Name: Jamie Thomas
Age: 34
Hometown: Kirkland, Washington
Currently: Rally Driver
Jamie Thomas is tiny and that's a problem. "I'm five-two and need to have my driving suits custom made," she sighs. "I wear a men's five shoes so I can't find driving shoes. Fortunately a lot of kids are doing karting." See, it's tough being a female rally driver.
Jamie took an indirect route to rallying. "I was married and got divorced," she tells us, "and got a new car, a 1999 Subaru Legacy. At a car show I ran into a rally car so I went to an event. Immediately I thought it was cool. So first I was a marshall, then a photographer, then I was crewing for a team. Then I was asked to navigate and halfway through my first season co-driving I knew I was going to build my own car. I'm not a co-driver - I want to drive."
After campaigning a front-drive Subaru Imprezza in the production class two years ago she found a brand new but fire-damaged Subaru WRX wagon in Calgary, British Columbia and began building that into her current Class Two rally machine. "The wagon is 80-pounds heavier than the sedan," she explains, "but I'm 80-pounds lighter than most of the guys."
Jamie has been ludicrously successful. She won two SCCA Northwest regional championships in 2003 and topped herself during 2004 by taking three. All this while running Carter Subaru's performance parts internet operation in Seatte and raising her son Brandon, 13, and daughter Bobbie, 7.She's also become a serious Subie fanatic and owns five, including a modified 2001 2.5 RS and a totally bizarre 1968 360 bubble car she's restoring. "My mom and stepdad were big into cars," she says. "They always had Corvettes and restored them. When I bought a Subaru, my stepdad practically had a heart attack. So this has always been in my family and now I've got it too."
Jamie is aiming to expand her racing, but it's tough to race on a national scale and keep a family running smoothly. "I've run Pro Rally events, but there's a lot of travel involved," she relates. "I feel we could have won the championship last year. But we couldn't run the rest of the events. I want to spend more time in the car as it is. I'm going to modify the car a bit more within the rules and stick with the car a while longer."