The road to her first win in a full-size car didn’t come easy for Maddie Jefferson. The race before she totaled a race car. That made her triumph in the sportsman class of the Southern Delaware Vintage Race Club at Delaware International Speedway in Delmar even more satisfying.
Jefferson, a winning go-kart racer, wanted to step up to the big cars. Her father, Gary Jefferson, a racer himself, bought a used MasterSbilt late model chassis last year. The two prepared it for Jefferson’s debut in the vintage sportsman class. However, her first race didn’t go as planned at Georgetown Speedway in Delaware.
“I was going for the lead [and] the car in front of me got sideways,” Jefferson, 16, of Georgetown, Delaware. “I hit that car in the rear. Then, my car hit the cement wall and I flipped three times.”
Jefferson escaped the wreck without serious injury, but the incident marked the end of that car.
“I was really disappointed after the crash,” said Jefferson. “My dad and I built the car from the frame up, and it was destroyed. The next night I was racing karts and told my dad I was ready to get back out there, in a full-size race car.”
The following day her father found a vintage Bullitt late model chassis for Jefferson.
“[The Delaware race] was the first time I drove the car and I won with it,” Jefferson said. “I was crying because I was so happy. A week earlier I thought my season was all done.”
Maddie Jefferson said the win also helped quell some of her naysayers.
“I’m the only female driver in the class,” said Jefferson. “The win shows the skeptics that I can race. I heard a lot of comments that were being made when I was coming up through karts. I had to prove myself each time I moved up a division. This win meant so much.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
