When her fiancé, Pat Salway, gave up racing in 2020, Melissa Neary felt a void in her life. Melissa thought if he wasn’t going to race, maybe she should.
“I learned about racing from him four years ago,” said Melissa, of Billings, Montana. “When I saw how exciting it was, I knew it was something I wanted to try.
“I expressed interest [to Pat] in [racing for] the 2022 season. We talked it over. He told me this is a huge commitment. I said, ‘I realize that and I want to do it.’”
They repurchased a street stock that Pat had built, and Melissa went racing. Fortunately, her fiancé is a solid driving coach.
“He taught me how it drives,” Melissa said. “He explained feathering the throttle, how you enter and exit the turns.
Melissa, however, doesn’t just bring a helmet and hop into a race car on race day. No, she also spends time in the shop, too.
“I’m learning to work on the car from Pat,” Melissa said. “He taught me how the car works. I do the bodywork and tires. I learned how to grind my tires and run different air pressures according to track conditions. He does all the engine work, and I assist.”
Melissa Neary has made every race this year at Big Sky Speedway in Billings, Montana. She was the top rookie in her class for both the track and WISSOTA in Montana. A big part of that success comes from the relationship she has with her crew chief and fiancé, Pat Salway.
“He would prefer to be a crew chief and a mechanic,” said Melissa. “Last year was our first year, and we had our ups and downs. Living with him, working with him, and racing with him has trials and tribulations. At the end of the day, though, he is teaching me, and I am willing to listen.”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Corrected the name of Melissa Neary’s fiancé (2022-11-09).
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.
