By Deb Peterson
The day Barbara McKee climbed through the window of a friend’s race car, settled into the seat, and took the steering wheel in her hands, she discovered a fire in her soul she hadn’t realized was there. Passion is like that.
“I knew at that moment it was something I had to do,” she says.
It was the summer of 1992. Barbara was in her 40s. Joplin, Missouri needed a race track. Barbara’s adoring husband built her one.
“Mike and I enjoyed traveling to races to watch friends,” Barbara says. “Mike spent lots of time in the pits listening to drivers complain about not having a hometown racetrack.”
The McKees purchased 100 acres on West 7th Street just outside Joplin city limits, and one year later, on July 31, 1993, Joplin 66 Speedway opened to a crowd of 7,500 spectators. At the time, the only women’s event was called a Powder Puff.
“It was never my desire to be a Powder Puff racer,” Barbara says, “but I knew that’s where I would have to begin.”
She borrowed a car from a friend and won every Powder Puff event she entered.
“I had the fever,” she says.
She convinced Mike she should drive full time. He offered to build her a car if she could find some major sponsors. Boy, did she.
Within a few weeks, Barbara had not only major local sponsors, she was the only woman to be sponsored by a national corporation. Miller Brewing Company provided her with a custom-made driving suit and a patented Miller logo for her car.
The race was on, and it was no Powder Puff.
“Word spread,” Barbara remembers, “and we had up to 35 drivers every week in the Ladies Classic event.”
Barbara won the Ladies Classic Championship two years in a row, 1995 and 1996, and was honored for setting a new record for wins across all classes, including the men’s. Her local newspaper wrote: “McKee won 16 Ladies Classic features at the speedway in 1995, besting the previous record of 12 set by Brian Bennett in 1994. McKee also added two feature wins at the North Fork Speedway in 1995, bringing her total to 18 feature wins. The total win figure is in itself excellent, but when you add that this is Mrs. McKee’s first full season of racing, the feat is amazing.”
It was also about to come to an abrupt end.
One week before the 1996 championship race, Barbara was racing around turn two when a fellow driver clipped her car from behind. Barbara’s car hit the wall, flew 14 feet in the air, rolled four times, and caught on fire.
“It was one of those times when everything seems to happen in slow motion,” Barbara recalls. “I could not climb through the window of my car with my helmet on. I would get in and someone would hand it to me. I remember thinking during the crash that I wasn’t going to be able to get out of the window with my helmet on, and I worried I wouldn’t be able to release the harness, which is very complicated. I saw the flames and knew I was in trouble.”
Mike watched from 100 yards away.
“The second he saw the car hit the wall he was in motion,” Barbara says.
In what Barbara calls a miraculous feat, Mike pulled her from the burning car unhurt. The car was totaled.
“Mike was so apprehensive about watching me race anyway,” Barbara says. “After the crash, I promised him I would quit after the championship race the following week.”
She bought another car, won the championship, and retired from racing. Two years later, Mike and Barbara sold the track.
“I enjoy being a spectator, too,” Barbara says, “but there’s just something about starting up that engine!”
Today, Barbara drives a 2000 “millennium yellow” Corvette.
“It’s my favorite car of all,” she says. “It registers 200 mph, but what good does that do when you have no place to test it?”
Racing, she says, taught her to find her passion and follow it.
“If we are passionate about something, we have to find a way to do it,” she says. “I have always drawn on the love and support of those around me, and while I would have loved to keep racing, I did not want to put my husband through that experience ever again.”
Her favorite quote, most often attributed to Dr. Seuss, expresses her philosophy on the matter: Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.
“I simply needed to find another passion,” Barbara says.
Today, she is passionate about being back in Mountain Home where she was born and raised, reuniting with old friends, spending time with family (dad James O. Johnson, brother and sister-in-law Jimmy and Jennie Johnson; her niece, Jamie Rigdon, was on the cover of the December/January 2013 Marvelous!). She loves her miniature horses—Etta, Tonto, and Macy—and her dogs—LuLu and Bo.
She also loves encouraging young women to be the best they can be.
“In every stage of my life,” she says, “I have received the most enjoyment from the times I stepped outside the box and did something different. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel when a young person comes up to me and says, ‘I want to do that.’ In this ever-changing world where everything is possible, there is no dream too big to attain. I’ve had lots of dreams, and they haven’t all come true, but the ones that have were worth the effort put forth to make them happen. Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us. I think we should dream big and sing every day!”
M! April/May 2013
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