Press Releases

October 9, 1997
Drag Racing Mother & Daughter Double as College Professor & Student

At Southampton College, Helen Wintermyer of Quogue is Photography Professor; daughter Joey Wintermyer is Elementary Education Student

Contact: Jane Finalborgo, Joe Dionisio
(516) 287 8313
Fax: (516) 283 4081

Southampton, NY -- What a drag! While most parents implore their teenage children to obey the speed limit, Helen M. Wintermyer of Quogue shares with her daughter the mercurial joys of racing across pavement at nearly 160 miles per hour.

Wintermyer, a 1981 alumnus and an adjunct professor at Southampton College of Long Island University, is a competitive drag racer who learned her favorite hobby from one of Southampton's newest students -- her daughter, Joey Wintermyer.

Mother and daughter have learned the sport well. At age 19, Joey is the top-ranked points driver at Long Island Motorsports Park in Westhampton, an outlet for the National Hot Rod Association. Helen is ranked no. 9.

Joey's competitors from throughout the Northeast often are men twice her size and age. As no. 1 in the Heavy Class category, she qualified for the NHRA Division I bracket finals on Sept. 26 at Maple Grove (Pa.) Raceway, and for the Race of Champions, a competition for top drivers.

Mother and daughter share another interest besides drag racing -- each is as familiar with film speed as they are with car speed. Since 1989, Helen has taught Black & White Photography at Southampton College. For 20 years, she also has owned Wintermyer Photography Studio Ltd., in Quogue, where Joey works part-time.

"The first time I saw a black-and-white print develop, I knew that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life," said Helen, who in 1977 was a 34-year-old Sociology major at Southampton.

While doing work for a photography course taught by Fine Arts Professor Yoshi Higa -- a renowned photographer from Japan whose work has appeared in Life magazine -- a pregnant Helen went into labor while in a darkroom at home.

"I called my husband to tell him my water broke," she recalls, "but he thought I meant the photography chemicals!"

Two decades after Joey was nearly born in a darkroom, she is enrolled in Professor Higa's color photography class at Southampton College.

"Helen joked that we should waive the prerequisite that her daughter needed for the class," said Professor Higa. "She said Joey took the preliminary course in the womb."

Like photography, drag racing is truly a family affair for the Wintermyers, whose racing vehicles combine for 1730 horsepower. At Long Island Motorsports Park, Joey is ranked no. 1, her father Al is no. 3 (both drive a 1986 Monte Carlo SS), and Helen (in her 1987 Buick Grand National) is no. 9. Although Joey's parents are divorced, Al's engine was built by Helen's boyfriend, Jeff Lawrence, owner of Lawrence Racing Engines of Westhampton. Lawrence is now building a $50,000 Stock Eliminator-class 1994 Camaro that mother and daughter will share at national events.

As close-knit as the family sounds, they are nothing but competitive at the track. "When we're racing each other, we just go for the kill like it was anybody else," said Helen.

Since they've all beaten each other at one time or another, who roots for whom?

"I don't root when mom races dad," said Joey, a transfer student from Suffolk Community College who is majoring in Elementary Education. "I don't want one to win."

Added Helen: "Joey recently went up against my boyfriend, and I was just sick to my stomach. She lost. But it's okay if Joey beats my ex-husband."