[Auto] AUTO RACING: Saige Hanna can't drive to the track she races on

[King_of_lion]

GOSHEN — There are few things in life that Saige Hanna loves more than auto racing; she just really enjoys going around the quarter-mile track at South Bend Motor Speedway.

One noteworthy fact about Hanna is that, at 15 years of age, she is able to race on the track at the speedway, but is not yet old enough to drive herself to the speedway.

Not long ago she got her learner’s permit to get her Indiana driver’s license. She will not turn 16 until next year.

“I have been around racing all my life,” Saige said.

She comes from a racing family, as her father is Charlie Hanna, who won The Goshen News’ Greatest Athlete of All-Time contest last spring, and her grandfather is local racing legend Doug Hanna.

“I remember going to the garage with grandpa and chewing on the dirty wrenches,” she said.

“When she was a baby, I would take her to the races and the track noise would put her to sleep,” Amy Hanna, Saige’s mom, said.

This is Saige’s second season competing in the Hornet Division at South Bend. Charlie Hanna shared that the top speeds for the class are 65 to 70 miles per hour.

“It is basically the beginner’s class. You are not allowed to soup-up your car. About all you can do is put a cage in the car,” Charlie said. “You can’t go under 15 seconds for a lap. If you do they bump you up to the next class where the cars are souped-up. We don’t want that for Saige at this point. She would be racing cars with a lot more horsepower. She was getting close to being bumped up last week when she turned a lap in 15.31 seconds.”

According to Charlie Hanna, who began his racing career at 15, there are no restrictions as to the age of the driver.

“You get your car ready, fill out the paperwork and pay the $20,” Saige said. “There are practice sessions on Thursday nights and they have members of the safety crew watching.”

After watching her dad and grandpa race over the years, there came a point when Saige knew it was time to begin her own career.

“I went up to dad and told him I was ready for it,” she said.

Dad was okay with the decision, but admitted the first race he had some issues.

“I didn’t think that much about it at first, but the first time she was in a race it scared the crap out of me,” Charlie said. “I try to watch her as a driver, but I become a parent.

“I tried to use Facebook Live on one of her recent races. Friends told me not to do that because I was so nervous the camera would not stay still. Now I let my wife, Amy, handle the videos.”

Amy Hanna was a harder sell on Saige’s racing career.

“Saige is the youngest of the six kids and the only girl that Amy and I have together,” Charlie said. “We had to talk her into the idea. Now she is a race track mom. She helps in the pits changing tires.”

“At first I was scared, but now I am proud of her,” Amy added. “I wasn’t sure that I wanted her doing something like this when she was only 14. I have seen some of the wrecks in the smaller cars and it can be pretty frightening, but Charlie promised me he would make the car safe.”

Saige Hanna drives a 2004 Dodge Neon.

She believes she has inherited some of her driving instincts from her dad and her grandpa.

“I’ve had a few accidents. The worst injury so far has been a bump on my back,” Saige said. “Grandpa and dad were pretty clean racers. I have a lot of respect for the two of them and am trying to race as they did.”

“Saige has really good instincts on the track,” Charlie added. “She missed a four- or five-car pileup and the only way she could have was by instinct.

“For me, everything on the track goes into slow motion. Seeing the race like that is how you can avoid accidents. It took me five or six years of racing to develop those kinds of instincts. Saige is already starting to show them in her second season. If you have to think about what you are going to do in a situation, it’s too late and that is when you have an accident.”

Doug Hanna began his racing career in 1968.

“Grandpa was a very good driver,” Saige said. “He built his own cars.”

Grandpa is keeping a close eye on Saige’s progress.

“Saige has pretty good instincts and she listens a lot to her grandpa,” Amy said. “He comes around every Sunday morning to walk around and look at her car. If he sees a mark or a dent on the car, he will ask her ‘What happened here?’”

So far, Saige has run 10 races in her career. She won a feature at South Bend last season in just her fourth race.

“It was very exciting and I was shocked that I won,” she said. “There were 14 cars in the field and I had to start in the back. I worked my way up the field into second place and then the first-place car went over their time and had to go back to the end of the field.”

During qualifications, lap times are determined and drivers are not allowed to exceed those times in the race without facing the penalty of having to go to the back of the field.

The younger Hanna is looking ahead to the future in the sport.

“I’m feeling better this season and more comfortable on the track,” she said. “Next year I’m thinking about moving up to Street Stocks, which is one of the divisions grandpa raced in.

“In the future, one of my goals is to race at tracks like Kalamazoo and Winchester.”

“She wanted to make the jump to Street Stocks this year but I felt it best to wait another year,” Charlie added. “Street Stocks is a jump. You are going from a little four-cylinder engine with about 189 horsepower (Hornet Division) to a car that has between 450 to 500 horsepower. That makes the car more difficult to handle. You are also going from a front-wheel-drive car to a rear-wheel one, which also affects handling. There is a learning curve to the change.”

In addition to auto racing, Saige, who will be a sophomore at Goshen High School this fall, plays volleyball and softball for the RedHawks, as well as competing on travel teams.