Grandma, 77, gets racing thrill of a lifetime

You might say Pat Stammer was born to be a little wild.

The 77-year-old Greenville grandma covered new ground Sept. 14 when she took eight laps in a race car — the same kind seen in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide series — at the Milwaukee Mile Speedway, the oldest operating motor speedway in the world located at Wisconsin State Park in West Allis.

The Rusty Wallace Racing Experience was her Mother's Day gift from daughter, Melanie Richardson of Shiocton.

Yes, you heard right.

"She was in seventh heaven," Richardson said of Stammer's reaction after the experience last Sunday. "She came out of that race car and she had thumbs up and she was like, 'This is awesome.' She was almost crying. It was a thrill of a lifetime. I've never seen my mother so excited over anything for such a long time. ... She's still on cloud nine."

Receiving the gift and using it last weekend brought Stammer out of a funk she'd been in, Richardson said, after a tough 2013.

Stammer's husband, Eugene, 78, died at the end of July. And her 26-year-old twin granddaughters were both diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in a two-week span. They now are in remission.

"My mom was struggling with adjusting to single life and everything," Richardson said. "She had mentioned that she wanted to drive a race car as part of her bucket list. Obviously when someone dies, you think about things like that."

Stammer, you see, has always been a big fan of racing.

"I like the sound of the cars," she said. "It gives me goosebumps when I hear them start out and go around the track."

Stammer credits her own mother.

"She liked racing. In the day when I was a kid you just went to the gravel pit like out there by Apple Creek ... and sat on a hill on a blanket and watched races. She liked racing so she took us kids to the races."

As the years passed by, Stammer said she built up a real love for the sport.

"She's just a nut about it," Richardson said of Stammer. "She's got her favorite drivers. She knows what everybody's doing. She knows all the stats. She knows everything about the cars. She's totally into it."

When Richardson discovered a Groupon coupon for the Rusty Wallace Racing Experience at the Milwaukee Mile, she knew it would be the perfect gift for her mother.

Stammer said there was "quite a rigamarole" before she got into the cockpit of the race car, which included driver's meetings, getting a fire suit and instruction. Participants also are provided with a helmet with one-way radio communication and a head-and-neck supportdevice.

"By the time I got through the driver's meeting, I thought, 'Do I really want to do this?'" she said. "I really wasn't excited at all, I have to admit. It did make me a little bit anxious mostly for the fact that I hoped I would remember what I was supposed to do."

Stammer doesn't know how fast she went in her eight laps because the standard transmission vehicle "only had a (tachometer) in there and sometimes tachs are a little bit different," she said.

"My son said it was probably 60 miles per hour. He said I was gaining speed with each lap. He was clocking me as I went by. ... It was a whole lot more fun to drive it. Oh man, what a thrill. Absolutely amazingly awesome for me."

So what's the next thing on Stammer's bucket list?

"I think the next one is a zip line," she said. "At my age you've got to get those things in if you're going to do it."

— Cheryl Anderson: 920-993-1000, ext. 249, canderson@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @chermanderson