Behind The Wheel - #11 - Emily Forgey
From a Subaru WRX that ran a 17.0 to a centrifugal supercharged Pontiac G8 GT, Emily Forgey has found herself engulfed in the world of drag racing. Emily is from Northern Indiana and is the owner of @LS_Ladies, a brand for the ladies sporting the LS platform. Aside from managing @LS_Ladies, Emily spends her free time working on her G8 and helping her husband with his regular cab short bed Silverado. Emily finds that many of her relationships, including her marriage, come from the automotive industry. She met her now husband, Chad Forgey at a car meet 10 years ago, and has now been married for 4 years and deems themselves as a “Racecar couple” Emily says.
Emily’s introduction into the car Scene started when she started hanging out with people who owned Subaru’s, “We would go out to car meets every weekend until like 2 in the morning, we never really street-raced, we would just hangout in a parking lot and that’s where I met Chad”. From meeting Chad, who she says was the reason she got involved in drag racing, she then decided to put her 2004 Subaru WRX on the track where she ran a 17.0. Emily sold her WRX and found herself in a 2008 Pontiac G8 GT in 2016 that she started street racing, and then started to put it on the drag strip and has been going faster and faster ever since.
Both her biggest supporter and role model is her husband, Chad, “He’s so hardworking and knows his stuff. If he doesn’t know something he’ll work until he figures it out”, she says. Emily’s G8 is a project they take on together and are consistently finding ways to make it faster. Her streetcar is modified with a TorqStorm centrifugal supercharger with a 3.1 pulley, BrianTooley Racing stage 3 blower cam, stage 2 built trans, Circle D 4000 stall torque converter, custom fuel system to run E-85, 20-gallon fuel cell, strange coil-overs on all 4 corners, and a 15” conversion to fit the Weld Racing Ventura wheels. Her fastest pass has been a 10.47 at 132MPH!
Emily finds herself competing in multiple events every year, with the Streetcar Takeover events being her favorite. She got the chance to compete in 2 Women & Wheels classes this year at Indianapolis and the last race of the year at Oklahoma City, “I like the fact that this class is something a whole bunch of women can get together to do. It forms more friendships and isn’t just about competition”, she tells me. Emily’s luck was not the greatest at Indianapolis due to rain from hours before hiding in her side skirt and falling out on the track, causing her to spin and go out first round. She then competed at Oklahoma City and made it through first round, to break out second round. Although she may not have had her best luck during these events, she was still very reminiscent of her favorite moment, which was “My favorite memory was in Indy when we all go to sit in the staging lanes and bonded there. We were able to make more friendships and meet more girls”, she says.
Emily’s advice for women eager to get involved would be, “Just go to the track and make a pass! Don’t worry about what time you’re going to run. Concentrate on staging and running, and from there you’ll decide if you like it or not. It doesn’t have to be a V8, or a modified car, it can be in a Camry or something”. Emily sees Women & Wheels helping ladies in the industry and tells me, “I think it brings more awareness to ladies in this industry. We were talking to booths at PRI and everyone was so excited about Sophie and what she’s doing! For me it’s brought me more relationships with lady racers”. Emily goes to show how you can go from having a 17 second Subaru to a 10 second G8 and find yourself embedded in the world of drag racing where you may find your best friends or husband.
You can find Emily on IG @ emilyjoy_ls6.0 & @ls_ladies!