hen Tess McMillan talks cars, she speaks in poetry: "When I'm behind the wheel, time becomes very elastic and the experience is much like a dance. I can hear the fluctuations of tone in the engine and transmission, sometimes the rev-limiter, the drawn-out grammar stops groaned by the brakes and the clucking tongue of the stiffened suspension and anti-sway bar. I see changing earth and sky, dappled trees and headlights in my mirrors. It's an almost hypnotic progression of repetitive sound-bites."

McMillan, a CD-ROM builder residing in Seattle who also edits the Porsche Spiel (the magazine of the Pacific Northwest Region Porsche Club of America), has channeled her enthusiasm for driving into a one-of-a-kind confessional Web site. "It is not about the practicalities of owning and driving or getting from point A to point B. It is about the experience of a passionate relationship with driving," McMillan says.

Humble Beginnings
McMillan's automotive relationship began while she was still a child. She recalls an early experience with a fun-loving friend of her mother who had driven all the way from the Southeast to Seattle in her red Fiat 850 Spider: "We used to drive around [Seattle] in that Fiat with the top down, doing all sorts of fun things. I had to sit in the space behind the front seats and I kept sliding from side-to-side as Martha made somewhat excitable steering inputs or managed to stomp on the gas pedal or brake." But McMillan wasn't satisfied to ride in the backseat for long. She also remembers a near-fanatical girlhood attachment to Disneyland's Tomorrowland Autopia ride — one-seater, gas-engine convertible cars that ran on a concrete track — spending hours in line for minutes behind the wheel. "The attraction to sports cars probably started with the concepts of independence, control and the 'experience' of driving," McMillan concludes.

It wasn't until recently, though, that McMillan translated this attraction into ownership. "About five years ago, a friend of mine from graduate school gave me a ride into the country in his nicely restored Triumph TR6. I was a little envious and wished I could own a similar car. Then it hit me: Nobody was stopping me!" She researched her purchase thoroughly, considering all kinds of factors — such as engineering, design and "emotional qualities" — until "I realized I was beginning to have a relationship with cars as living, breathing beings. It's kind of a short leap from there to the friskiness of a love affair," McMillan notes. "The relationship wasn't cemented until I had some seat-time on the track and learned to experience for myself the handling characteristics and emotions of different automobiles."

Need for Speed
McMillan's time on the track has evolved into a passion in its own right — her current goal is to obtain her competition license before the end of this year. "Driving on the track is safer than driving on the freeway. It is physically and mentally demanding, requires keen observation skills, dedication and practice and attention to the changing behavior of the car's hardware," McMillan notes. Recognizing that as a woman her interest in racing is uncommon, McMillan shrugs off commentary: "Once you put the helmet on and get behind the wheel, nobody can tell the difference."

Interested in sharing her passion, McMillan started her Web site in December 1995 to "engage the reader in the kind of focused attention reminiscent of an intimate dialogue." McMillan's plans for the future include adding a section listing clubs and associations, with links, for women thinking of getting started in autocross and performance driving, as well as hosting a page of features for the women racers in the Pacific Northwest. "If that serves to encourage another woman to give some of these things a try, then I've done my job!" McMillan says.

Reported by Kara Reuter, cars.com

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RACING HAIKU
Check out McMillan's series of pithy Japanese poems on cars and driving.

SHAWNA WILSKEY
Meet this 1996 Northern Sprint Tour Champion, also a resident of Seattle.