NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

At first glance, Gabi DiCarlo's path to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series seems pretty standard - Hooter's Pro Cup, then the ARCA RE/MAX Series. But go back a little further and you see an early racing career that's a bit more unusual for a stock car driver - go-karts, Formula Russell and Star Mazda open-wheel road racers. Although it's becoming more common - check out Scott Speed, or A.J. Allmendinger - it's not the conventional route to stock car stardom.

But it won't be the last time that DiCarlo breaks with convention if she attains her ultimate goal - to be the first regular female driver in NASCAR Sprint Cup.

For now, she's happy to hone her skills in the Truck Series and ARCA with Stringer Motorsports driving the Great Clips Toyota Tundra and Toyota Camry, respectively. The RE/MAX Series has prepared her for the Trucks, where she'll gain experience with a limited program of races this year, but she and her team are also using the Trucks to help her with some goals for ARCA.

"Part of the reason we did the mix was to accomplish some higher goals in ARCA - to win races and finish in the top five," she explains. "You come back to ARCA and you think, 'I just did a Truck Series race at Atlanta, so this should be no problem.' It's also helping us get ready for a full season in Trucks. We felt if we got a little bit of experience this year, it wouldn't be such a shock next year when we go run full time."

While DiCarlo is hardly the first woman to compete at this level, a female driver in this series is still a relatively unusual occurrence - not that anyone can tell once her helmet is on and she's strapped into the truck.

"Being a girl, you've got to up the intensity," she says. "You've got to be there for one thing and one thing only. The guys joke around that I'm pretty much a girl in my everyday life, but I don't think you can tell the difference between me and the guys when I get in a racecar.

"There haven't been that many [women] that have gotten as far as the Truck Series. But it doesn't change much when it comes to the racing. I walk in the garage area and I don't see myself as different until somebody says something about it."

That makes sense for someone whose interest in racing began as a family activity with her father and brother. DiCarlo was on a path to a road-racing career when she started looking at NASCAR, and her team owner, Doug Stringer, offered a test session in his Nationwide Series road course car. Better opportunities for sponsorship and rides in stock cars sealed the deal, she says.

It has paid off. Her sponsor, Great Clips, has been with her for five years, and helped make her truck debut possible. Originally scheduled to run her first CWTS race at Martinsville, NASCAR gave her the OK to run the bigger tracks after the ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway in February. The next race was at the two-mile California Speedway. The team had to finish trucks and get them across the country in a couple of weeks. Considering the lack of test time, finishing 19th in her first race was pretty remarkable.

"Our goal was to qualify on time and finish in the top 20 and we surpassed every goal," DiCarlo says. "I was certainly nervous. I'd watched it forever, but you don't know what to expect until you're in a race and you're doing it. It was a pretty intense race. At the end, I said, 'Well, I'm just glad I can actually do this!' You never know if you can actually hang with them."

Her performance was enough for the television announcers, before her next race in Atlanta, to call her out as one to watch. "That's what every driver wants, to do something and have people take notice of how well you do it," she says.

So, yes, she can hang with the best. She can also learn from them; don't think she didn't notice what guys like Kyle Busch, Todd Bodine and Johnny Benson were doing out there. She's watching, and she's intent on proving that she's one to watch herself.