Robin MccCall

Robin McCall is the youngest female driver to have raced in NASCAR, aged eighteen in 1982. 

She had a brief Winston Cup career in 1982, entering four races and starting two, both at Michigan. She did not qualify for two races at Charlotte, the first of which she entered a couple of days after graduating from high school. Her car was a Buick, owned by Jim Stacy. She did not finish either Michigan race, due to an engine failure at about half-distance in the first race and a crash early on the second. This was the end of her time in NASCAR; she had signed a five-year deal with Jim Stacy Racing but was unable to find the necessary funds to keep her seat. 

Robin had been racing full-sized stock cars for less than two years when she made her Cup debut, although she had been a successful midget racer from the age of eight. Throughout the 1970s she won multiple titles in her home state of Texas and beyond, including a Grand National championship in 1979. She spent 1981 racing in the All Pro Super Series in a Pontiac Firebird. 

Away from the Winston Cup, she raced on short tracks and in Late Models, before switching to sportscars in 1984. She returned to the All Pro Super Series in 1983, driving a Chevrolet Camaro. Her schedule took in tracks as far apart as Pensacola, Florida and Cayuga, Ontario, where she was 21st in the Molson 300. 

That year, her first foray into sportscars was the Lime Rock round of the Kelly American Challenge. She shared a Pontiac Le Mans with Bill Johnson.

She was linked with a 1984 NASCAR drive for TG Sheppard’s team, which was considering offering her a backup driver role, but this did not happen. Robin became something of an irregular racer and made one-off appearances in various championships. In 1985, she competed in SCCA Sports Renault as well as the Kelly American Challenge, where she shared a Camaro with Scott Flatt and finished ninth at East Rutherford.

She raced in the IMSA championship and in the 1985 Daytona 24 Hours. Her car was a Corvette run by Southern Racing, but she and her two co-drivers, Gary Baker and Joe Ruttman, did not finish. They made it to the 21st hour but were well down, having needed a lengthy pitstop for a new rear end.

In November that year, she married racer and crew chief Wally Dallenbach Jr. She was 21 and he was 22. 

She did make another appearance in IMSA in 1987, driving an Oldsmobile Toronado for Irv Hoerr’s team. She was fourteenth, from 28th on the grid. 

Later, she was a member of the PPG Pace Car team that provided safety cars and precision driving displays at CART and Indycar events. 

Her daughter Kate was born in 1996. She raced Late Models between 2014 and 2016.