.20s. The time spent in modified really paid off as she took out the 2010/2011 Willowbank Raceway Track Championship in Supercharged Outlaws and 'Rookie of the Year' in her first full season.

"Daniel has taught me the calmness required to think things through. Learning in Modified has given me that extra training to attack different things that can happen on a run in a somewhat slower vehicle. That extra second or two to make a recovery and learn from it, is something you don't get when you're going a lot faster."

Proving that it was no fluke, she also backed up her Track Championship in 2011 with another in 2012. Fiona puts a significant part of her success down to Daniel providing safe and consistent car that's easy to maintain. "I know a lot of teams are jealous of the lack of work I need to do between rounds; they can have up to 7 crew. At most track championship rounds we only have 3 including me."

The one(s) that got away

While Fiona has been able to take back-to-back track championships, a championship at the national level has so far eluded her – but only just.

In 2011 Fiona had to win the semi-final at the Winternationals to take the ANDRA Supercharged Outlaws Championship but broke out to Paul Stephen by 1 hundredth of a second. The title ended up going to Matt Watts, Daniel's brother-in-law.

2012 Winternationals was appearing to be a fairy tail in the making. "I had to catch Luke Marsden and Jack Danaher who were both on 200 points. This seemed achievable when they both lost in the first round. The trophy was sitting there on that silver platter once again; mine for the taking. Matt was behind me in the points so he had to go further than me to collect enough points for the title."

Unfortunately, not having a successful weekend herself and bowing out of competition in round 2, "I just couldn't get it to hook up past half track, it was stepping out and starting to play around on me", it left the door open for Matt to go rounds. In the end it came down to whether or not Matt Watts could win his semi-final. A .001 red light by Matt's opponent saw him take the semi-final win and the national championship for the second year in a row.

Having spoken to both Fiona and Matt they both agree that it's not fun running one another, as no matter who wins neither get to really celebrate the victory.

Looking forward to a new season

Now that the 2012 Winternationals has been run and done it's time for Fiona and the team to freshen up the dragster ready to take on a new season. The goal for the next 12 months is simple – take home an ANDRA National Championship in Supercharged Outlaws.

With this objective in mind, Fiona will be competing at the Nationals at Sydney Dragway in November and each to the Rocket Allstar Racing Series (RARS) rounds at Willowbank Raceway, which is all made possible with the ongoing support of her husband Daniel (yes, they finally got married in February 2012), her family and corporate partners Kincrome Tools, Allstar Batteries and Jack Brothers Engineering.

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