Monday at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology was just like any other Monday leading into finals. Students across campus were scurrying to their final exams for the semester, hoping that the coffee they were carrying would somehow filter one more answer into their brain through some sort of osmosis.
As anyone who has sat through rigorous college finals can attest, it’s one of the more stressful experiences in a young adult’s life.
But one student on campus was heading to her exams – Numerical Methods of Engineering Analysis, Measurement Systems and Physics of Stars – with an extra pep in her step, and it had nothing to do with caffeine.
Mandy Chick is in her junior year at Rose-Hulman, pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. She’s also in her rookie year in the ARCA Menards Series.
RELATED: Mandy Chick’s ARCA stats
Chick traveled to Daytona International Speedway the week before hoping just to make it through the week, keep her race car in one piece in the race and come away with a top-15 finish.
Her weekend at the World Center of Racing didn’t start out well. Her No. 74 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Chevrolet didn’t make it out on track for Thursday’s practice, making that top-15 goal seem a little less achievable.
But as the field thundered off Turn 4 on the final lap of Saturday’s race, there was that No. 74 car weaving through the pack of cars at the front of the field and flashing under Denise Engle’s checkered flag in fifth place.
It was an improbable finish for her family-owned race team and one that made headed back for exams a little less stressful.
“It’s been wild,” Chick said of the week following the race at Daytona. “I don’t really know how to return to normal life after something like that. How do you come back down to Earth and focus on finals after finishing fifth at Daytona?”
It hasn’t really been a return to normal. She now has achieved a level of celebrity on campus, even among those who had no idea she was a racer or that her school is her main sponsor.
“Everyone on campus has been so stoked since Saturday,” she said. “The administration and faculty have all been super supportive. The president even had a watch party at his house on Saturday. There are a lot of people on campus who had no idea who I was before Saturday but are coming up to me and congratulating me.
“There is even a professor I have who has been less than receptive to my racing career,” she continued. “He didn’t really make it too easy on me when we went to Daytona in January for the pre-season practice. It seemed like he was questioning my commitment to my career. But when we got back on Monday, he was one of the first to come up and congratulate me. He was shocked. He was very complimentary.”
Once she did get on to the race track during Friday’s qualifying session, Chick knew she had a race car that was capable of getting to the front.
“I knew we had a rocketship,” she said. “In my head, I adjusted my goals from a top-15 to a top-10 or even a top-five finish. If I hadn’t gotten that speeding penalty when we came and got fuel, I think we may have been in position to battle it out for the win.”
Chick has a lot of experience racing late models all across the Midwest, but it’s still a big moment to make your debut at Daytona, and even more of a moment to be in contention for the win in your debut.
“There is always going to be some nervousness and an ounce of doubt when you’re a rookie,” she said of her feelings on the final lap. “When we came into turns three and four, it was a “full send” moment. I stopped thinking about it and just went for it. There was a hole that opened up in front of me and I just went for it. I wasn’t paying attention to what position we were in, I was just trying to get by as many cars as I could. I didn’t even know we were fifth until they came on the radio after the race and said ‘P-5, good job!’”
It was also a big day for her father, Steve. A long-time team owner who fielded trucks in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was one of the first to meet his daughter once she stopped her car in the garage area after the race.
“He just about blew my eardrums out when he got to me,” she said with a laugh. “He just kept telling me how proud he was of me. This is what we have been building towards for all these years and it’s all starting to pay off.”
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