BEATING DISABILITY IN MOTORSPORT
ON AND OFF THE TRACK
For most people involved in a car crash the thought of getting behind the wheel of a racing car would be somewhat of a daunting prospect. Understandably even more so if they had suffered a life-changing injury in the accident.
But Nathalie Mcgloin isn’t like most other people and has become something of a role model during her short time in motorsport. The 34-year-old is paralysed from the chest down – a consequence of breaking her neck when the car she was a rear-seat passenger in at the age of 16 hit a tree – and up until just over three years ago had no interest in racing.
“It [the passion] came from just something that I was introduced to in the form of track days by a team-mate when I used to play wheelchair rugby,” she says.
“I had no interest in motorsport whatsoever, went on a track day, got hooked on the track day and the interest in motorsport just kind of grew from that.
“I think with the track days that I started out on the appeal for me was that I could do what everyone else was doing, at the same time, on the same circuit with ablebodied men, mainly, and I wasn’t different.
“The only difference was the car and the fact that at the end of the session I would get into a wheelchair instead of walking out into the reception to get a coffee, and I loved the appeal of that.”
Since 2015 Mcgloin has raced in the Porsche Club Championship where she uses hand controls aboard her Cayman S, and took her first outright podium in the British Women Racing Drivers’ Club’s all-comers race at Silverstone in November last year.
But it’s off the track where she is having the biggest influence.
She’s a trailblazer, becoming the first female with a serious spinal injury to hold a Motor Sports Association competition licence and has become an ambassador for Dare To Be Different, an organisation helping women to break down stereotypical barriers in motorsport.
Along with her partner, Andrew, she has also created her own charity, Spinal Track, offering people in a similar position to her the chance to get behind the wheel of a racing car on a track day.
“It came about when I started racing I got a lot of messages through social media from people who were in my position asking how they could have a go at what I was doing and asking me if they could drive my race car,” says Mcgloin. “Obviously that wasn’t going to happen, but my partner and I
had recently bought a Golf GT track-prepared car from another paraplegic, just as a track toy for ourselves.
“It just kind of progressed into us thinking that there was a need for something that offered people who didn’t have a track car or a suitable car, who drove with hand controls, to be able to experience what I did.”
Since it was founded in April 2016, more than 40 people have had the chance to drive the modified car and plans are in place to expand the operation with a second car in 2018.
“We have some people who have never experienced motorsport – a bit like me before I started racing – doing track days and we have ex-racers, bike racers, not usually car racers because they usually find a way to get back into it themselves without our help,” adds Mcgloin.
“Our charity is set up for novices but we specify that it has to be a novice post-accident, so if you have done track days before your accident we can give you a taster of what it’s like post-accident. “We attract a whole variety of people, male, female, young, old, experienced and inexperienced, we don’t discriminate.
“We specify that people who come on our Spinal Track days have at least six months of driving experience with hand controls on the road.
“Reactions from people who go on our track days are brilliant, someone described it as ‘being able to push your boundaries in a way that wasn’t possible before’. Another described it as ‘the second-best day of his life’ and said he only said second so his wife didn’t kill him!”
Mcgloin’s work has not gone unnoticed. Last month she was awarded the BWRDC’S Lord Wakefield Trophy, which is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding achievement by women in motorsport with past winners including Susie Wolff and Claire Williams.
But perhaps her biggest recognition has come from the very top – the FIA – as she was appointed as the inaugural president of the governing body’s Disability and Accessibility Commission.
“We went over and we spent about 45 minutes talking about the different aspects of racing and they had put together some documents about best practice and a system to put in place, global advice for disabled drivers getting into motorsports,” says Mcgloin.
“And they said they were going to set up this commission and would I be president! I was speechless for a good 20 seconds and of course I accepted. I can’t wait to get started with it, it’s going to be brilliant.”
The commission, which will hold its first meeting next month, will work to unify the process of getting a racing licence globally and “make sure that motorsport is accessible across the board”, by reviewing current rules and regulations to ensure they are appropriate and relevant for disabled people.
Mcgloin’s achievements are quite something for someone who until little more than three years ago had never driven a car.
And while most people who suffer such a terrible injury would never want to drive a car, Mcgloin doesn’t see her accident and racing career as the same.
“It’s weird, I don’t associate them as the same thing and not because I’ve trained myself to think I don’t want to think about this in a specific way,” says Mcgloin.
“I was a passenger in a car before I had my driving licence and what I do now is completely different to how I broke my neck. The only reason I know I think like that is we were at Croft in my first season, I was in the garage with my partner and my mechanic and we were talking about crashes and I said I’ve never really been in a car crash. And they kind of looked at me and said ‘really?’ and I had crashed the car in the previous session, a really minor tap, and I said ‘oh that doesn’t really count’ and they said ‘no, what about the one when you broke your neck?’ “And immediately I went ‘no that’s not the same thing’ [as she wasn’t driving], I just don’t associate them together.” ■