Simona de Silvestro, a Swiss pro racing Indy 500 driver, completed her first laps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during a test session in early April, just before the start of the IndyCar season.

The 2010 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year hadn’t been on the track since finishing 19th in 2015, but she made a strong comeback with a 223.458 mph lap that placed her 21st out of 31 drivers. De Silvestro shared that during the first few laps she did at the speedway, she didn’t realize how quick it was.

Female-Operated Team at Indy 500

De Silvestro will not compete at Barber Motorsports Park for the season opener. This year, she’ll just compete in the 500, but that one race will be much more important than normal. She’ll be competing for Paretta Autosport, a new team promising to be the first to participate in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing with a female driver and mainly female crew.

Beth Paretta is a seasoned motorsports executive who served as the director of Fiat-SRT Chrysler’s Motorsports division during Dodge’s last NASCAR Cup Series championship season in 2012. She’s been trying to put together a program like this for many years to help encourage women in racing and S.T.E.M. education for girls, and she’s partnered with Team Penske to make it happen, with support from Rocket Pro TPO and MoneyLion.

Great Team Efforts at the Tournament.

In five starts at the speedway, the 32-year-old has three top-20 finishes but says the Penske partnership is crucial. Last year’s race was the first without a female driver in the field since 1999, and de Silvestro is the only entry so far this year, putting even more emphasis on her team’s efforts. She says that the ultimate goal is to develop this team and expand the available opportunities. As fans, we will see how the tournament goes.

As of October 2020, the SSC Tuatara now holds the record for being the fastest production vehicle in the world. Not only that, but it broke records for the fastest flying mile and kilometer on a public road and the highest speed ever on a public road – at a whopping 331.15mph! However, if speed isn’t really your thing, here are some much more fascinating world record holding cars.

The Big Banana

Steve Braithwaite holds the record for the world’s largest banana car when he took apart a 1983 Ford F-150 pickup and converted it into the fruit on wheels. It took Steve and his friends over two years to make the giant banana out of rebar, chicken wire, and foam, before showing it off to the world. Apparently, it’s also the world’s only four-wheel-drive banana. Who woulda thought?

Coffee Car

Imagine driving a car powered by coffee? Well, that’s exactly what happened when someone decided to modify a 1988 VW Sirocco to run on coffee. The car was then driven around 200 miles from London to Manchester powered solely by Java. It broke the world record for the longest journey by a coffee-powered car. And probably the only journey, right?

The Longest Limo

Jay Ohrberg was a custom designer known for making some rather cool cars, including K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider and the famous DeLorean from Back to the Future. However, it seemed as though he wanted to take his designs one step further when he created ‘The American Dream.’ This 100-foot-long limo had two engines, a swimming pool and diving board, and even a helipad. It really is a sight to behold!

While fast cars are fun, there’s nothing that quite beats these world record holding cars. From coffee to bananas, and limos with pools, these are some interesting records for sure.