Posted by Post Tribune on 5/7/2005, 12:09 pm
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LOCAL AUTO RACING: New ride has Powell in the pink May 7, 2005 By Justin Breen / Post-Tribune staff writer MIDLOTHIAN, Ill. — Alan Powell looks good in hot pink. Just ask his fiancee, Cher Bryant. Powell has been driving Bryant’s Pink Princess, a Turbo Stox car, at Illiana Speedway while he builds his own car at the couple’s home in Midlothian, Ill. Until then, Powell — the Turbo Stox champion in 2001 and 2002 — will keep getting plenty of attention from other drivers for his unique ride. “I told him it helps him get in touch with his feminine side,” said Bill Neering, a Mid-America driver from Cedar Lake. The couple has had fun with the experience. On April 16, Illiana’s opening night, a friend of Bryant’s brought Bryant’s 4-year-old daughter Tiffany’s beauty pageant crown to the track and slapped it on an unsuspecting Powell when he wasn’t looking. “We spun him around and took a picture,” said Bryant, who added that the public address announcer called Powell the “Honorary Pink Princess” that night. All joking aside, both Powell and Bryant are solid drivers. As of April 30, Powell was fifth in the circuit’s standings. But Bryant drove the Pink Princess to consecutive fourth-place finishes in 2003 and 2004. Neering said Bryant is the one woman driver who can hold her own with the men. “She doesn’t get rattled by them,” Neering said. Bryant has been racing for 12 years, soon after she met Powell in 1993. Powell let her drive his car after he won the enduro championship at the now-closed Raceway Park in Blue Island, Ill. Bryant has taken the season off to let Powell drive the pink ride. They have had the car for six years and decided to paint it pink before the 2003 season. Powell’s friend had a 1932 hot rod painted the same color, and he thought it would look “cool” for his fiancee. But after taking two years off to recover from a back injury at work, Powell was the one zooming the quarter-of-a-mile Illiana track in flamingo-like color. “I don’t care what color it is,” Powell said. “I’m just out there racing. “People goof around and call me 'princess,’ and that’s OK.” Bryant and Powell, 39, actually have been engaged for 11 years, and they have three children — Aaron, 12; Brandon, 7; and Tiffany — but they have no plans to get married anytime soon. “We’re better off not getting married because of taxes,” Bryant, 30, said. “That’s literally the only reason we haven’t gotten married to this point.” Neering said he doesn’t know when Bryant and Powell will tie the knot, but he believes the relationship already has proved it will last. A man in a lady’s pink car certainly wouldn’t be a reason to split up. “They’ll probably grow old gracefully somehow, I hope,” Neering said.