Newcastle teenager Charlotte Poynting has won a public vote to become the first race driver to do a lap of the city’s new street circuit on Friday morning.
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The Warners Bay 19-year-old, who competes in the Aussie Racing Cars Championship, will lead the way when drivers start their first practice session at 8.40am.
The Aussie Racing Cars are one of five support categories at this weekend’s Newcastle 500 Supercars round.
“I am so nervous and excited. I’m just ready for it to be Friday,” Poynting said on Monday after hearing she had won the vote.
“It’s been quite a stressful lead-up with it being at home and feeling like I really have to perform.”
Being the first driver to try out the track was an honour she would not forget.
“Obviously, being local, it’s a really cool thing for me to be able to hold forever. It’s a history-making thing that no one will get to take from me. I’ll be very proud to say that I was the first out.”
Poynting has competed in the Aussie Racing Cars series for the past two years and is 12th overall this year. Last year, at Hampton Downs in New Zealand, she became the first female driver to win a race in the championship’s 20-year history.
She said she had shed a tear when she found out in November last year that the 2017 season would finish on the streets of Newcastle.
All cars in the series are mechanically identical and have the low centre of gravity and high cornering speed of an open-wheeler.
She will reach speeds up to 210km/h on some sections of the track and, like the star drivers in the main Supercars series, expects the new circuit to be a tough challenge.
“It looks really cool. I did my first lap of it last night with the Esplanade being open, and it’s going to be quick and very technical.”
Poynting’s father, Andrew, started racing karts after a serious crash preparing for the Bridge to Bridge race ended his ski boat racing career.
He bought his daughter a kart when she was 11, and she has not looked back.
Read more: Newcastle Supercars 2017: The complete guide
“Since I started racing go-karts, my main goal was Supercars. The next step would be Porsche Carrera Cup and then I’d even look at European GP,” she said.
Poynting is working two jobs, as a secretary at sponsor Newcastle Auto Electrics and behind the bar at the Queen’s Wharf Hotel, to finance her motor racing dream. The cars in her series cost $65,000, and each round sets her back about $10,000.
“Sponsorship’s so hard this year. We thought it would be a bit easier with Newcastle, and it’s helped a bit, but not as much as what we were hoping for. Me, my dad and my mum work very hard to make it all happen.”
She will have her first qualifying session at 1.05pm on Friday before three 11-lap races on the weekend.
