As Nathalie McGloin emerges from the staging area in her wheelchair and black racing suit with neon yellow and pink stripes, and her long chestnut hair securely fastened under her helmet, she clearly stands out from the field of racers. But as soon as she transfers into her adapted Porsche 987 Cayman S, she’s just a race car driver like everyone else.

“I love the speed and freedom driving gives me. I’m able to do something without my wheelchair that feels completely normal,” she says. “My disability doesn’t matter because I’m on the racetrack with nondisabled drivers and we are all doing the same thing at the same time. I don’t have any disadvantage. I’m just another driver, and that is the way it should be.”

McGloin, 40, from Northampton in the United Kingdom, has been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the first female quadriplegic driver to compete in a race. She was also the first female with a spinal cord injury in the U.K. to be granted a racing license in 2015 and a rally license in 2019. “I like being the first to do things. I was also the first female wheelchair rugby player in the U.K.,” she says. “It’s a motivator to me to prove it can be done.”

Race car driving wasn’t even on McGloin’s radar until long after she sustained a C6-7 SCI in a car accident at age 16 in 1999. “I’d been doing quad rugby for about 10 years, when I was introduced to a teammate who had a passion for cars and invited me to a track day. I absolutely fell in love with it,” she says. “Before I knew it, I bought a car and was racing.”

Life in the Fast Lane

McGloin’s race car features automatic transmission and adapted radial hand-controls like those in U.S. cars. Cars in the U.K. typically use different hand controls than in the U.S., requiring a push forward to brake and a pull backward to accelerate, which is not ideal for a racing car because of a gap between brake and throttle. McGloin has good grip strength in her left hand, so her steering wheel is not modified other than being lighter weight. Because the Porsche 987 Cayman S is a road car, the door opens like a regular car, which makes transferring easier. She also has a seat insert that is molded to her body and placed inside the race seat.

“A lot of race car drivers will feel the car through their bum — obviously that’s not going to happen for me. The seat [insert] gives me feedback higher up around my rib cage as to what the car is doing. And it gives me stability, so I rely on my seat insert quite heavily,” she says.

The dangers of the sport are not lost on McGloin, who reaches race speeds around 140 mph. “The day before my first-ever race, I was testing [the track] when I got turn 1 wrong and ran into a gravel trap. Because of the speed, the car went up onto two wheels. I was millimeters away from rolling the car onto its roof,” she says. “Not the best preparation ahead of my first race.”

Besides demonstrating her driving skills and knowledge to obtain her race license, McGloin also had to show that, in the event of an emergency, she could exit the vehicle unaided and without a wheelchair in seven seconds or less. “I literally threw myself out of the car onto a mattress. Of course that would not be there in a real emergency, but if the car is on fire, I don’t care if the ground is hard, I’m getting out of there,” she says.

“This is my eighth year racing and still when I’m sitting in the car right before the start, I still think to myself, ‘Oh my god, what are you doing? I’m about to do a car race,’” she says. “So I try to keep calm and focus on past races when I felt like I was on top of my game. … But once I get going and I’m on the track, I’m just thinking about racing.”

To stay in race-ready shape, McGloin has a home gym where she works out three or four days a week doing cardio and strengthening her upper body. “I like having strong arms and being fit,” she says. “On race day, I may only transfer in and out of the car once or twice, but if it’s a test day, I might be transferring six times.”

She also recently purchased a race simulator with hand controls, and works with a sports psychologist. “I am my own worst critic,” she says. “If I don’t perform well, I really beat myself up. That is where working with a psychologist is helping me get to a place where I can enjoy what I am doing without always having results to justify enjoyment.”

Racing is also a family affair. McGloin met her husband and fellow racer, Andrew Bayliss, in the pit lane during a track day. “My first impression was she was a very driven person. We spoke every day online after that until we moved in together,” says Bayliss. After years of dating, they married in 2021.

Bayliss was doing rally races, which motivated McGloin to also get a rally license. In rally races they are both in the car, with McGloin in the driver’s seat and Bayliss in the passenger seat serving as the co-driver, providing route direction. “Nathalie’s strength as a driver is she has brilliant awareness of other cars and good natural speed,” says Bayliss.

“I love rally car driving because of the challenge of not being able to practice the [course] beforehand. Rally car driving is more tiring mentally, because it goes against everything you’ve learned to do driving a car on the road safely,” says McGloin. The cars must be able to turn tightly into sharp curves since the roads are unknown to the drivers, and be able to slide on low-grip surfaces like gravel if they have gone into a corner carrying too much speed. Because of the harness and race seat, she is completely secure, so lack of trunk muscles isn’t an issue.

Racing is an expensive sport, but thanks to sponsors, McGloin competes in about seven circuit races a year, from March to October. In circuit racing, drivers navigate a combination of fast, sweeping straightaways and tight technical corners on slick tires, a tire type with smooth treads. The winner is the first driver to reach the checkered flag once the number of laps or the time limit has been completed. Most of McGloin’s races last about 40 minutes.

There are no separate classes or events for females or drivers with disabilities in motorsports, meaning McGloin’s main competitors are mostly nondisabled men. And that is how she prefers it, she says, “because of the inclusivity of our sport and because we don’t discriminate. Men and women compete together, disabled and nondisabled compete together. I think we have almost a bigger role to play for disabled people in society in showing that we are classified in the same way as nondisabled people.”

Paving the Way for Others

Among her biggest accomplishments, McGloin lists winning her first race in 2018 and starting Spinal Track, a charity she founded with Bayliss in 2016. Spinal Track lets disabled people experience the thrill of track or rally racing in adapted race cars. “So many people reach out to me about how they can get into the sport,” she says. “I wanted to give people the same opportunity I had, so Spinal Track gives them a chance to give it a go … to see if they really enjoy it and want to take it further.”

In the beginning McGloin and Bayliss funded the free track days out of their own pocket. They even purchased a used adapted race car from a paraplegic driver who was selling it to buy another. Just as their personal funds began to run out, donations started coming in, including a sizeable contribution from Stanley Black & Decker.

“They saw what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it. All the donations we get go entirely into the charity,” she says. “We now have three track cars with hand controls and left foot accelerators, and four adapted rally cars for driving on dirt. We run 10 track days and 10 rally days, so we have 100 drivers a year participating.”

Spinal Track caters to as many disabilities as possible. To be eligible to participate, you must have a valid driver’s license and adequate tricep strength. “The need for triceps is due to the steering. When strapped into a racing seat with a harness, steering is different. Past the 12 o’clock position on the wheel, it becomes pure tricep function. In a road car, those with little or no tricep function can sit high and lean forward to use biceps and shoulders to do the steering past 12 o’clock,” says McGloin.

“Incredible,” is the word Richard Brindley, 53, used to describe his Spinal Track experience. A huge motorsports fan with a passion for cars, Brindley, a C6 quadriplegic, was delighted at the chance to experience driving an adapted race car at speeds over 100 mph. “What is great is you have a professional driving instructor in the car with you, which gives you a level of confidence, and they push you to test yourself and fully experience what the car can do, and that was amazing,” he says.

Spinal Track is also about building community. “The bond I have with the people I meet through my charity is really strong,” says McGloin. “Before racing, wheelchair rugby was a family I called home. When I left that sport, I felt lost without my disabled community. Through Spinal Track’s community events, I have found a new family. These people give me support, they give me strength, they give me life.”

From 2018 to present, McGloin has served as the president of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile’s Commission on Disability and Accessibility. The FIA is the sole international governing body of motorsports, and McGloin its youngest-ever commission president.

Under her leadership, the commission has changed legislation to make it easier and safer for people with disabilities to get into motorsports, and set up grants to help drivers with disabilities get access to the highest level of safety equipment so they can race in the safest possible environment. McGloin has also called for fundamental widespread changes within the world of motorsports, like making the competition license application process more inclusive and making venues and circuits more accessible.

“I understand I am hugely privileged to do what I do. Not everyone has the ability to be able to afford to go racing, but there are so many different aspects to racing that people can be involved with, like mechanics, marshals, journalists, spectators, whatever,” she says. “I want to make sure all the doors are open … and that anyone with a disability who wants to get into motorsport has the opportunity.”

Follow McGloin at: nathaliemcgloin.com or @nathaliemcgloin on Instagram, X and TikTok.