{"id":1498,"date":"2019-08-29T00:35:44","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T04:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=1498"},"modified":"2023-05-04T13:49:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T17:49:46","slug":"through-highs-and-lows-amy-ruman-keeps-the-trans-am-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/29\/through-highs-and-lows-amy-ruman-keeps-the-trans-am-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Through highs and lows, Amy Ruman keeps the Trans Am faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If anyone was ever raised to be a Trans Am racer, it\u2019s Amy Ruman. Her father, Bob, was a longtime competitor, entering nearly 100 Trans Am races in his career and many more SCCA GT-1 contests. Amy won her first Trans Am race in his old car in 2011. In the current generation of the Trans Am Series Presented by Pirelli, she\u2019s been once of the constants and is a two-time champion with 16 victories to her name. And she has no plans to go anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the cars themselves keep us coming back. Plus we own all the equipment \u2013 it would be kind of hard to start over,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI really love the series. Our cars, there\u2019s nothing else like it out there. They\u2019re unique. We don\u2019t have any driver aids, no traction control, no fuel injection. They\u2019re fast and fun to drive. I like the style of racing, plus I like the format. I think 100 miles is a good format; fans can be excited for the entire time, and I think it\u2019s kind of a fan favorite, because it is shorter. I think it is a good timeframe for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Now competing in the McNichols Metals Service Center Chevrolet Corvette, Ruman got her start in autocross and SCCA Spec Racers alongside her sister Nikki. She\u2019s competed in SCCA GT-1 \u2013 scoring a podium at the 2010 SCCA National Championship Runoffs \u2013 the Spec Racer Pro Series and the Women\u2019s Global GT Series. And, of course, she scored the 2015 and 2016 Trans Am championships. In doing so, she added the honor of being the first female champion, along with being the first woman to win a Trans Am race with her first victory in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt meant a lot,\u201d Ruman says of winning her first race and the back-to-back titles. \u201cThat first win we got meant a lot, because we\u2019d been trying at that point for a long time between myself and my dad to win, and we finally won one and it was a great feeling. The first championship, it was a real battle and we ended up winning it and it was awesome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s kind of the highs and lows and the peaks and pits of racing. You can be on top winning, do no wrong \u2013 kind of like how Ernie [Francis Jr.] did for a bit. You go through a cycle sometimes. So it meant a lot to my family and to myself. It\u2019s a big deal to win any kind of championship. To win it twice is crazy. And we won it in the 50th Anniversary year and that made it special. Being the first female to do it made it even more special for some people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/racerdigital.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/08\/thumbnail_ruman-portrait-9730_rsj.jpg?w=1000&amp;h=666\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-204207\" data-attachment-id=\"204207\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"thumbnail_Ruman-portrait-9730_RSJ\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/racerdigital.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/08\/thumbnail_ruman-portrait-9730_rsj.jpg?w=1000\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/racerdigital.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/08\/thumbnail_ruman-portrait-9730_rsj.jpg?w=300\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/racerdigital.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/08\/thumbnail_ruman-portrait-9730_rsj.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,666\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/racer.com\/2019\/08\/28\/through-highs-and-lows-amy-ruman-keeps-the-trans-am-faith\/thumbnail_ruman-portrait-9730_rsj\/\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-204207\">\u201cIt\u2019s kind of the highs and lows and the peaks and pits of racing,\u201d Ruman says of her Trans Am experiences. \u201cYou can be on top winning, do no wrong. You go through a cycle sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amy\u2019s quick to give credit to her team and says she couldn\u2019t do it without them, or her parents. Ruman also says she doesn\u2019t dwell on the fact that she\u2019s a woman racer winning races and championships. While she\u2019s proud to have accomplished what she has, and hopes she\u2019s a role model for girls, it\u2019s not something she concentrates on. As she says, the car doesn\u2019t know her gender, and she and the team have long proven that they are worthy of their place on the grid and in the record books. Now she\u2019s concentrating on getting back to the top step of the podium.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re still here and we\u2019re still having fun, although on certain weekends we\u2019re not,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been struggling the last few years. The Pirelli tire change seemed to impact some of our setups and I\u2019ve been struggling with that. We\u2019re trying to work our way back up. We changed the body style, we changed some other stuff, but everybody\u2019s upping their ante. Some guys have newer cars, some people are spending a lot more money than we are. I think a lot of factors come into play and it makes things different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I think as long as McNichols is interested, we\u2019ll still be interested. We finally moved into third in the points standings in Indy. But there\u2019s a lot of competition, a lot of racing left in the year and I think it will be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If anyone was ever raised to be a Trans Am racer, it\u2019s Amy Ruman. Her father, Bob, was a longtime competitor, entering nearly 100 Trans Am<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}