DIANE TEEL - 02/16/1949 -
(home - Seaford, VA)
Teel was born on February 16, 1948 in Seaford, Virginia. Teel displayed tomboy characteristics from an early age, and often travelled with her father on fishing trips. Teel married mechanic Donnie Teel from nearby Williamsburg in 1965. Teel started her career in auto racing as an courier for Donnie Teel's co-worker Dale Lemonds. She travelled across the states of Virginia and North Carolina searching for spare car parts, and air-dried Lemonds' race car by driving it around a peach orchard. The promoter of Langley Speedway Joe Carver and her husband entered her at the track which was later described as a "publicity type thing” for a local auto car parts store. In the race, Teel spun entering Langley Speedway's front stretch with four laps remaining. Nevertheless, Carver and Teel created a plan to enter her in a full season in the NASCAR Limited Sportsman Division in 1977. In her début race, she finished eighth, and took one second-place along with two third-place finishes that year.
She secured two victories along with several top-ten finishes in the 1978 season and clinched the series championship, which made her the first woman to win a NASCAR track title. She was the first woman to secure a victory at Langley Speedway that same year, which made her the first female to win a NASCAR-sanctioned auto racing event. Teel began competing in the NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series (now called Xfinity Series) in 1982. She qualified for the season's fourth round, the Dogwood 500 at Martinsville Speedway, making her the first woman to start a Budweiser Late ModelSportsman Series race. She finished in the 26th
Martinsville 1993
position, and raced three further events in the state of Virginia with her best result coming at Langley Speedway with an eighth-place finish. She took her second (and final) top-ten finish in March 1983 at Martinsville. Teel retired from active competition in 1986 after rejecting a sponsorship package worth $1 million, to spend more time with her family following a discussion with her husband about her future. She cited a long travel schedule as her reason. Some info from Wikipedia
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