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Veterinarian Carls Among Street Stock Leaders At Motor Mile

A busy veterinarian from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley gets a break from her practice each weekend during the summer as a NASCAR driver.

Dr. Sheryl Carls, 51, of Lexington, Va., is among the points leaders in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Street Stock division at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Va. Carls has finished as high as second through the first third of the 2009 season.

Carls has been racing for eight seasons, and got her first taste of competition in a Powder Puff race on a Virginia dirt track.

“I absolutely loved it,” Carls said.

That led her husband/crew chief, Woody Dykes, to give her an Oldsmobile Cutlass Street Stock for Christmas in 1999.

“I didn’t go very fast the first time out, but I did better in every race,” she said. “In the second season, I was the first woman to win a race at that track and became the first woman to win a championship there.”

Carls wanted to race longer distance events, and figured Enduro racing would let her drive longer races on a budget.

“We ran in Enduros at Caraway, Concord and South Boston,” but knew when she arrived at Motor Mile Speedway, that the track suited her perfectly.

Since 2004, Carls has not finished outside the top 10 in the division points standings, and improved each year. Her best season-to-date is 2008, when she won the first two races of the season and finished third in the Street Stock championship points standings.

Carls drives the 1973 No. 0 Camaro sponsored by her veterinary clinic, Lexington (Va.) Animal Hospital, Adopt-A-Friend, Advance Auto Parts, Merial Frontline and Heartgard.

Carls says racing is a great weekend escape from her business.

“Racing is my release,” she said. “People’s pets are like their children and they love them. The clinic is always busy with 12 to 14 animals a day. It can be emotional and it can be stressful. When I’m driving that car, all I’m thinking about is driving that car.

“I really like the track, and the guys at Motor Mile treat me like I’m one of them. Brent Bell is the top driver in our division right now, and he’s tough for anyone to beat.”

As a young girl, family vacation trips heading south from New York on Interstate 81 heading to Florida left an impression on her. She fell in love with the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. When she wanted to purchase an established practice to call her own, she found exactly what she was looking for in Lexington, Va.

“The person I bought the practice from had it for sale for 12 years,” Carls said. “He felt like he was turning over longtime family members with his clientele. Today, we probably have between 1,700 and 2,000 animals in our care.”

A graduate of Cornell University in New York, Carls was always going to be a veterinarian. In hindsight she says, “I would have taken auto mechanics in high school.”