Bumgarner gaining ground

Michele Bumgarner has been growing up fast since moving to Indianapolis, one of the car racing capitals of the United States.

Since making her debut in the country’s national karting series in 1999 at the age of 9, she strung up an impressive array of wins, among them a controversial Karter of the Year Award over Matt Guidicelli. Since stepping onto the Asian Karting stage and ruling it repeatedly, she has moved on to bigger cars, dreaming of bigger races.

In 2005, she entered the Italian Open Masters, a field that included some of the best drivers from around the world, and finished 11th out of 170 entries. She also raced throughout Asia and France, hoping to be a Filipina Danica Patrick, whom she believes opened doors for aspiring women drivers.

On Sept. 19, 2008, the tall teenager made history by winning the Tag Seniors crown, becoming the first female champion of the Rock Island, Illinois Grand Prix, the world’s largest street kart racing event. Michele steered the Margay Team to a stunning 1-2-3-4 in her first attempt. All these triumphs fueled her dream to win the Indianapolis 500. In October of 2008, she made the big leap by moving to Avon, Indiana and has been working out with PitFit Training, Inc., founded by Jim Leo. Leo, who presented his new seminar, “A Fit Driver is a Safe Driver” at the Canadian Motorsports Expo in January, is one of the world’s most respected automotive driver trainers.

“He trains RaceCar Drivers from IndyCar, Indy Lights, NHRA and other top forms of racing,” Michele gushes. “I love working out at PitFit five days a week because I get to work out with champs like Scott Dixon, Will Power, Tomas Sheckter, Larry Dixon of NHRA, Memo Rojas (Ganassi Driver, Scott Pruitt’s GrandAm teammate) and others. It pushes me and my brother Mark and motivates us to work harder and harder. We love working at PitFit because we do different stuff everyday.” PitFit was formed in 1997 after Leo perfected his motorsports fitness training regimen with Roger Penske’s Detroit Diesel corporate wellness center. Leo began by working with Mr. Penske’s 1994 Indycar team, which then went on to convincingly win 12 of 16 races en route to the series championship. Following that success with Penske Racing, Leo was approached by other teams. To better support the many race teams with whom he worked, Leo relocated to Indianapolis. His training center is now a 100,000-square foot complex with courts for indoor soccer, basketball and baseball.

In her own words, Michele’s schedule, for example, looks like this:

Mondays: heavy lifting on unstable surface and swimming with a tough coach at one o’clock. Tuesdays: Rowing in 90-degree room and yoga at noon. Wednesdays: boxing and rock climbing. Thursdays: agility raining and yoga at noon. Fridays: Krav Maga, (the Israeli hand-to-hand combat system).

“It varies everyday, but that’s what makes it fun, we don’t just do one thing over and over again,” Michele elaborates. “Over the summer, we would go on bike runs twice a week and track workouts once a week.

So by the end of the week we are just absolutely exhausted! But we will do anything to make us perform better in the car!

On the side, Michele also tries to raise funds to do some runs of her own while there. The exposure to the best NASCAR drivers has sharpeneed her resolve to beat more of her male counterparts and fight through the perceived glass ceiling on women’s driving.

“I feel I am getting better and stronger after each day of training,” Bumgarner adds. “I can definitely feel and see a huge difference from when I first started training with Jim at PitFit, so just looking forward to see how I scale when in a car!”

No longer a teen (she turned 20 last September), Michele realizes the weight of the responsibility and challenge of being a world-class driver, but does occasionally miss life in the Philippines, as most young people would. There are times she’s just too tired to go out, but makes an effort just the same.

“I do get lonely out here, I mean, with my brother being here for a few months definitely has helped, but I haven’t been home since January of last year and I really do miss it being there and of course my family and friends,” Michele said in an e-mail to The Star.                        

“When not training I hang out with friends and do regular stuff like go to dinner, go to see movies and what not, but usually just stay at home and rest after the morning’s workout, because we are usually exhausted!”

Nevertheless, some day soon, the signature butterfly on Michele Bumgarner’s helmet may soon be a regular fixture, flying past the hardened men of NASCAR who will have to live down being beaten by a young Filipina.