Great Clips driver Gabi DiCarlo is a force to be reckoned with. Last season, in her rookie year in the ARCA RE/MAX Series, DiCarlo finished 11th in the series points standings. In addition, she was the highest-finishing female driver and posted three top-15 finishes and 10 top-20 finishes.

“The 2007 season was a learning season for our Great Clips team as well as for Stringer Motorsports,” said DiCarlo. “It was our first year in the ARCA RE/MAX Series, and also my first time racing on some of the tracks where we competed. I think that an 11th-place finish in the final point standings is good for a rookie team; however, we’re coming back in 2008 with much higher goals and expectations. We plan to take the Great Clips machine to victory lane.”

GABI’S RACING BACKGROUND

At age 11 Gabi started driving around the kart track with her dad and younger brother, and by age 12 she had entered her first race at the Phoenix Kart Racing Association (PKRA). At age 14 she moved into an 80cc shifter and started racing for KGB North America, a factory supported karting team based in Phoenix. Gabi raced on the national circuit for Team KGB in the Superkarts USA (SKUSA) Pro Moto Tour for two seasons and then moved up to the 125cc shifter kart, again racing the SKUSA Pro Moto Tour for Team KGB.

That season Gabi became the first female in SKUSA Pro Moto history to finish a national season in the top 12. The same year she became the first female to ever compete in and to win the PKRA 125 Championship.

Gabi competed on the national karting circuit for four years. At age 16 she was old enough to race cars and was ready to continue her progression to open wheel formula car racing. She enrolled in the Jim Russell Driving School where she completed the Techniques of Racing course and then the Advanced Racing course, where she drove the Formula Russell racecar. Gabi competed in a number of races in the Formula Russell Championships in 2002 and finished consistently in the top 10. In the winter of 2002 Gabi was invited to the 2002 Jim Russell Graduate Run-Offs. After three grueling days of on-and-off track performance critiques, she was one of the top-20 semi-finalists out of more than one hundred drivers.

Gabi has raced a Formula Mazda in the Star Mazda Western Series Championship and finished the 2004 season as ‘Rookie of the Year,’ and came in fifth place in the point championship. In 2005, she competed in select USAR Hooters Pro Cup events as well the ASA Speed Truck Challenge and Star Mazda Western Series Championship.

For the 2006 season, Gabi participated in the Irwindale Auto Club Late Model Series as well as the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series Northern Division for Stringer Motorsports and sponsor Great Clips.

In the Hooters Pro Cup Series, Gabi recorded her first top-10 finish of her young career at South Boston Speedway on August 5. She followed that with a career-best eighth-place finish at Madison International Speedway on August 19.

Her two top-10 finishes earned her the Miller Lite Rookie-of-the-Race for each event, being the first female to receive this award in the history of the Hooters Pro Cup Series. Although Gabi didn’t compete in the first three Northern Division events, she was still able to finish the 2006 season in 21st place.