| Courtney Hansen: Hot Rod Babe |
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| Written by Puja Shah | |
| Monday, December 04 2006 | |
 We live in a lightning fast world full of deadlines and ticking clocks. More often than not, we’re stuck in the slow lane, just ticking down our monotonous days as others speed around us to the finish line. Courtney Hansen, however, refuses to live life by this mentality. A hot shot under the hood as well as on the TV screen, Ms. Hansen is day by day racing in first place towards the finish line. Though that’s not to say she’s finished. Not by a long shot.So how did you get into cars? I come from an automotive family – my father, Jerry Hansen won 27 national SCCA stints for Sports Club of America titles. Our family used to own Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota, so my whole life was really about cars and I’ve always been intrigued by it, fascinated by it, and a part of that world. I’ve naturally gravitated towards everything automotive along the way.
Did you ever feel like you wanted to be associated with the image of cars? Did you feel like being able to integrate TV hosting with working on cars was important?  I always hoped that I would somehow parlay automotive knowledge and my love for the automotive world into a career. Since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a TV personality and have a career on television and so that desire preceded my desire to somehow work in the automotive realm. But it was definitely an awesome thing when those two worlds came together. When I had an audition for Overhaulin’, I just felt like it was my destiny, that I was supposed to host it because it was so incredibly perfect for me.Because working with cars is usually considered a man’s realm, do you feel like you have a special responsibility to your fans?
I’ve probably taken on somewhat of a responsibility to my female fans in wanting to help inspire them and empower them because this has always been such a male-dominated industry; I just think it’s so sexy and amazing when women take charge in any male-dominated sport or industry. So I definitely take it upon myself to constantly increase my role there and hone my craft and learn more, and just try to further inspire and empower women in this life. I don’t feel a special responsibility to the male fans, but I’d say initially, and probably a little bit along the way, I feel like you have a little more prove as a woman – you have to prove that you’re knowledgeable and prove that you’re not some complete novice or inexperienced person pretending to be this thing on TV. I really do have a lot of automotive knowledge and I love working on cars; I did as much as they would let me do on Overhaulin’ and I’m lobbying for more working on cars on Spike Power Block.Comments
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