Blogger puts feminine twist on motorsports

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Valli Hilaire wanted to offer a different perspective on motorsports, and on NASCAR in particular.

A female perspective.

Hilaire created the motorsports blog “The Fast and the Fabulous” while working as a Web producer with ANG Newspapers, owners of the Oakland Tribune. Knowing that the Bay Area is a hotbed of motorsports fandom — as evidenced by the 100,000 or so fans who turn out every year for NASCAR’s lone regional appearance, at the former Infineon Raceway in Sonoma — she launched the blog in 2006 and took it with her when she left the company.

“No one really cared,” she said. “They thought, ‘Why should we have a blog here, when there’s only one race?’”

Hilaire, 31, a longtime Contra Costa County resident who currently lives in Alameda, knew they were wrong. And she’s proven it ever since, as her blog has drawn the attention of some of NASCAR’s brightest stars and a growing legion of loyal readers.

“Fabulous” was never meant to be a traditional news-style blog, one that focused on statistics and the latest developments, she said. “I didn’t want to do it in a traditional news style of articles and quotes and facts and stats and things like that, because it is just not in me to do it that way,” she said.

“It was always the intention to do it from a female perspective, more about emotions and personalities and things that people weren’t writing about.”

Writing a racing blog for women became even more important for Hilaire when she started getting strongly supportive reader feedback. “So many people would leave comments that would say, ‘You write like my sister or my friend or my daughter. It feels like I’m with you at the track.’ I realized there was a big audience out there for women who like racing as much as I do but who approach it in the same way I do.”

That approach is a focus on “who is this driver as a person?” she said. “Is this someone I would want to know in my own life? What do I like about him? What is he like — period. More of an understanding of what they are like as people.”

Hilaire has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. “I’ve always wanted my own business, to be my own boss. I make the rules. Nobody can tell me how to do something and I get to figure it out all myself.

“This blog has become that for me without being a traditional business,” she said.

A longtime follower of various sports, she became a NASCAR fan in 2001 after Dale Earnhardt died during the Daytona 500.

Always aware of Jeff Gordon, the Vallejo native, Hilaire knew a bit about the sport itself. But after the tragedy that shook the NASCAR community like none other, Hilaire really became hooked.

“There was a documentary on MTV called ‘True Life: I’m a Race Car Driver,’ featuring Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart. It happened to come out the same year as (Earnhardt’s) death. I watched that, and got sucked in that way because of the tradition, and the pomp and circumstance and how every race is a big event,” she said.

“I was hooked. That is what got me started watching every weekend.”

Hilaire’s blog features the quirky side of NASCAR, IndyCar and other motorsports — the stuff, she says, others don’t normally write about.

One of her most popular features the last two years is the “Hottest Driver Tournament.” Another is the series of questions she poses to drivers, made famous by James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio.”

She came up with the idea to ask the questions — “What is your favorite word?” “What is your least favorite word?” “What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?” etc. — in 2010 while in Charlotte, N.C.

She’d landed some media time with Tony Stewart and wanted to go beyond the usual, “How is your car running? How do you like this track?” type of questions.

“I was in the hotel room, sick as a dog, trying to figure out what the heck I was going to ask him,” she said. “I love ‘Inside the Actors Studio,’ it’s one of my all-time favorite shows. I always loved those questions at the end. I was like, that’s it! That’s what am going to ask.”

Stewart was agreeable, and it went over so well, Hilaire said, that she decided to repeat the 10 questions with other drivers. “I’ve done this with about 95 percent of the Sprint Cup Series drivers, I’ve done it with some IndyCar drivers, and Mario Andretti, and some Nationwide Series drivers. I want to get all the Sprint Cup drivers,” she said.

The Hottest Driver Tournament, meanwhile, began last year. Every week readers vote on a series of drivers, gradually eliminating drivers off a grid until only one remains. Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot Chevrolet, won in 2011. Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, won this year.

Recognition of Hilaire and her blog has come gradually, and with it sponsorship to bring her to races in different locations. One company, Hunt Brothers Pizza, flew Hilaire to Kansas for a race and got her an interview with Delana Harvick, wife of driver Kevin Harvick.

Sponsor companies also send her promotional items, which she uses for giveaways on her blog.

“I love giving stuff away, because I’d rather people have it than me, because what am I going to do with all this stuff?”

But she did keep one item.

Pepsi sent Hilaire a promotional package for their new product, Pepsi MAX. The steel box contained three 1-pint bottles of the soft drink, each with a different Jeff Gordon design.

But the box also contained a jump drive. Hilaire thought it would contain a generic message. “But I was so wrong!”

On the drive was a video featuring Gordon delivering a personalized message to Hilaire. The coolest part, she said, was that he mentioned the Hottest Driver Tournament — and gave her a little good-natured ribbing about his not winning.

“I watched that thing like five times. I was on the verge of tears,” she said.

Where does Valli Hilaire and The Fast and the Fabulous go from here? “I want to grow, and to grow traffic to the site,” she said. “I want to go to all the races full time. I want to write about my race weekends like I normally do but for every single race. I feel like if I do that, then the traffic will continue to grow.”

Check out Valli Hillaire’s blog at thefastandthefabulous.com.