 |
     |
 |
|
|
Today's Corporate Racer
|
 |
|
The Renaissance Woman of Top Alcohol Dragster – Karen Benkovich
|
By Jim Samuel |
Not many sportsman racers fly in from Milan , Italy for a points meet. But that's exactly what Karen Benkovich did last year when she traveled from the European city to race at the NHRA Northeast Division Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series race in Numidia , Pennsylvania . Benkovich made the trip because her job as a mechanical engineer and project manager for Johnson & Johnson takes her all over the United States and the world. But even though the Atlantic Ocean and several thousand miles were between her and the Pennsylvania track, Benkovich was not about to let that keep her out of her Top Alcohol Dragster (TAD). “I flew home from Milan on Friday morning, packed some clothes and then my mother and I drove to the race in Numidia ,” said Benkovich. A couple of days later, she was on an airplane and headed back to Italy . Traveling long distances to balance her work life and her drag racing career is nothing new to the New Jersey-based racer. During the time she was learning to drive and preparing to get her Top Alcohol Dragster competition license, Benkovich's time in the driver's seat was limited by frequent trips to Germany and the Czech Republic . Like many racers, Benkovich got her first taste of drag racing by accompanying her father to the drag strip when she was a young girl. “I've been into drag racing since I was little,” she said, “My dad used to take us to the track.” Her father, Tom, is a veteran engine welder and has worked on engines for Shirley Muldowney, Connie Kalitta and dozens of others. “Most girls had pictures of rock stars on their walls; I had pictures of cars,” Benkovich said, adding that when she was in high school, she drove a 1977 Porsche 924 that she and her father bought and fixed up. Unlike many drag racers, Benkovich did not start racing as soon as she got her driver's license. Instead, after high school, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken , NJ . It was in her last year of college that the opportunity came for her to go drag racing. Her father had worked with the Jones brothers, Tom and Jeff, and their racing team until the brothers decided to stop racing in 1991. After a few years, Tom Jones decided to get back into racing as a car owner and crew chief.
“I was still in college and was 20 or 21 years old,” Benkovich said. “Tom (Jones) wanted to put a car together and he asked me if I wanted to drive it.” It took a while for Jones to get the program going and Benkovich said that at times, she was not sure if she would ever make it to the track. “I knew Tom was serious when he went out and bought a new supercharger,” she laughed. With the car in place, the next step was for Benkovich to learn how to drive it and to get her NHRA competition license. But unlike many Top Alcohol Dragster drivers, Benkovich did not go to a driver's school to get her competition license. Instead, she just went to the track with her father and her car owner. “The three of us just showed up at Atco,” she said. “My uncle had a jet car so he was able to sign off on my license.” Other drivers who signed off for her were TAD drivers Cliff Bozzelli and Ken Winward. “It took me a couple of seasons to get licensed because of all the travel I was doing in my job,” she said, explaining that at the time, she was frequently traveling to Germany and the Czech Republic . “I only got a weekend or so a month to test.” At the end of 1998, Benkovich finally got her TAD competition license and Jones bought a new ProStart chassis. “My first race was the Maple Grove ( Pennsylvania ) points race in May 1999,” she said.
Since then, Benkovich has been at just about every NHRA Northeast Division race in the Lucas Oil series as well as several national events each year. She missed two races in 2002, after a spectacular crash destroyed her racecar during the Northeast Division points race at Lebanon Valley Dragway, near Albany . That crash happened during the final round of qualifying, with Benkovich in the right lane and Winward in the left lane. Both drivers had strong runs going, but at the 1,000-foot mark on the track, the right rear tire on Benkovich's car blew out, sending her car into the air and into a hard left turn. Her dragster hit the left retaining wall almost head on and almost flipped over the wall. The car bounced off the wall and landed on the track in the left lane, only to be hit by Winward who had no place to go. “There must have been something on the track,” said Benkovich, who got out of her car a little shaken up but with no injuries. “The computer showed that everything was fine right up until it happened. “I just felt a pop and then the car immediately went left and into the air.” She says that getting back into the driver's seat six weeks later at Cecil County Dragway was one of the highlights of her career. “After the crash, Tom (Jones) looked at me and asked ‘What do you want to do?' I said ‘If you're going to build another car, I'm going to drive it,'” Benkovich said. Another career highlight was her qualifying performance at the NHRA national event at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown , NJ in May 2002. In that race, Benkovich qualified in the 11 th position for the 16-car field but did so with a 5.768-second ET, her first time under the 5.90 second mark. “We wanted to run a 5.90 and we ran in the ‘70s,” she said. “We celebrated so much you would have thought we won the race.” While she'd like to experience the thrill and the speed of driving a Top Fuel car, Benkovich said she has no aspirations to become a Top Fuel driver because it would probably mean giving up her career as a mechanical engineer, for Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey , where she works in machine design and project management. Her current assignment at Johnson & Johnson has her working on the production machinery that the company uses to manufacture toothbrushes. Last summer's trips to Italy were to oversee the production of new manufacturing machinery and this year, she's been making frequent trips to Georgia to install and setup the production line. “It's amazing when you pick up a toothbrush and think of everything that went into making it,” she said. As if her career at Johnson & Johnson and her drag racing were not enough, Benkovich also gives presentations and speaks at seminars held by the “Society of Women in Engineering” and speaks to young girls about careers in engineering. In addition, she is finishing up her studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and will soon receive a Master of Technology Management degree from the Ivy League school. “I like to be busy. When I'm not doing anything, I feel like I'm wasting time,” Benkovich said. She'll be busier than ever at drag strips this year now that she has also gotten her Super Comp license and will be driving her new Super Comp dragster at events where she does not compete in Top Alcohol Dragster.
What influenced her decision to add a Super Comp car to her roster of activities? It was the third Tom in her life. In addition to her father and her car owner, both named Tom, Benkovich's boyfriend is the NHRA Northeast Division 2003 Super Gas champion and always-competitive Super Comp driver, Tom Stalba. “There are too many Toms in my life,” laughed Benkovich. “I go to the track to watch Tommy (Stalba) and I'm a basket case. This will get me more seat time and more practice at the tree.” If she is ever paired off against Stalba in Super Comp elimination rounds, Benkovich said she'd race against him as hard as she can. “I'm going to try to kick his butt,” she said. “I don't think he'd expect anything less.” When she's not working, studying or drag racing, Benkovich likes to spend time flying in her four-passenger Piper Cherokee. “My dad and I both fly and we each have an airplane,” she said. “It's a lot of fun when I am flying and I hear his (her father's) voice on the radio.” Benkovich said it is not unusual for her, her father and other friends with airplanes to fly to one airport for dinner, then hop in their planes and fly to another airport for coffee and dessert. “The Friday buffet at Sky Manor Airport is great.” She said. Sky Manor Airport is located in Pittstown , NJ .
Though everyone at Johnson & Johnson knows her as a mechanical engineer, they also know how she spends her weekends. Around the office, her colleagues refer to her as a “Renaissance Woman,” a name that stuck after they saw NHRA and ESPN announcer Bob Frey called her that during a televised interview. “There's nobody there that does what I do,” she said of her co-workers. “They think it's different.”
|
