Dinner with Denise McCluggage
Denise McCluggage is a wonderful woman who paved the way for women race car drivers! For those of you don’t know Denise, she is like the Amelia Earhart of auto racing! My father and I recently met Denise at European Motor Sports where she shared many of her valuable pointers about controlling your car.
One of the many pointers Denise mentioned was to “Drive the car you’re in! Not the car you wish you were in, and not the car you drove yesterday!” You need to adapt to your surroundings and understand how the car handles. Driving a pick-up truck is very differentfrom driving an Aston Martin! Another great pointer was,”Celerate,” her own made up word. This does not mean to accelerate or decelerate, but to keep a consistent rate of speed through a turn. This will help a car balance and keep all four tires on the ground! It’s like manual cruise control for a race car! We even had a demonstration on how to keep the car level and all four tires firmly on the ground. Five volunteers, four as tires and one as the driver, showed us how the car would react when we put it through certain maneuvers, like slowing down, quickly taking a hard left, then accelerating into a straight away.
Published
Publisher: The Nor-Easter
Publish Date: First Quarter 2014
On Page: 4
On the wall right behind Denise were two beautiful murals, crafted by Paul Chenard’s steady hands! It was a nice addition to the loft of European Motor Sports! I was so impressed with the murals that I decided to purchase my very own so I could hang it in my bedroom!
It was really nice of MMR (Motorsports Marketing Resources) and European Motor Sports to organize this discussion! I learned lot from this informative talk, which just happened to be right before Denise’s birthday! I would love to see Denise again!
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About The Author

Christopher DeMarey
When I was just seven years old I started judging at the world-renowned Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. Since then I have become a regular contributing author to the Classic Car Club of America New England Region magazine and I have been published nationally on multiple occasions. I am now fifteen and on the board of advisors for the Classic Car Club of America NER. From Amelia Island to the Boston Cup I have attended many car shows, tours and events along with helping in the process of planning the Classic New England CARavan for this coming September. I look forward to one day owning my very own classic and I hope to enter my vehicle in one of the various events I have attended throughout my childhood. E-mail - chris@demarey.net