The world of speed has permeated every aspect of Lisa Caceres’ life. The Novato native started racing karts in 1986, the same year she joined the Screen Actor’s Guild and became a precision/stunt driver for television and film. Some of the car commercials you’ve seen on Mt. Tam have had Caceres behind the wheel.
Caceres won the International Karting Federation Nor Cal 125cc shifter kart title in ’94 and expanded her racing career to include Pro Mazda formula cars, GT America road racing stock cars and production-based sports cars in IMSA GTO, the Firehawk Firestone Series, and the Pro SCCA Escort Endurance Series. Along the way she ran with teammates like 10-time sports car champion Scott Pruett, Le Mans 24 Hour class winner Johnny O’Connell and breakthrough racer Lynn St. James.
Caceres even raced jet skis as did her friend, Marin racer Memo Gidley.
But it was through Caceres’ mother Doris that Lisa got to see the heart beneath the hype at the pinnacle of the sport. Doris was building a house at the east end of Atherton Avenue in Novato and caught the racing bug from her daughter. Doris decided to design the home as a Bed & Breakfast tailored for racers that she called “Racer’s Retreat.”
The three bottom-floor rooms all had their own full bathrooms including showers. The middle floor had the kitchen, living room and entertainment room with an extensive library of racing videos and movies. Doris lived on the top floor, giving racers their space when needed. Being about a quarter-mile from Highway 37 at Black Point, Racer’s Retreat presented quick access to what is now Sonoma Raceway.
At this weekend’s NASCAR Toyota/Save Mart 350 Sprint Cup race at Sonoma you’ll see dozens of white-on-black flags above motorhomes with Dale Earnhardt’s familiar No. 3 on them, an homage to their fallen hero. While millions revered Earnhardt as fans, Lisa and Doris Caceres got to know him as friends.
Through the end of the last century, every June meant having Dale Sr. and his team owner Richard Childress downstairs during NASCAR weekend.
The very first morning Earnhardt came up for breakfast he said he wanted his eggs very, very easy and while cooking them Doris felt the seven-time NASCAR champion right behind her. She turned around and said, “Do I tell you how to drive?” and he sat back down in silence.
One of those early mornings Earnhardt came up in jeans and no shirt. When he went back downstairs Lisa got an excited call from her mom who said: “Oh my gosh. Dale is so buffed! He came up with his shirt off.”
Another time Earnhardt was just getting back after Friday qualifying.
“Mom walked out to greet him and he hands her his driving suit which he had just finished qualifying in,” Caceres recalled of her mother’s tale. “She asked, ‘Do you want me to wash this?’ and he said, ‘It’s yours.’ That’s how he was.”
Once she heard the news, Lisa wanted to capitalize on the mojo it contained.
“I was racing at the time, and I thought, ‘I gotta try this on. It’s going to make me faster, I know it,” Caceres said. “So I went over when he wasn’t there and tried it on and thought, ‘Ooh, this is nice.’”
Earnhardt used to love Doris’s little terrier Speedway, holding him in his lap and feeding him pistachios which the canine would break apart with his teeth. Earnhardt was quiet and soft-spoken there, savoring the solitude.
Along with NASCAR drivers and series president (at the time) Mike Helton, Doris hosted top drivers within IndyCar and sports cars the rest of the year, even reuniting Lisa with O’Connell. Racer’s Retreat hosted racing heroes on major race weekends and amateurs racers on minor ones. Lisa would be the chef for race weekend barbecues, cooking ribs, barbecue chicken, tri-tips, corn, veggies, salads and appetizers.
On Fridays of NASCAR weekends, Lisa would hand-deliver invitations in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and K&N Series West paddocks. But discretion was required; the guest list at the Cup level on NASCAR weekends (beyond Earnhardt and Childress) was very narrow. A few of the NASCAR support race drivers like Marin’s Dave Smith and Tom Dyer would get the nod, but most of the invitations went to racing series and track personnel, sponsors, and folks with strong community connections to the track like the executive director of Speedway Children’s Charities, Major General Tom Sadler.
“It was kept very quiet. The Racer’s Retreat was meant to be just that,” Caceres said. Earnhardt and Childress stayed there 10 consecutive years. “It was meant to be their little hideaway.”
The rest of the year it could be a bit more raucous.
“One of the things that was really cool was that mom wanted everyone to send a photograph of themselves so she could put them on her wall of fame in the hallway and the stairs to the rooms. It was a wall of pictures of everybody that’s been there,” Caceres said. “Everybody used to sign them and write something to her.
“Dale Earnhardt wrote, ‘To my California Mom, thanks for all your hospitality’ or something like that,” Caceres added.
Doris also hosted aviation legend Chuck Yeager.
Doris died in 2014 and Lisa was unable to keep Racer’s Retreat going herself, working full time on her own business, Race Karts Inc. The property was sold. But Lisa still sees some of her NASCAR friends as soon as they get to Sonoma Raceway. She helps out long-time friend Steve Henry, owner of Henry Aviation. They are the aviation service that orchestrates all the private and hired helicopters that land on the pads within and around the karting track. Caceres keeps a motorhome up there for pilots to use in their respites between runs and sometimes runs drivers and team personnel down to the paddock in a golf cart.
For Caceres, the racing world has come full circle. With Race Karts Inc., she teaches kids how to race karts from as early as 5 years old, and mentors all skill levels up to and including those looking to turn pro in cars. This year’s Indy 500 winner, Alexander Rossi, began his racing career as her pupil while his father Pieter raced at the USAC Formula Russell arrive-and-drive series on Sonoma Raceway’s road course.
Never a mother herself, working with kids and karts gives Caceres a chance to exercise that maternal gene.
“Some parents can’t see racing as a team sport. I tell them that it teaches kids responsibility, discipline, focus and compassion for competitors,” Caceres said.
And while every youth coach has to keep kids in line and ease them through their disappointments, Caceres admitted, “Sometimes I just melt.”
Pit bits
• JR Hildebrand tested the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy Indy car at Road America last week just in case injured driver Josef Newgarden isn’t able to compete after suffering shoulder and hand injuries at Texas Motor Speedway near Ft. Worth, Texas on June 12. The former Sausalito resident will be on hand if Newgarden’s injuries can’t withstand the high g-forces around the 4.0-mile undulating road course near Elkhart Lake, Wisc. “Driving at Road America in an Indy car is awesome. It’s a seriously high commitment circuit,” Hildebrand said. “There are multiple 120-plus mph corners which definitely get your attention.”
• This year there will be no Marin drivers in the Saturday feature race of the NASCAR Toyota/Save Mart 350 weekend, the Carneros 200 NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race, which gets the green flag at 2 p.m. One of the crossover Sprint Cup drivers racing in this support race will be Chase Elliott, the second-generation rookie taking over Jeff Gordon’s old ride at Hendrick Motorsports.
Todd Telford covers motor sports for the IJ. Email him at improbabletodd@gmail.com. Check out the Marin motor sports blog at marinij.com.
