Fast times at Hamblen

Calling Sharon Shelley-Ray “driven” is likely a grand understatement. Being a driver – and driven – is probably a better description of the petite first-grade teacher at Spokane’s Hamblen Elementary School.

Multi-tasking and multi-talented, Shelley-Ray quietly made minor headlines last fall when she piloted her dragster to the championship in the Spokane Pro Gas Association. The little-known fact is she beat her husband, Randy, by a mere two points to most likely become the first woman to win a championship in that class.

In her real day job of molding the futures of youngsters on the city’s South Side, Shelley-Ray doesn’t make headlines, but she does make impressions. “She’s a wonderful teacher,” said co-worker Dana Mattox

“She knows her job,” said Mattox , a kindergarten teacher at the school. “She’s fun to work with. She has a sense of humor that she hides. Only certain people get to see it.”

Shelley-Ray’s racer-persona is well hidden.

“You don’t give that (racer look) off; you don’t have a dare-devil look,” Mattox said.

“I don’t know how you do what you do and what you do here,” Mattox said to Shelly- Ray. “Because this is a hard job. I work half-time and I couldn’t have that big of a hobby outside of what I do (at school).”

Third-grade teacher Debbie Miller said Shelley-Ray “works really well with kids because of her ability to stay focused. (She) has a number of special-needs students in her class.”

The fact that Shelley-Ray drag races, “tickles the kids,” Mattox said. Shelley-Ray once brought her helmet and shoulder harness for the kindergarteners to examine. “They thought that was major-league cool,” Mattox said in her Texas drawl.

“She’s so young and has all this knowledge and education,” said Miller. “She just cracks me up. To look at her I wouldn’t assume that was her hobby.

“She’s just such a tiny little bit of a thing. Soft-spoken. She’s that quiet-and-collected person and to think of her getting into that thing that just goes like a bat outta’ hell,” Miller added.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Hamblen principal Don Warner. “When staff come with varied interests and great activities it just makes the school more enriched. When Sharon told me she was into car racing I was pretty amazed. She just doesn’t fit my stereotype.

“She’s very kind and student- centered. You have to be real competitive too be a racer. I’m proud of her, but surprised,” Warner said.

Parent Kelly Gordon, a volunteer firefighter who has a daughter in Shelley-Ray’s class, said she thinks Shelley-Ray’s hobby is pretty special. “I think it’s incredible. Phenomenal! I became a fire fighter to set an example to my kids that they can grow up to become anything. And to have a little tiny female teacher drive a drag car is incredible.”

Randy Ray went into last season’s Pro Gas Association final race with an opportunity to win the 2006 championship. The only person who stood in his way was his wife, who led the standings by a few points.

Each had calculated how they would be successful. But when Shelley-Ray had an axle break on her Swindal dragster all the math went out the window.

The eventual champ had to nervously watch from the grandstand to see if the margin she had built would hold up.

“I had mixed emotions,” she said as she watched as her husband tried to play catch-up. Randy Ray needed to win two rounds in his 1967 Barracuda to take over the top spot, but went out in the second round, handing his wife the title.

It wasn’t the first time Randy Ray had his dreams of a title thwarted by his wife. A few years ago, Shelley-Ray’s qualifying run of 10.901 seconds bested Randy’s 10.903, a mere 2/1000ths of second.

Sharon Shelley-Ray leads the friendly competition between the two 6-4 in their careers. “I don’t like to race Randy. I like to BEAT Randy,” she said.

Ray is 11 years older than his wife, who he first met while attending classes at the Spokane Vocational Skills Center, where her father, Phil, was an instructor in automotive technology.

“I annoyed her enough to go out with me,” Ray said, adding “her parents were not too thrilled” when they started dating over a decade ago.

They were married “seven or eight years ago,” Randy Ray said, blaming a new affliction called “racer’s amnesia” for his not recalling the exact length of time the couple had been wed. They have a son, Trevor, 4.

As if her plate was not full enough, Shelley-Ray is about to start work on her national boards, Mattox said. “National Board Certification for Teachers,” Mattox explained. “And it’s a big project.”

National Boards allow a person to teach in any state, by-passing the need to have certification in individual states.

“The actual certificate would be good for 10 years, where now it’s only good for five years,” said Shelley-Ray.

“It’s difficult and a lot of people don’t pass,” according to Shelley-Ray, who estimated that nationally somewhere under 50 percent do not pass.

Shelley-Ray said her devotion to her profession is still No. 1.

“Realistically, I keep it pretty sane with what I spend and my expectations for racing. I have my Masters degree (in special education), and then my boards,” she said.

Shelley-Ray taught at Shaw Middle School before landing at Hamblen. “I decided I wanted to get into more early childhood development,” she said.

She taught special ed kindergarten last year, but moved to first grade this year. Shelley-Ray still gets special- needs students, including an autistic student.

Shelley-Ray attended East Farms and Mountain View Middle School and is a 1982 graduate of East Valley High School. She attended Spokane Community College, receiving her two-year degree, then Eastern Washington for her B.A. and Masters degrees.

“When I say I’m going racing, a lot of them think I run cross country. A lot of people think I’m a runner,” she said.

That notion quickly disappeared recently when Shelley-Ray brought her weekend toy to school for her version of “Show and Tell.”

Reverend Ken Onstot is the pastor at Hamblin Park Presbyterian Church where Shelley-Ray teaches Sunday School. He had never seen the car before it landed in his parking lot prior to her displaying it at school. Onstot remarked he “was tempted” to see if he could use it as a recruiting tool.

A crowd gathered in the church parking lot as Shelley- Ray fired up the motor and carefully drove it across Thurston Avenue and parked it in front of the school sign.

Shelley-Ray’s racing hobby started in high school. Older sister Karen was the driver.

“I actually wasn’t going to race,” Shelley-Ray said. “One day my mom … said why don’t you race it today.

“I was at the Skills Center and I raced for my dad.”

Beginning with a 1972 Nova, “I was in the slowest class known to man, Bracket 10,” Shelley-Ray recalled.

Gradually she made it to Bracket 7, then moved to the quicker and faster Super Street and Pro classes that shoot down the quarter-mile in 11 seconds.

Shelley-Ray soon graduated to the Pro Gas class with her “door car,” and did well for some time. But an offer she couldn’t pass up got her into the long and lean dragster that Shelley-Ray has been driving since 2002. She found it in Seattle where it belonged to a kid who “didn’t know how to drive it and was breaking parts so he dumped it cheap.”

“I love the dragster,” she said, “because I could work on it more.”

Shelley-Ray takes the car to the track by herself from time to time and does most everything herself to run it.

“Except backing up” after the burnout that heats the tires, she said. “I have some friends who will back me out and spot me.

“It’s pretty cheap to go fast in a dragster, expense-wise,” she said with a pause. “We’re teachers,” suggesting there is not a lot of extra cash left over to throw big bucks at a race car.

The best quarter-mile elapsed time Shelley-Ray has is in the 8.30-second range at speeds approaching 170 mph.

“I keep it sane. I really don’t run it hard. I was running it hard last year when I broke the axle.” That, of course, came in that final Spokane Pro Gas Association race in 2006 when Shelley-Ray was in the battle with her husband for the season championship.

“I was trying to make it do something I shouldn’t have,” she explained. “I wanted to be No. 1 qualifier” which would give her a first-round bye and an advantage in the championship chase.

The combination of trying for just the right amount of power to compensate for the paved track at Spokane Raceway Park resulted in the breakage and nearly cost her the title.

True to her teacher nature, Shelley-Ray views her weekend hobby as more than just racing. “It’s science,” she reasons.

“That’s what we like about racing. You’re looking at the weather. You’re making predictions. It’s a math game.”

The winner is, “whomever has the best strategy for that particular race.”

Some of that strategy Shelley-Ray was willing to share showed up last year in an early Pro Gas race, and against her husband, among others. An electronic device called a delay box can have trickery built in.

Shelley-Ray set hers up to fake like she was braking, or “dumping” as she terms it, near the finish line so she would not exceed her selected “dial-in,” an elapsed time a driver cannot exceed. She also, however, had programmed in one last little push that boosted her past her husband for the win.

“I did that for probably two races and then they catch on so I had to switch it,” she said.

Shelley-Ray may be in the minority when she speaks highly of the racing surface at SRP. “Spokane is a fabulous track. I love it. It’s very smooth. It’s got a long shutoff area.”

The shutoff area might have come in handy last year during a final round of Pro Gas competition where she “lifted” off the throttle to slow down in hopes of beating her rival.

As she “flew by him,” Shelley-Ray “got on the brakes pretty hard,” she recalled. “One of them caught a little bit and turned me sideways.”

Her dad didn’t notice at first, “but other people did,” so they quickly informed Phil Shelley his daughter went a bit sideways.

“A dragster wants to go straight so all you have to do is point it straight and it’s going to go.” So how far out of shape did the car get? “Dad has tape and you can see some of the lettering on the side.”

Shelley-Ray said she’s won a lot of races and has been racing a long time.

Among the notable victories came in a big bracket race at Silverwood a few years ago. But the Pro Gas title was her first championship.

“I’ve always been in the top five (in points),” she said.

“I race with really good racers so to be a champion last year really meant a lot. It doesn’t come easy.”

The Spokane competition is good, Shelley-Ray said.

“I go to Seattle once in a while,” in order to run in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).

But to go to Seattle “is really expensive on a teacher’s wages. And you’re racing people who have a lot of money. We talk about our computer programs and weather stations,” Shelley- Ray said. “They have multiples of everything.”

“They’re beatable, but here in Spokane you are racing people who are all pretty much even. You have fun. None of us have the best of everything but we have a really good time.”

And that’s something that really drives Sharon Shelley-Ray.