After years in the shadows, Amy Ruman has found long overdue recognition, including mention on Forbes’ list of women to watch in sports in 2017.
But when the groundbreaking 43-year-old race car driver from Stow reflects before she begins defense of her back-to-back Trans Am Series championships March 5 at Sebring, she thinks back to the time she sat in a golf cart with Paul Newman.
Back to the day at Watkins Glen when she didn’t ask the superstar actor/driver/team owner for a photo, her biggest regret following a conversation she’ll never forget.
“I was getting his take and he was asking me for pointers on how fast I was around the track and where he could improve. He was well into his 80s,” Ruman said of Newman, who died of lung cancer in 2008 at age 83. “He probably would have given me a picture, no problem. It was kind of a respect deal at the track — he wanted to blend in — so I didn’t want to make too big of a deal out of it.”
Ruman’s father, Bob, engineer and owner of the Ruman Racing team, chimed in from across the garage, “He referred to her as ‘The Girl.’ ”
At that stage of Ruman’s career, many of her competitors may have called her that as well, the moniker tinged more by narrow-mindedness than respect. But after becoming the first woman to win a Trans Am race in the 45-year history of the series in 2011 at Road Atlanta, the first female to win a championship in 2015 and following it up with another in the circuit’s 50th anniversary year, Ruman has proved to be a force.
Going into this season, she’s totaled 16 victories in 77 starts and recorded six top-four finishes in the points standings since 2011. In 2016, she was elected by her peers to the Road Racing Drivers Club, a 510-member group with Bobby Rahal as its president that mentors aspiring racers.
But the 1996 Kent State University graduate and former field hockey coach at her alma mater, Stow-Munroe Falls High School, is also a magnet for fans young and old.
In an interview at their Cuyahoga Falls garage Wednesday, Ruman downplayed her place as a trailblazing female. Ruman’s father and mother, Barb, raced, as did Ruman’s sister, Niki, 47.
“I don’t really look at it too much from the female vs. male aspect. Other people do,” Ruman said. “I’m just trying to be competitive and win races. The fact that I’m female does draw attention to that fact.
“Hopefully, I’m opening doors for other people as previous women had to open doors for me. There’s a lot more women out there than people know about, successful stories in different series.”
But Ruman is touched by the impact she’s made on fans who write and email from as far away as Europe and Australia and annually greet her at racetracks around the country. Once at the Circuit of Americas outside Austin, Texas, she met a brother and sister and the little boy brought her a bouquet of flowers.
She cherishes the letter from a father of a 10-year-old girl who said meeting and taking pictures with Ruman coaxed his shy daughter out of her shell.
“She was trying to get involved in sports,” Ruman said. “She saw what I accomplished and she came home and put my driver card on her wall and it gave her this newfound [confidence]. ‘I can do other stuff. She did it, maybe I could.’ He wrote me this really touching letter. I’ll never forget it. He wanted me to know what an impact I made on her.”
But behind the flowers and autographs and increasing publicity, including a recent profile by ESPN.com’s ESPNW, is a supremely focused driver. This year she will pilot her No. 23 McNichols Corvette with a new C7 body and “torch red” paint job at speeds that could push 200 mph on the straightaway at Daytona International Speedway. At Mid-Ohio, she hit 178 mph last August.
To combat heat in the cockpit during a race that runs from 75 to 90 minutes without scheduled pit stops or tire changes, she wears a cool shirt system that has ice water pumping through its tubes. A helmet blower takes down the ambient temperature about 20 degrees.
On the track and off, there are still hints of chauvinism. A male driver said in 2015 that Ruman was a fast starter, but not a very good closer. That same year at Mid-Ohio, 2009 series winner Tomy Drissi repeatedly blocked and eventually crashed into her, resulting in his one-year ban.
But Bob Ruman knows his daughter is not easily intimidated.
“She is aggressive in the right spots,” said the older Ruman, 75. “I have a theory that in some ways females can be better race car drivers than men. Because of that aggressive nature that men have, if something happens, they many times get mad about it and lose their focus on trying to win the race. They’re trying more to get even.
“Amy is more level, even-keeled … although I’m not saying she doesn’t get wound up.”
Ruman has won twice when something major happened to the car that left her last in the field. Two years ago, she had to maneuver the now-2,780-pound car to the finish line without power steering for six or seven laps.
“I could barely move my arms,” she said. “These tires are massive. To get it to turn without power steering is nearly impossible, guy or girl.”
Ruman believes it was the decision four years ago to sell the family business, Cenweld Corp., which specialized in truck bodies and equipment, that enabled Ruman Racing to capture its first Trans Am championship. Bob Ruman owned the company for 49 years, and Ruman worked there for 26, starting when she was 16. For more than nine years, Amy coached field hockey at Stow, ran the business and raced on the weekends.
But Niki Ruman Skinner also believes it was their father’s bout with kidney cancer in 2003 that set her sister on the road to stardom. At the time, Ruman was racing as a top amateur in GT-1 and hadn’t moved up to the Trans Am level.
“She was able to compete in that GT-1 Trans Am fast car for several races and it really became clear that she had something special that was worth developing,” said Skinner, managing director of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Her husband, Dave, flies in to serve as Ruman’s crew chief on weekends.
Ruman now said she is “living the dream,” but she’s not sure how much longer this version of it will last. She hasn’t ruled out having children, although adds, “I don’t know if that’s in my cards or not.” She’s looking forward to a trip with her father to the Monaco Grand Prix in late May, squeezing in her first visit to Europe between Trans Am Series races.
“We’ll do it as long as we want to, we’re doing well and it’s safe,” Ruman said. “Nico Rosberg won the Formula One championship and he retired. I was like, ‘Maybe I should do that now that we have two.’ But it’s too much fun right now. I have at least one more year left in me. I don’t know what the future will bring.”
If she does decide to switch gears at the end the year, Ruman isn’t sure what she’ll pursue next to feed her competitive bent.
“I’d be sipping mai tais on the beach, I don’t know,” she said. “Life would be boring without racing.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.