DETROIT FREE PRESS: Contact Mike Brudenell: mbrudenell@freepress.com.
Good things often come in small packages.
Collete Davis certainly ranks in that category.
At 5-foot-3, and 110 pounds, “I look 12 but I’m really 21,” she joked in the Red Bull Global Rallycross paddock at Belle Isle today.
She finished sixth in Sunday’s Lites final to Miles Maroney (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing).
Don’t let her size or youthful looks fool you, Davis is a tough-as-nails driver with an astute engineering and business mind and will to succeed.
She put her own deal together at Bryan Herta Rallysport, bringing her River Racing group to the party and now forming a working relationship with the former CART and Indy Racing League driver.
A graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., Davis is now employed by a venture capital company on the West Coast and is competing in her first full year in RBGR GRC Lites.
After running karts and the Mazda Road to Indy USFF 2000 series, she is making noise in rallycross, becoming the first woman to lead laps in a RBGR race.
Davis hopes to compete in the series’ Supercar class within a year or two.
Her racing idol – Danica Patrick.
“She was the first woman I ever saw race, I was 11,” recalled Davis, who drives the 07 River Racing entry. “She has done a lot for women in racing.”
Would she take a crack at NASCAR if offered?
“I want to drive everything and anything,” said Davis. “I’d definitely be interested.”