Fast Track, Cool Customer

There might not be anything that can test your nerves as much as being behind the wheel of a race car going about 200 miles per hour down a narrow track. But, as any pro driver can tell you, it takes nerves of steel to make the cut. What’s more, being a driver isn’t just about having talent behind the wheel: it’s about focus, discipline and drive.

Glorymar Fernandez is as cool and composed as can be. The petite driver from San Juan, Puerto Rico is one of the very few women, and even fewer Latinas, to have made a name for themselves in professional racing, and it seems, not much can rattle her. In addition to her high-octane profession, she’s also been named the spokesperson for the new video game from EA called Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the newest incarnation of the famous video game series that was released on October 30.

Glorymar began her career in 2004, but it was long before that when she discovered an interest in cars and all things automotive. Unlike many drivers, she doesn’t come from a racing family. Instead, it was her group of older friends who introduced her to this world. One day when riding as a passenger in her friend’s car, she felt the sensation of speed and adrenaline and instantly knew that racing would be her future.

Was she ever intimidated by the intense speeds the sport demanded of her? “Para nada,” she says. In fact, a sense of fearlessness and calm under pressure is simply part of her nature, she says. And she owes that in part to her mother, a cool customer in her own right. Glorymar says she grew up thinking: “If things are destined to happen, they are destined to happen. Why be afraid of things?”

Even working in such an overwhelmingly male field as racecar driving didn’t cause her more than a moment of worry. Working in this world does demand a bit of toughness she says, but like any professional woman in an industry primarily made up of men, she decided to demand respect as an equal right at the start of any new working relationship.

On the racetrack, as in life, a million things can happen that shake your determination. You can get sideswiped, bumped or a crash can happen just in front of you, but the point is not to let those things make you lose focus, she says. So it’s critical for Glorymar to stay single minded when on the course. “I am focused on what I want to do and I am very determined,” she says.

To prepare before a race, she closes her eyes and pictures the course, she says. When you are behind the wheel you can’t let your mind wander to the little things you might have to do, but the point is not to let those things make you lose focus

Also, Glorymar says it’s important to keep in top physical and mental condition. As the car races around the track, the interior temperature can rise to a sweltering temperature. To be able to keep her focus on the road and not the heat, she does a lot of cardio and resistance exercise.

Between her job, keeping fit and the other projects she has taken on, including creating a coloring book that benefits children’s cancer charities in Puerto Rico, there is not much free time to spare. But there is one activity that she enjoys, and the focus of which is close to home. On these rare days off, video games relax her, she says. When she’s behind the controls of Need for Speed instead of her steering wheel, she can’t help but apply her steady focus and concentration. The added bonus of the game’s life-like graphics help keep it feeling real, she says.