Although she describes her younger self as a tomboy, nothing, in particular, inspired or prepared Naomi Schiff to be a race car driver. This is because growing up, motorsports had never been perceived as a sport for women or young girls, “so there never really were any role models who looked like me for me to look up to and be inspired by, which would probably have led me in that direction sooner,” she says. Instead, she believes that it was pure fate that introduced her to the sport. The journey begins “I was invited to an indoor karting birthday party of a family friend, and I just happened to fall in love with the sport on the spot,” she shares. Born in 1994 in Belgium to a Rwandan mother and Belgian father, Schiff started racing at the age of 11 with karting in South Africa. Kart racing or karting is a variant of motorsport road racing with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on full-size motorsport circuits. At the age of 14, she represented South Africa in the Karting World Championships for four consecutive years, 2008 to 2011, thereafter entering the domain of circuit racing which took her around the world on a hunt to achieve her goals and dreams remarkably, as diversity and inclusion ambassador — W Series Movie Stunt Driver. “I have raced all over the world in various disciplines of motorsports, the last being the 2019 W series, which is comparable to Formula 3, occasionally I host car/driving related TV shows and most recently added to the list is stunt driving, which I was approached to do last year as a driving double for a lead actress in James Bond,” she says of her accomplishments. The 25-year-old has already written her name in the history books, having also been selected as one of only 18 women to qualify for the inaugural season of W Series, being the 2018 KTM X-Bow Battle champion, driving for KTM in numerous endurance races and winning the 2014 Renault Clio Cup Asia Series. All this she attributes to “dedication, a lot of sacrifice and passion for what I’m doing, but most importantly it’s the people around me who keep me going, the ones like my parents who have sacrificed in order to see me succeed, my sponsors and partners who have invested in reaching that goal with me, as well as my sister who always tries to keep my chin up when times are tough. I could go on forever with this list of people who are not always in the spotlight but play a huge role in getting me to where I am today.” As a woman in a male-dominated field, she describes the experience as incredible, having been able to move away from the narrative of male/female, this sport, and everything that comes with it has shaped her into being the person that she is today. “Sure there have been challenges, some discriminative, but it has given me a thick skin and a real hunger to be successful and also to help pave the way for younger generations, which is something I feel very responsible to do,” she adds. Between racing and all the practice it requires, in addition to hosting TV Shows, Schiff’s passion for both gives her the edge she needs to do it all. Her long term dream is to race in the Formula One circuit and as part of the sport, where men and women participate on an equal footing. Though the number of women in the sport is very few compared to the number of men, Schiff is dreaming big and hopes to inspire other young girls to get on board. “Formula One has and will always be the dream, but for the moment it is not the immediate goal. I want to have a long and successful career in this sport as a driver behind any steering wheel, and I want to be more involved at grassroots levels to encourage more female participation within our sport, not only as drivers but the entire ecosystem of motorsports including engineers, mechanics, team managers, and others.” Her advice to young girls who dream of being behind the racing wheel is: “Unfortunately as a young girl or woman, there are already a lot of barriers standing in your way and challenges you will have to face, whether it is in the sport or in society as a whole, so do not let yourself be one of those barriers. Believe in yourself because you need to believe it to achieve it. So set out your goals and get behind them because you can do anything you want to, but you have to believe it first.”
