'I'm living in a dream': Sask. woman only female racer in NASCAR Pinty's Series
Shantel Kalika grew up in a racing family, and is now following in her father's footsteps
The first time Shantel Kalika stepped into a race car and started driving, she was a ball of nerves.
Now, Kalika is the only woman racing in the NASCAR Pinty's Series. The 28-year-old made her debut at the double header on July 25, just outside of Saskatoon, and in Edmonton on July 28.
"As soon as you get into the race vehicle, everything else doesn't matter."
Kalika grew up in Prince Albert, and always spent time around the race track and in the shop, as her father, Ben Busch, was also a racer. Kalika started racing herself at 20.
"It's just something our family has always done," she said. "There's hockey families, there's soccer families — our family is a racing family."
She started in the pro-truck division, racing at Wyant Group Raceway outside Saskatoon. She won a championship in 2016 before moving to racing cars, to continue moving up in the sport.
Kalika said she knows she's a female in a male-dominated sport, but this only makes her want to keep going.
"There's a lot of people that think you can't do it or you shouldn't be doing it," she said. "It gives you a lot more drive to be able to go out and do it and kind of prove them wrong, in a sense."
She said she's heard everything when it comes to being a woman driver.
'They'll come up and be like, 'Oh, who's the driver?' and you tell them, 'Oh it's me.' And they'll say 'You drive this thing? That's crazy,'" she recounted.
"But when I put my helmet on, I just become one of them. We're all just racers at the end of the day."
She said many young girls come up to her after races and tell her how happy they are to see her racing.
Just in the past week, she was approached by a girl named Faith. Kalika asked if Faith would race herself someday.
"And she said, 'Yeah. I want to be just like you,'" Kalika said. "That lights up my night."
Kalika said she hopes young women and girls will follow their dreams and pave their own way.
Currently, Kalika is sitting at 22nd in the standings, out of 33 racers. She said she and her team are happy with the results in her debut race, as she described it as an accomplishment for their team as a whole to have reached this stage.
"I definitely feel like I'm living in a dream," she said.
"I've worked so hard, my family has worked so hard to get to this point... I don't want to stop there," Kalika said. "I think we proved ourselves that we're able to be there and we deserve to be there."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With Files from CBC Saskatchewan's Morning Edition