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e-Book - Kate Heath - Rally Car Driver

"My Grandmother, who was barely five feet tall, ended up driving a petrol tanker for the London Fire Brigade during the blitz. It made me believe anything is possible."

Kate Heath says, "I have always been mad about cars!" She admits to being a 'petrol head' for as long as she can remember, but didn't realise she could make a career out of it back when she was a kid. Instead, she chose A-levels that came naturally to her: languages. She continued studying them at University, specifically French and German. But all the while, a love of cars stayed with her.

An Oxford graduate, Kate had her choice of jobs after graduation. She was delighted to find that Ford Motor Company had a graduate placement programme, a job that would get her a step closer to the motoring industry. She worked mostly in the sales and marketing division, helping Ford to acquire new clients and business partners. "I would entertain them by bringing them to motorsports events, because it gave me an excuse to attend myself!"

As Kate worked more in the communications and media departments of the company, she gained a good technical knowledge of cars. "I acted like a bridge between the engineers and the public, translating the technical information into explanations others could follow." She says that she loves to learn, and during this time she was picking up new information readily. "I was like a sponge!"

However, when her career took her further away from the public work and became technical writing, she grew unhappy. "It all just became numbers on a piece of paper." It was then that she took up rally driving as a hobby and outlet for her motoring enthusiasm. "I was 30 by the time I got in my first rally car," she says, "while every other driver started when they were 17. However, I think this late start gave me the incentive to really go for it to catch up."

She says that the rally car scene is a bit of an 'old boys' network,' and so finding anyone who would train her to race and maintain her car seemed next to impossible at the time. Kate is very grateful to a mentor who appeared, a friend with a garage who apprenticed her. She credits her early amateur racing success to his generosity and compassion. This was an exciting time in her life, even though it was the grubbiest work she's had to do. "I had a Skoda Felicia that needed a lot of maintenance, and rally driving is messy business. I came home every night with mud in my hair and grease everywhere, but I didn't mind!"

In this sport, points are awarded for finishing the race, therefore getting the car to the finish line is the most important focus for a driver. "Hurtling through the forest on gravel tracks, rally cars get mangled. It's terribly important for the drivers to have sufficient understanding of that car, a sympathy for the car, so they know how much they can get away with and what to tell the service engineers." Kate admits that she owes many victories to her ability to nurse a sick car. "I have driven 40 miles with a wheel falling off, 120 miles on three cylinders and 70 miles with no brakes. In these situations, my knowledge of how a car works becomes terribly important."

After a couple of years in the amateur scene, she began training for the professional rallies. In her first year competing, she won the British Ladies' Rally Championship, about which she will modestly say she was "in the right place at the right time." Managing her rally team became a full time job, and she was able to say goodbye to her dull day job. Grinning, Kate says, "Now, I tell people I'm a rally driver as if I'm in confessional, because it seems more like an addiction than a job."

Now, she drives a Subaru Impreza (which she describes as a "4-wheel-drive, fire-breathing monster") and she and her husband founded HotSeat Motorsport, organising motorsport events for other people. Their newest endeavour is the active support of women in motorsport, including a competition to win not only rally training but one's own rally car. Kate's motivation for this mentoring programme is clear, "I was fortunate enough to have been welcomed into the sport, and I want to make sure the door is kept open to other women who want to get involved."

Learn more about Kate Heath: Hot Seat Motorsport

British Rally Championship photo courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Motorsport Photography.