About Wendy

Wendy Mathis was born in 1978 in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Jerry Mathis, a well known modified racer in upstate New York. While Wendy was young, her family packed up and moved to Florida, settling in the Central Florida area. Given her dad’s background, it didn’t take long for the racing bug to bite Wendy. When Wendy was twelve, her parents finally gave in and bought her a Quarter Midget and they started racing all over the state of Florida.

After a whole lot of feature wins, in 1993 Wendy became the first female to win the Florida State Quarter Midget championship, something Wendy takes great pride in. Having won the championship, Wendy decided to move up to Three Quarter Midgets with the Florida Midget Racing Association. She picked up three feature victories with the FMRA and finished second in overall driver points for the 2000 racing season.

In 2001, Wendy’s family bought a very used Sprint Car and hit the road with the TBARA – the Tampa Bay Auto Racing Association. The TBARA is the premier Pavement Sprint Car series in the state of Florida, and most would say the absolute most competitive series in the whole state.

For 2002, the team upgraded and bought a newer Hurricane chassis to be more competitive. And at the beginning of 2002 Wendy had the honor of driving for legendary USAC Midget Champion Mel Kenyon at a special NAMARS race at Orlando Speedworld.

It was also in 2002 when Wendy entered her name into the record books when she won her first TBARA race at Charlotte County Speedway in Punta Gorda. This was the first time a female had won a feature event in the history of the TBARA and it was also the first time a female had won a main event race with a major sanctioning body in the state of Florida.

But the winning didn’t stop there as Wendy also won at the tricky Ocala Speedway in 2004, holding off Hall of Fame driver Wayne Reutimann, Sr. and USAC Champion Dave Steele.

This got Wendy an invitation from Kathryn Nunn to participate in her female driver shootout at Texas Motor Speedway in 2005 for her then Indy Pro Series team. Wendy tested alongside other drivers like Katherine Legge and Becca Anderson and also was interviewed in the media center with Mrs. Nunn. While Wendy was the fastest driver that day, sponsorship plans didn’t work out and Mrs. Nunn had to fold the team.

Today Wendy continues to compete in the TBARA series, most recently finishing third, after starting on pole, at the very fast high banked New Smyrna Speedway. Wendy is also competing in the O’Reilly Auto Parts United Sprint Car Series Asphalt Thunder series, where she is making a serious run at the championship.

Of course none of Wendy’s accomplishments so far would have been possible without the great support of her sponsors. Wendy has had a very long relationship with Bell Safety Equipment, Kendall Motor Oil, JB Banta Logistics, Eagle Jet International and just this year she started working with K&N Filters.