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The Carol Hollfelder Story: Part I
By Pete Vack
Carol's father Tom captured Carol behind the wheel of the Ferrari 355 Challenge,
and this is one of his favorite photos of his remarkable daughter
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If there are a million stories in the Naked City, there are at least a couple of hundred stories in the ongoing,
rough and tumble Speedvision World Challenge GT Championship. The champion, Michael Galati, is an Italian-born
American whose heroes are Nuvolari, Ascari, Fangio and, another driver born in Italy and raised in America,
Mario Andretti. Volumes could be written about Derek Bell, Galati's teammate, who just turned 60 after a
career that includes winning Le Mans five times. Until he started racing at the age of 25, Boris Said had
no idea that his estranged father, also named Boris, raced Grand Prix cars in the 1950s. Each, a story
of courage, guts, irony, determination, and an intense desire to compete and win.
Carol and the 355 down through the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca, during the
Speedvision World Challenge GT Championship, one of the most competitive and tough series in the U.S.
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Or, take perhaps, Carol Hollfelder. The only woman competing in the GT championship, she faces the
natural and man made obstacles facing women competitors. Carol squares off against the top German,
American and Japanese GT cars with an outclassed Ferrari 355 F1 Challenge car. And unlike everyone
else, Carol only has the use of her hands to get that Ferrari around the track, for she is paralyzed
from the chest down. Perhaps, more than any other driver today, hers is truly the story of courage,
guts, determination and an intense desire to compete in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles.
Like many fierce competitors, certain traits appeared early. Carol was born on October 16, 1968, to Tom and
Bea Hollfelder, in Covina, California, a suburb of the rapidly expanding Los Angeles area. She was the second
girl born to the Hollfelder family, the first being Cathy, some five years earlier. At birth, and for the first
years of her life, Carol was very small for her age, and gave her parents some cause for concern. But early on,
it was clear that the new girl on the block was a tough cookie with a very determined attitude.
Carol was already quite different from her older sister Cathy. "When Carol was small she owned one doll,
but had a large collection of Match Box cars. And the only reason she had the doll is because her uncle
insisted on buying it for her," says her mother. If Carol was precocious, she came by it honestly. Bea
started buying and driving Sunbeam Alpines and Tigers, in the 1960s, and actively campaigned BMWs and
Tigers until very recently. The Hollfelder team is named Tiger Racing, which stemmed from Bea's close
affiliation with Sunbeams.
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