Mara Reyes
| Mara Reyes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
March 12, 1977 Pachuca, Mexico |
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| NASCAR Xfinity Series career | |||||||
| 1 race run over 1 year | |||||||
| First race | 2005 Telcel-Motorola 200 (Mexico City) | ||||||
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Mara Reyes (born March 12, 1977 in Pachuca, Mexico) is a Mexican racing driver. Finding some success in the NASCAR Mexico Series, she started one race in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2005. Reyes currently races in the Super Copa Telcel with Arris Group sponsorship.
Reyes debuted in racing at the age of 10, as her father´s co-driver in the Mexico-Cuernavaca Rally. In 1991, she started officially as a driver at the age of 14 in a regional championship, driving a tubular VW Beetle. There were 35 drivers at the championship, of which she was the only woman, and finished in the Top 5 and as Rookie of the Year. In 1992, Reyes took part in the GT II series, the National Resistance Championship, where she participated in 2-, 4-, 6-, 12- and 24-hour races. In her first 12-hour race, she finished 6th out of 30 drivers, and she placed 11th in the championship standings. Reyes was upgraded to the GT III series in 1993, and finished in the top 10 in each race, for an overall finish of 9th place in the championship. She won the Sport Merit Award, an annual award from the Government in Pachuca, Hidalgo.
In 1995, she continued in the GT III series, where she won several podiums. In July, she was invited to represent Mexico in the "3rd Shell´s Grand Prix Series" in El Salvador, in the Super-Tourism Series. She won 3rd place in her category, and 5th Place in the general race and received a special award from the El Salvador authorities. She drove in the "Neon Series Challenge", alternating with her father, where she won a Pole Position, and finished in 11th place in the Championship, of a total of 80 drivers. At the same time, she started racing the Nissan Prototypes and Trucks, although she was only in the last four races of the year. 1996 saw her invited by Daimler-Chrysler Mexico to take part in the Skip Barber Racing School Driver Course at Sears Point, CA. She continued at the Neon Series, representing the Chrysler Racing Team, and obtained 3 Pole Positions, one 1st place, and a 3rd place; finishing 12th in the championship, out of 120 total drivers. She also kept driving in the Trucks Series, finishing in 8th place of the Driver Standings.
In 1997, Reyes attempted to join a new series, the Mustang Series, finishing in fifth place in her first race. Unfortunately, due to lack of sponsorship, she was forced to withdraw from the series, but she continued in the Neon Series. In that series she won one race and finished second in another, with an overall tenth-place finish in the annual standings. She also finished in fourth place in the final Truck Series Standings. In 1998 she participated in four different series: Neon, Mustang, Truck and Formula Mexico (old skip barber´s formulas). She finished in second in the overall standings in the truck series, being presented with the Scudería Rodríguez Award; she took seventh in the Fórmula México Championship, and ninth overall in the Mustang Series. She was the only woman who took part in all these Series. She would repeat her second-place finish in the Truck Series in 1999, and improved to eighth place in the Mustang Series, where she took a second-place finish in the last race of the year. She was received several awards during the year: the "Press Award" from Ford Motor Company; the "Best Female Driver Award" from the Scudería Rodríguez Foundation; and Hidalgo Government gave her the "Sportswoman of the Year" Award.
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