Like many of us, Samantha Tan learned the fundamentals of car handling in an electric Power Wheels Jeep when she was 6 years old. She fondly recalls driving around the house in it “trying to do 180s” and remarked that even then, she enjoyed the feeling of speed and control. Only a true racer would spend their childhood clipping apexes in the living room.
The Power Wheels Jeep gave way to a significantly faster go-kart and she says that she enjoyed it so much, that she decided to go into racing. Now 16, Tan has been competitively racing cars for four months now. Her first race was at Virginia International Raceway where she drove her Honda Civic to a fourth place finish. A fairly impressive first race, considering she started fifth on the grid.
“The first time I competed in a race car, I was completely overwhelmed and completely shocked,” she says. “There aren’t any electronic aids, there’s no ABS, there’s no stability management, and there’s no power steering, so you really have to wrestle with it.”
Tan now drives a 2010 Mini Cooper S JCW in the Canadian Touring Car Championship. Her car has just over 200 horsepower and is up against other compacts like Honda Civics and Mazda 2s.
Samantha Tan
Clayton Seams, Driving
Tan enjoys motorsports and hopes to keep racing for the foreseeable future. She says that she wants to “get into the Ferrari Challenge series” in the future and that racing in Formula One has “been a dream of mine since I was a little kid.”
“When you get a turn right, the feeling you get afterwards is just amazing. The intensity of passing cars and getting right under their bumper is just so much fun,” she says. Tan truly enjoys racing and she’s very good at it considering she’s at an age when most teens are just learning to parallel park. Her natural talent and enthusiasm for racing combined with the excellent direction of her coach, Pierre Savoy, will make Tan a name to watch during this CTCC season.
