Deana Kelley’s road racing adventures continue

By: MazdaMotorsports.com | December 12, 2018 6:25 AM Deana Kelley tells us about 2019, including checking the Nurburgring off her bucket list, and her obsession with E Prod RX-7sDeana Kelley made her first foray into SCCA road racing in 2018, running the U.S. Majors Tour race weekend at Sonoma Raceway in Spec Miata. She returned to the track for the Runoffs in October, this time to help her pal and autocross co-driver David Ogburn III who was racing Spec Racer Ford Gen3 after taking the win in the ProSolo Finale in the 2016 Miata they share. Kelley, the 2016 SCCA Solo National Champion in C Street Ladies, is branching more into road racing, adding some LeMons races as well as an outing at the Nurburgring next year.“Next year I won’t be autocrossing as much so I can do more road racing,” she explains. “I’m working with an associate to try to make it out to the Nurburgring next year. Obviously a lot of bits and pieces have to fall into place for that, but we’ve got the licensing part squared away and we’ve found a car we can rent. So the bigger bits seem to have been taken care of for the moment.”The race will be in the Rundstrecken-Challenge Nurburgring, or RCN, and be a support race for the popular 24 Hours race. While she’ll be running that in a BMW, she’s looking forward to her next race outing in a Mazda.“I’ll be finding one of the SCCA races that fits into my schedule again and doing that. I’m saving money right now to buy a car, so if I don’t have a car yet, I’m renting a Spec Miata as they’re easier to find as rentals. I have this sick love for E Prod RX-7s, but Spec Miata is kind of the easy button to go racing. It would be simpler and not as steep of a learning curve as far as dealing with race cars. But if I happen upon an E Prod RX-7 at the right price, I might make some terrible decisions,” she laughs.