“Any Driver Wants to be the Best:” An Interview with Hillary Will
Written by Sheila Scarborough · September 23, 2006
Hillary Will and her KB Racing LLC Top Fuel team still need to qualify here at the NHRA O’Reilly Fall Nationals in Texas, and the rain is starting to threaten, but you’d never know that from her demeanor.
The Ypsilanti, Michigan driver has been in this position before and has moved on to qualify and do well in eliminations. “My job is to do the same thing every time; go out there and drive, and not let it get into my head.” says Will. She is proud of her progress to 9th place in the current Top Fuel POWERade series points standings, and proud of her Kalitta Motorsports-managed team during this rookie year.
That pride and enthusiasm is reflected in her blog on NHRA.com. She used to write pre- and post-race press releases for her Sportsman team, so she knew how to crank out the prose.
“I have to be careful about what and how I write, since my blog is not really filtered through a PR person,” says Will. “I get some interesting responses to it; people sometimes ask me why I’m so ‘down on myself’ especially earlier this season when I was struggling with my reaction times. I tried not to write too much about the problem; I didn’t want to make it a bigger deal than it was. It’s just that this is my life, I want to be better….I’m a rookie, but my team is not, and they deserve a good driver. Any driver wants to be the best. We’re all hard on ourselves.”
Hillary tries to respond to all of her emails because it’s important to her to keep in touch with her fans. She is very much attuned to those who follow and support drag racing, which is why she’s OK with the new “Countdown to the Championship” race format that is scheduled to start next season. Says Will, “We race for the fans, and I think it’s good for the fans so I like it. Now, maybe my opinion will change next year….”
It might seem a bit odd that a magna cum laude Economics graduate from Wheaton College would be out here drag racing, but there was a method to her madness in doing financial analyst work “12 hours a day in a cubicle.” Ms. Will knew from her young days racing in California that someday, this sport was what she wanted to do for a living.
Ever pragmatic, she looked for a way to earn enough money to take care of that racing jones. “I loved economics; how it’s sequential, the graphs, but I wasn’t like those people in my office who would get excited working on number-crunching Excel spreadsheet projects,” says Will. “I knew I would take a different route.”
It takes a lot of mental toughness to succeed in racing, but Ms. Will has learned to deal with frustrations like rain delays. “The worst is on Sunday, when you’re psyched to go and then let down,” says Will, who credits her iPod with keeping her calm. “I love my iPod. If I don’t have it, it’s not a good thing. The music is also good for drowning out the announcers; they get the fans pumped up but [their analysis] is not always what the driver needs to hear.”
She likes a variety of songs: Queen’s “We are the Champions,” Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett’s “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere,” Bob Marley and Sublime. Have some good tunes to suggest? Email Hillary at hillaryfanmail@kalittaracing.com
I asked Hillary for some early New Year’s resolutions for next year, but that’s not her style: “I tend to make resolutions every day rather than wait for the New Year. I’d rather not be one of those people who don’t follow through, who show up to the gym in January but are gone by March. For right now, I’ll say my resolution is to be contending for the championship at this time next year.”
With her team, sponsors and talent, it’s not hard to imagine her there.
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