Katie Hagar is focused. She’s focused on her rac­ing career; she’s focused on main­tain­ing a healthy lifestyle; she’s focused on help­ing kids learn to believe in themselves.

Her focus is pay­ing off, too. She’s a sec­ond year par­tic­i­pant in the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram, rac­ing for Golden State Rac­ing at Madera (Calif.) Speed­way. She has two top fives and six top 10s in six starts this season.

The 22-year-old Hagar wasn’t always this dri­ven, though.

Like many kids, Hagar went through some grow­ing pains as she strug­gled to define her­self as a pre-teen. She found her grades slip­ping and her atten­tion in school dimin­ish­ing. To add to her strug­gles, her sixth grade teacher died sud­denly from a heart attack.

“I went through some chal­leng­ing times,” says Hagar. “I was dis­cour­aged, unfo­cused and I wasn’t mak­ing the best decisions.”

That was before she climbed behind the wheel of a racecar.

“I was 11 years old… My dad pointed me towards rac­ing as a way to refo­cus my life,” she says. “He knew he could con­nect with me if I had a way to focus.”

Motor­sports wasn’t entirely new to Hagar, a native of Damariscotta, Maine. Her par­ents, Mark and Cindy, ran a race team, com­pet­ing in the Charger Divi­sion at local tracks in New Eng­land. Hagar grew up around the track watch­ing her dad’s team com­pete, but never took an inter­est in com­pet­ing her­self, instead play­ing soc­cer and basketball.

But when Hagar was strug­gling to find direc­tion in her life, her dad knew that rac­ing was exactly what his daugh­ter needed.

And he was right.

When Hagar was 11, she began com­pet­ing in go-karts. She tran­si­tioned to the Alli­son Legacy Series when she was 14. By the time she was 17 she was rac­ing an Open Wheeled Mod­i­fied and a Super Late Model in the Pro All Star Series in New Eng­land. She knew she wanted to make rac­ing a career.

“My dad has always tried to be one step ahead of me,” says Hagar. “He knew that I needed some­thing in my life that I could devote myself to 110 per­cent, and rac­ing was it for me.”

Hagar did con­tinue to play soc­cer and bas­ket­ball as she honed her rac­ing skills, and she grad­u­ated from Lin­coln Acad­emy High School in New Cas­tle, Maine in 2004.

Today, as a par­tic­i­pant in the Drive for Diver­sity pro­gram, Hagar’s life revolves around rac­ing and doing every­thing she can to find a com­pet­i­tive edge. She’s at the gym first thing every morn­ing. She han­dles her own pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing, and is always ready to make a pitch to a poten­tial spon­sor. On race day, you can find her in the grand­stands, sign­ing auto­graphs before she climbs into her race car.

“It’s all about stay­ing healthy, pos­i­tive and deter­mined,” she says.

Away from the race track, Hagar is using her expe­ri­ences to help other kids who may be in the same place she was when she was 11-years-old. With the sup­port of her father, she vis­its schools to with her youth pro­gram, Believe in Your­self 101. The pro­gram reaches dif­fer­ent age groups, includ­ing ele­men­tary, mid­dle and high school students.

“I use my story to show kids what you can achieve when you believe in your­self,” Hagar explains. “If you set a reach­able goal and put your mind to it, you can achieve suc­cess in life. I went through some tough times, but I was able to mature and make the right choices. That’s what I try to instill in the kids I meet though Believe in Your­self 101.”

Hagar’s suc­cess story isn’t fin­ished, though. She’s still deter­mined to find suc­cess as a pro­fes­sional race car dri­ver, but knows she hasn’t cho­sen the easy road.

“I’ll take it as far as it will go, but I know this is the path I was meant to take.”