Meet Nathalie McGloin: From Paraplegic to Porsche Racer

The U.K. has granted some 10,000 racing licenses in total. Of those, only 200 are women. Nathalie McGloin is the first and only woman with a spinal industry to be awarded one. Nathalie races a Cayman S with PDK set up with radial hand controls. Standard hand controls, for most drivers in need of such assistance, function by push/pull (push forward to brake and pull back to accelerate). Radial controls are slightly different. It’s still push forward to brake, but instead of pulling back to accelerate you push down. This effectively allows Nathalie to left foot brake or mix both braking and acceleration, an essential skill for any racer. She’s competitive in her class in the Porsche Club Championship and aims to compete at the top of her class before too long.

Inspired by her own enjoyment of racing, Nathalie set-up a non-profit called Spinal Track. The idea is to teach people with hand controls how to track drive and sample what it’s like to race. Prior to Nathalie’s non-profit there was no way for those with spinal injuries to experience racing. More importantly, she wants to stress that life after a spinal injury doesn’t have to be worse, just different. Nathalie used her injury as the catalyst to start her racing career and wants to share that with others.