SNOW Alps 25-26 web - Flipbook - Page 50
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F4 driving ‘experience’ in France for her 18th birthday. When
she knocked on the door of Team Feed Racing to enquire about
job opportunities, they said: Why not become a driver? Clara
jumped at it and here she is now, cornering on the edge and
slipstreaming with the best of them on the subcontinent, men
and women battling it out in the fast lane.
She has no plans to go back to racing gates. “I feel excitement
and joy getting into the car,” she says. “Motor racing gives me
an adrenaline kick that skiing doesn’t anymore. From now on
skiing is for fun with my family and friends.”
Once acquired, the craving for speed will not be denied.
Some ski racers take up bobsleigh in retirement, others find
the necessary buzz in speed skiing. Finland’s Häkä Häkkinen
clocked 217kph at the age of 63.
Nor is Clara’s move into motorsport without precedent.
From skiing at St Moritz in the 1948 Olympics, Britain’s Ian
Appleyard went on to sporting immortality as a rally driver,
dominating the Coupe des Alpes in his iconic Jaguar XK120.
Divina Galica was wondering what to do with the rest of her
life after a downhill racing career that took her to World Cup
podiums and three Olympics for Britain from 1964 to 1972,
when a chance invitation to take part in a celebrity race put her
in the driving seat of a fast car. She did not look back, scaling the
heights of Formula 1 as far as Grand Prix selection, although
never as far as the grid. After a second ski career and a fourth
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Olympics as a speed skier in 1992 she returned to motorsport
and was last heard of coaching racers at the Bertil Roos Racing
School in Florida, in her eighties. Clara could do worse than
look her up.
Those blessed with all the attributes, physical and mental,
required to reach the top in sport, face difficult choices. In a
more leisured age, the supremely gifted sporting all-rounder
could keep all their balls in the air, so to speak, swapping skis
and skates for tennis shoes and golf spikes when the clocks
go forward. For all-round GOAT status, look no further than
16-year-old Norwegian tennis champion Laila Schou Nilsen.
When she found out at short notice that there were to be no
women’s medals for her favourite winter sport, speed skating,
at the upcoming 1936 Winter Olympics, she took up alpine
skiing after Christmas, and won the Olympic Downhill in
February.
World domination is some way off for Clara Stiebleichinger.
“My first big goal is to get to Formula One Academy,” she says.
“It would be a big opportunity to show my potential and to
get visibility from other teams and other series. Afterwards I
could see myself switching to GT cars, where there are more
opportunities and another great new experience.” Onwards
and upwards. Good luck Clara, the world is your racetrack.
Godspeed.
