by Mary Rupert
A glance at the Monster Energy Cup series and NASCAR Camping World truck race entry lists for this weekend at Kansas Speedway shows only one woman entered so far – Jennifer Jo Cobb, a native of Kansas City, Kansas.
Cobb returns to her hometown track on Friday, May 11, to race in the Camping World truck series. She drives the No. 10 Silverado that will have a new design for this race.
For some years Danica Patrick and Jennifer Jo Cobb were the main full-time female drivers in NASCAR’s top tier. Now, with Patrick’s exit from the Cup series – she will drive an Indy car in late May – Cobb is the only full-time woman driver left in the top NASCAR competitions.
Cobb has been racing consistently at the top level for eight years. The daughter of Joe Cobb, who raced cars at Lakewide Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas, Jennifer started racing consistently in 1991.
“My very first race at Kansas Speedway was 2002,” she recalled.
It is unusual to still be racing after all these years, she agreed. “What makes it more unusual is I also own the team,” she said. She is the only female driver-owner in the top tiers of NASCAR racing.
That’s very difficult, because as someone who grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, graduated from Schlagle High School and never had a lot of money, Cobb was able to become a team owner and NASCAR driver out of very little.
She added she had some good support, and she is proud and grateful to have made it this far in the sport.
She said that 90 percent of the support she received has been from Kansas City, Kansas.
A year to remember
Although she has finished in the top 10 only a few times, nevertheless, Cobb persists and is finding that this year is turning out to be memorable. Her past accomplishments include highest finishing female driver (sixth at Daytona), highest female points finisher (17th in 2010 and 16th in 2014), as well as the woman with the most starts in the truck series (114).
In addition to full-time truck racing, earlier this year, Cobb went to Valencia, Spain, for the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series for a German racing team, Racing-Total.
“It was amazing,” Cobb said. She was in 17th place overall, and when competing in a sub-category, the “legends” group, she was third.
“I literally cried when they played the national anthem,” she said. It was a moment that made her wonder if it was real, she said, and it will be something she thinks about as one of her higher accomplishments.
Also this year, she raced in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Talladega for the first time. While it didn’t end as well as she had hoped, her car reached almost 195 mph, she said, making it one of the faster cars on the track for a moment.
Continuing her feeling that it can’t be real, Cobb has been tapped to speak abroad to women about entrepreneurship. The U.S. Embassy has asked her to speak in the countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan, presenting information about entrepreneurship and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) topics to women military members. Besides owning her own racing team, and doing public speaking, Cobb also has her own line of clothing.
They’ve also asked to her participate in a rally race while she is there, she said.
Women Build Week and sponsors
While in Kansas City, Cobb went to the kickoff for a Women Build Week for Habitat for Humanity on Tuesday. Women in Construction Owners and Executives are participating this week to build a house for a recipient.
She attended on behalf of her sponsors, four of whom are women-owned construction companies, she said.
Supporting Cobb’s efforts by sponsoring her Silverado No. 10 truck are Mark One Electric, Rose B. Privitera; International Builders in Construction, Brandy McCombs; Cornell Roofing, Mary McNamara; and Osage Construction, Ruthann Griggs.
Her primary sponsor this year is Think Realty, also a Kansas City area company. IBC and CommunityAmerica Credit Union are other sponsors. Pizza Shoppe is another sponsor, and Cobb will be signing autographs from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10, at the Platte Woods, Mo., Pizza Shoppe.
Besides helping her sponsors with their charitable event, Cobb also started her own not-for-profit, Driven2honor.org, to honor female military members. She said she wanted to bring attention to women military members, and also to let young women know that if they are growing up without funds to attend college, the military is a viable option for career skills and education.
Women military members are honored at each of Cobb’s races with a VIP experience, she said.
No plans to quit
Persistence over the years has worked for Cobb, and she has no plans to quit racing.
“There’s no intention to stop at any point, it’s something that I still enjoy doing and I’m still capable of doing,” said Cobb, who is in her 40s.
“I look to Morgan Shepherd, a NASCAR driver still racing in his 70s, as a really good inspiration,” she said.