Even at an early age, Autumn Schwalbe of Hartland, Michigan wasn’t willing to stick to conventional feminine pursuits. Now the owner of Race Ready Marketing, a motorsport-focused agency that connects drivers with sponsors and event organizers, she says that her interest in fast cars was obvious from the get-go.
“As a little girl I had more Hot Wheels than Barbie dolls,” she tells us. “My parents drag raced and have always been into cars – my mom even more so than my dad – and I think that was a big influence on me. I was a tomboy, and I basically grew up in the garage helping them out with their projects. Eventually they asked me if I wanted to get into a project of my own, and I was like, ‘Yeah – I’ve been waiting for this moment!’”
Schwalbe’s first ride was a red 1993 Ford Mustang. Initially tuned to be a streetable drag car, the Fox Body’s 302-inch small-block was outfitted with a Vortech supercharger and was capable of laying down consistent mid-12-second ETs at the strip, though in recent years it’s become more of a Pro Touring affair. “It needed a revamp after the beating it took during my teenage years,” she says with a laugh. “I still tear around in that car here and there. It now has a Ridetech independent rear suspension and a strutless upper and lower control arm setup up front. I might do a Coyote swap at some point, but for now it’s a fun corner-carving cruiser.”
A self-described Ford fangirl, in 2019 Schwalbe decided that she wanted to add a second Fox Body Mustang to the stable that was purpose-built for the drag strip. That led her to a ’89 hatchback in Smoke, a rare light gray factory paint color that helped the car stand out in the staging lanes. Outfitted with a Whipple-supercharged Gen 2 Coyote 5.0-liter V8, Schwalbe competed in the NMRA’s Street Race 8.60 Index class for two seasons before an incident in 2023 turned her world upside down.
“It was the second race of the season, at Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina,” she recalls. “We unloaded the car and everything seemed normal, but in the burnout box before my first test pass, something felt a little off. I just brushed it off and made my run. At the top end of the track, I think something broke in the rear end, which then caused one of the rear wheels to lock up. I lost control of the car at about 160 miles per hour.”
The Mustang veered sharply into the next lane, rolling several times before coming to rest on the retaining wall. Bruised up and badly shaken, Schwalbe was miraculously unharmed otherwise, an outcome that inspired her to become an outspoken advocate for driver safety equipment.
“There’s no question that the HANS device and the other safety gear that I had in the car quite literally saved my life,” she points out. “I feel an obligation to tell my story to folks so they can get a better understanding of how important this stuff is. If you race, it’s not a matter of ‘if’ an incident will happen – it’s when.”
Rattled and left without a suitable competition car, Schwalbe understandably took a step back from racing life for a bit. But a few months later, she decided she was ready to get back into the swing of things.
“My friend Kevin McKenna reached out and asked if I wanted to make some passes in his 2014 Mustang – a supercharged GT, nothing crazy – at Norwalk, his local track,” she explains. “I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it – I’ll meet you there.’” Running in the NMRA All-Female True Street class, Schwalbe says that after some initial jitters she quickly gained her confidence back, along with her passion for competition. Although she still didn’t have a race car of her own, she thankfully didn’t have to look far to find a viable candidate for the job.
“Chris [Bluga] had bought this ‘89 Mustang notchback off of Facebook Marketplace back in 2022,” she says. “It was basically a rolling shell that needed everything. When he found it, he was like, ‘Autumn, this one’s the same color as your race car!’ And we had this idea that we were going to do ‘his and hers’ Mustangs. He sent the car to a fab shop to build a 25.5-certified cage for it, build the rear end, and basically make it into a badass drag car. Then I had my accident, and when I started looking for another car, he came to me and said, ‘Autumn, the only reason I was building this car was to match you. If you want this car, you’ve got first dibs on it.’ He didn’t want me go buy something from Marketplace that was an unknown. Of course I took him up on the offer.”
