In February, the Sports Car Club of America™ announced that Atlanta Region member Jennifer Brown was one of this year’s three Wendi Allen Scholarship recipients. As a scholarship recipient that is funded by Mazda Motorsports (the other two scholarships are backed by SCCA Foundation), Brown will receive assistance, both financial and other, that will enable her to compete in National-level SCCA® autocross this year, with her season culminating at the 2026 Tire Rack SCCA Solo® National Championships in Lincoln, NE.
That’s the 10,000-foot view of her story – and it reveals very little about Brown herself.
Being that this is Women’s History Month, this is the perfect time to dive deeper into who Brown is, and what led her to apply for the Wendi Allen Scholarship through SCCA Women on Track.
Infectious Enthusiasm
Jenny Brown is an engineering education postdoctoral researcher currently working at the University of Georgia, with degrees in engineering education, mechanical engineering, and German – yet somehow she also manages to find time to autocross. In her free time, she teaches aerial silks, paints, reads, wrangles her two cats, and of course, gives back to the SCCA community by coaching at autocross events.
A member of the SCCA since 2020, Brown’s autocross journey began thanks in part to the energy of the people around her.
“I have been autocrossing with my husband – first sporadically in grad school starting around 2017, and then more regularly after 2021,” Brown says. “My husband is the requisite car afficionado in my life, and his love for autocross – and the people involved with the Atlanta Region SCCA – is infectious. We sometimes joke that he wore me down over time with regards to autocross because my initial experiences learning to drive a manual car were what we might generously call less than successful.”
Through time, she found a C Street Miata that fit her needs, and volunteered with Atlanta Region Team Solo alongside her husband, which involves event setup and breakdown.
A Most Challenging Day
2025 was her first full season of autocross with her Region, where she incorporated knowledge she’d gained from past events and ride-alongs to finish third in class for the season.
She’d competed at the Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tour at Bristol Motor Speedway a handful of times prior to 2025, with the 2023 Bristol event being her first Solo National Tour. That event was far from ordinary, and involved her making a very important decision.
“My most challenging motorsports experience was the Bristol National Tour in 2023,” she explains. “The day itself was less than ideal, mostly for factors outside of anyone's control – blazing heat with little shade, inclement weather and lightning delays, asphalt coming up necessitating repairs mid course runs, etc. This made my first day at a National event run from early morning to 8:30 p.m., because I worked in the first or second heat and ran in the last heat. Even though I ran in CSL, I didn't get to meet many women on track, and I can be painfully shy. Combined, it was a lonely day of racing in unfortunate conditions.
“However, the main obstacle I overcame was learning to recognize the signs for – and subsequently treat – severe heat exhaustion. Throughout the day, my husband was running around socializing and meeting friends around the grid, but failed to adequately hydrate. It wasn't until it was time for me to do my runs that I realized he was in bad shape, but he insisted I complete my runs. Afterward, he was in worse shape, and I spent the evening monitoring him for heat stroke and treating his heat exhaustion. While I didn't want to disqualify myself from my first ever National Tour, family comes first, and I ultimately chose to skip the second day of the Tour in favor of driving my husband home so he could recover safely.”
Gearing up for the Coming Year
In 2026, Brown plans to attend all Atlanta Region points events while instructing as a novice coach. Her National Solo plans include the Red Hills National Tour, Atlanta ProSolo, Charlotte National Tour, and Bristol National Tour, plus the Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships and Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Finale in Lincoln. She also hopes to attend the Spring Nationals in Lincoln, should work allow.
Her biggest barrier to the season, though, is something the Wendi Allen Scholarship can assist with.
“Travel to and from National Tours is fairly expensive when combined with registration fees – for both my husband and me – and the need to book a pet sitter to watch our animals while we're both away,” she says. “This past year, I would send my husband to the National events (like Red Hills) while I would stay home to minimize registration costs and pet sitting costs. This scholarship alleviates this burden by quite a bit.”
You Can Help
Mazda Motorsports funded Brown’s Wendi Allen Scholarship, but two other women were also awarded Wendi Allen Scholarships in 2026, with funding for those coming courtesy of SCCA Foundation. If you would like to help support the Wendi Allen Scholarship Fund, donations can be earmarked specifically for this program through SCCA Foundation’s website.
The SCCA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is a supporting organization of the Sports Car Club of America™. The Foundation supports charitable and educational programs in furtherance of the SCCA’s purposes and for the benefit of the community as a whole served by the Club.
Photo courtesy Jennifer Brown
