Tony Stewart dreads the day next season when he’ll face his wife and fellow Top Fuel driver Leah Pruett for the first time on an NHRA dragstrip. Camping World Truck Series driver Corey Heim can kind of relate to Stewart’s trepidation.
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Sooner or later, Heim too will have to race against girlfriend Taylor Reimer.
Reimer took a major step forward in her racing career on Friday, making her first-ever start on a 1.5-mile intermediate track and leaving quite an impression. Competing at Kansas Speedway in the ARCA Menards Series, the 25-year-old Venturini Motorsports driver earned an impressive top-five finish.
Until now, most of Reimer’s battles with Heim have been limited to off-track showdowns over Monopoly, but this performance marked her arrival as a true contender on bigger stages.
With this feat, Reimer etched her name into the record books, becoming just the third woman in ARCA Menards Series history to notch top-five finishes on both dirt and pavement. She previously finished third on the dirt at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois, and now adds a paved-track top five at Kansas to her résumé. The only other women to accomplish the feat are Isabella Robusto and Hailee Deegan.
“I had a lot of fun, it was a blast,” Reimer told Frontstretch.com. “This is the biggest track I’ve been on. I’ve never experienced dirty air before and had a lot of notes to look back on and real good people in my corner to be able to help me out and point me in the right direction and execute.
“The air is just the biggest thing, putting myself in good spots and putting myself in bad spots. I honestly feel I did a really good job of putting myself in certain positions and not just following cars into the corner. That’s what people told me, you can’t put yourself behind someone, you have to go where they’re not, and I feel that’s what I did.”
The race went 10 extra laps into overtime, ending up being 110 total laps. A field of 29 cars started the race, but only 21 were still running when the checkered flag fell.
In her only other ARCA Menards Series start this season, the Tulsa, Oklahoma native finished eighth at Elko Speedway in Elko New Market, Minnesota.
One race remains on the ARCA Menards schedule, next Saturday, October 4, at Toledo Speedway in Ohio. It’s unclear whether Reimer will be entered in that race.
