Martha Dionese is a unique person. The fiery redhead is the only woman to own a Sprint car for 37 years and work on it every week at both her Wampum garage and in the Lernerville Speedway pits.

On her 15th wedding anniversary, she told her husband Bob that she was going to buy a Sprint car. She had it painted purple and chose the number 15 for her anniversary.

Martha's team won three Sprint championships in 1981, 83-84 with Jerry Matus as the pilot. Mike Lutz won a feature in Martha's car last season. Her driver this year is Charlie Holben.

To make sure everyone's on the same page, she was seen recently in the pit area wearing a T-shirt that said, "I am the boss."

In other racing news:

• Chip Ganassi had the best week of his career as a car owner last week. Juan Montoya had a second-place finish in the Sprint Cup race at Talledega, Dan Wheldon won the Indy Car Series and Scott Dixon was third, and his entries in the Grand Am in Virginia, Scott Pruett and Memo Rosas, won the event.

• After 50 races, Danica Patrick has become not only the first female driver to win an Indy Car Series race, but the first to win on any major closed course.

In honor of this historic event, Air Tran put her picture on the side of one of its planes and called it "Air Tranica." She has her sights set on capturing the upcoming Indy 500.

• It wasn't a joke. Recently at Challenger Raceway, the names of Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 E-Mod, and Ray Charles, who drives a Limited Late Model, were announced. People thought that fictitious names were used, however, they were their actual names.

• Five-time Lernerville Late Model champion John Flinner is racing again this year. His nephew, Kolton, the son of Mark Flinner, will soon be at the speedways. His Crate Late Model is about to set sail on its maiden voyage.

• In a classic thriller, Rob Blair of Centerville was the winner of Challenger Raceway's Unified Force Race Championship Tour Super Late Model opener Sunday evening. Blair battled with Josh Richards and eventually won, collecting a $5,000 paycheck from Jack and Donna Lentz.

• Jerimiah Shingledecker won the Modified season opener at Tri-City Speedway Sunday. Cranberry Township's Carl McKinney picked up where he left off in 2007 as the defending E-Mod track champion. He led every circuit to earn a career seventh victory at the track.

• Reigning divisional Pennsylvania Motor Speedway track champion Jared Miley won the Late Model main, and his uncle, Ben Miley was third. Daryl Charlier garnered a career first in the Crate Late Models, and Mars' Butch Lambert earned a sixth-place finish in his initial outing in this division. Chris Basich captured a career fifth in the E-Mods, and young Clayton Kennedy finished ahead of his proud dad, Chuck Kennedy, in both the heat and the feature.

• Alan Dellinger had a wonderful weekend of racing. He won the Lernerville Late Model feature, collecting $1,200. The next night Dellinger cleaned house at Sharon's opener, earning another $1,200 as the winner of the inaugural Rick Glass Pure Stock 50.

Carol Gamble is the racing columnist for the Butler Eagle.