Sexy On Wheels

She’s tall, wildly sexy and can handle a car better than almost any man on the planet. Michele Shapiro is a world-famous racing driver who has raced everywhere from Paris to Peking, and looks great in high heels. I love her and would die to meet her, but have to make do through email. This gal is busy...

Michele can also write with the same ease as she drives, for publications such as Forbes and Glamour. She takes time to keep journals during racing tours and posts them online for her thousands of fans. And why wouldn’t she be popular? She’s everything most women dream to be: smart, fashionable, adventurous – and unusual. “My first idol was Speed Racer,” Michele says. “When people would ask me what I wanted to be, as a child, I would say a racecar driver. As a young girl I would buy Vogue and Car & Driver. I didn’t want to be a boy, I very much wanted to be feminine, travel to exotic places, and race cars.”

Her racing career has taken Michele around the globe and across the Sahara. In 2004 she became the first American to drive in the Rally Aicha de Gazelles. The eight-day rally involved a grueling schedule for Michele and her crew, as a passage in her journal states:

“On Friday we will meet up with some of the Nissan teams and drive 500 miles down to Sete in the south of France. In Sete we board a ferry, travel overnight and wake up the next day in Tangiers. From Tangiers we drive 10 hours southeast to Erfoud which is on the edge of the Sahara. All this of course is before the race even begins. On the 22nd we start the race which lasts 8 days until the 29th. After the race we drive 300 miles to a five-star hotel in Marrakech where we will finally rejoice at having our first real shower in over a week. Then it’s back to Paris and finally New York. We’re almost at the stroke of midnight and it still all seems so far away.”

Not only does she race, she wins! Michele was the winner of the 2004 European Bullrun Rally – racing 160mph across Europe in a Morgan Aero 8 – and one of the top three finalists out of 400 applicants for the Subaru drag racing female driver search in Los Angeles. Michele had never drag-raced before, either – it’s simply that she’s a natural racing driver. “I’m constantly looking for new ways to challenge myself. My favorite challenges involve driving cars I’ve never driven before in places I’ve never been before.”

One of her most publicized races started in London and ended in Ibiza.

“The insanity all began at Marble Arch.... Rows of exotic cars lined up in front of the British monument. There were Ferraris, an Ascari, a TVR, and other assorted supercars. I was lucky enough to be driving a Morgan Aero 8 with my co-driver the infamous Alex Roy [of Polizei fame]. Drivers were dressed in everything from a grey flannel suit to a CBGB’s t-shirt to my haute couture gown and Alex’s tux. Finally when it was time we grabbed a card with the information on the next checkpoint and we’re off. Racing through the streets of London we scared more than a few unwitting British drivers. We all arrived at the first ferry on time for our crossing to France. On board we met other drivers and shared stories about run-ins with the cops, talking the cops out of tickets or jail, outrunning the cops, well you get the idea. Once we landed it was time to get focused again. To Paris we go, the Paris Hilton to be exact (insert your own joke here). There’s barely time to get ready so a quick change of clothes and we’re off to Le Suite. We dine on seared Tuna and toast with lots of champagne. After dinner the models and Parisian A-listers come to join us for some dancing while Pete Tong and David Guletta spin for our pleasure.

After a night of serious partying, morning doesn’t look too pretty. But we’ve got places to go so sleeping in is not an option. Barcelona is the next destination, a country away so a lot of ground needs to be covered.

On the way Bullrun provides for us in style. For lunch we stop at a beautiful hillside chateaux. After a decadent meal served by a local French chef, we’ve got the energy we need to carry on to Barcelona. Once at the hotel I had been looking forward to relaxing in their state of the art spa, but opted for sleep instead. With an early start again I was wishing for some more of that French coffee but alas Spanish will have to do. The goal today is to make it from Barcelona to Valencia for the ferry to Ibiza. The ferry waits for no man, or woman or car for that matter.

As on Bullrun things happen but you must deal with all situations in stride for you never know how it might work out. For us and a few other cars this is how the day went. First we were stopped for a half hour on the road while they cleared an accident, which put us a little behind. Then after a toll booth five cars were pulled over. Since we were already at the toll booth we were rolling along at five mph so we couldn’t figure out why they had stopped us. The police didn’t like the stickers and felt we were up to no good. Ok, so we were up to no good but they couldn’t prove it. In my best Spanish I tried to explain that we had not been speeding and the stickers had to do with a charity. They said they’d be happy to talk about it back at the station. Apparently in Spain proof has little meaning so instead of wasting precious time I just asked how much they wanted and we were on our way. We had missed the first ferry but a quick check showed the next ferry leaving shortly and the one after that wasn’t until midnight. So after we said we weren’t speeding we pushed the throttle to the floor and tested just how fast the Morgan could go. We pull the car onto the ferry and the doors close right behind us, there were only two cars that made it. When we land we realize we hadn’t received the card for the day since it was given out at the ferry. After Querying a few locals we pull into the hotel, but there’s no one there. The first ferry hit some waves and was re-routed to the other side of the island. After everything that went wrong that day, we made it to the hotel first.”

Michele’s life is fast-paced and glamorous – but she’s also educated. She is earning her Master’s in International Affairs at New York University, has an Academic Fellowship and top honors each semester. How does she do it?

But racing will always comes first. She had a chance to drive behind Mario Andretti during a Bullrun rally from New York to LA, starting in Times Square and driving her dream car the Spyker,

“The place is buzzing with a crowd of excited people and although it is 8:00 in the morning I suspect some people are still a bit drunk from the party the night before at Marquee. This crowd is probably a bit noisier however. When you have 100 cars lined up end to end and all the engines fire up at once, well, screaming teens from New Jersey hoping to catch a glimpse of Justin Timberlake in TRL studios aren’t even that loud. We are on the front line in between Corey Feldman in a Silver Lotus Elise and a silver Mosler. When the flag drops we are led off the grid by the one and only Mario Andretti driving a black Panoz. You don’t get better than that.

We take off racing the streets of New York and the adrenaline is pumping. We get the route card and I look for the GPS to dial it in. The dash in the Spyker, a combination of the finest buttery leather and brushed steel, is perhaps the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen. Only today it’s missing one crucial component, a GPS. There is also no map or radar. We decide to make Mario our GPS, and given that we’re heading to the Poconos Raceway in Pennsylvania we should be all set. We go through a tunnel and the Sypker, a Ford GT and suped-up Studebaker all rev at once. I get chills.

It’s an ideal driving situation-- cruising down the highway, top down, in the most stunning car on the road, right behind Mario Andretti. Both Victor and I love cars; we’re purists, we’re fanatics, we’re idiots. When the sky turns ash gray and drops begin to fall, most people would pull to the side and put the top on. When this happened neither one of us said anything. We thought that sheer will and our love of driving sans roof would simply make the weather go away. It didn’t. Instead, the sky opened up and we had ourselves an unsolicited shower. Once drenched there was nothing to do but to pull over. It might have had something to do with the fact that we couldn’t even see the road anymore. I opened the door, swung out my leg, and my best pair of Gucci stiletto boots was met with a deep puddle of mud. We manage to get the top on and once inside, soaking wet from Gucci boots to Prada sunglasses, there was nothing to do but to laugh.”

Michele seeks adventure off the race track as well. She’s swum with wild dolphins in Egypt and with sea lions in the Galapagos. She’s shot poison blow darts in the Amazon and spent two months sailing the Caribbean. So what else is there left to do?

“If I can just get Tom Ford to design my racing suit I’ll really be in heaven,” she replies, as fast as she drives