Supermodel’s New Love: Auto Racing

A girl was talking to herself as she looked at cars racing on a speedway in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province on the afternoon of November 16, despite sub-zero temperatures.

“The smell and sound!” said the beautiful driver.

She is no other than the supermodel-turned-actress Lee Hwa-sun (26).

“Smell? What smell are you talking about?” I asked her even before introducing myself.

“I mean the rubber-burning smell. Awesome, isn’t it? How about the sound? I am extremely excited when I come here, I am anxious to drive a car, but have to wait,” said Lee. Loving the smell of tires burning from sudden starts or stops? This proves that she is really into auto racing.

Her first encounter with sports car racing was only two years ago, in the late fall of 2004. It had been a long time since she put her driver’s license away after getting it in her first year in college (1998). Back then, she indulged in online games. Auto-racing was something she never thought of.

Lee was chosen as a SBS Super Elite Model in 2002 and later made her debut in the entertainment business. After hosting a segment on a TV show on computer games, she got so engrossed with the games that she asked her mother to bring her meals to the computer. One day, when she was playing the online game “Lineage,” Lee Se-chang, an entertainer famous for his auto-racing skills, recommended racing to her in an online chatroom.

Se-chang: Auto-racing is so fun, Hwa-sun.

Hwa-sun: Hey, I can’t drive well. I am barely learning how to drive now.

Se-chang: In auto-racing, all you need is go forward fast. See you later on a speedway.

This led her into “Alstars,” a group of celebrity racers. But on her very first day, she got into a huge accident. Her car hit stacked tires serving as a protection wall and broke through the guard rail barrier surrounding the speedway, the first such accident since 1995 when Yongin speedway was constructed.

However, she was a fast-learner. Lee Se-chang described her as a “sponge soaking up water.”

She won two competitions and took second place in two races out of seven in the 2005 Click Speed Festival Series, ranking third. Her nickname soon changed from “clumsy” to “lucky.”

Was she involved in other accidents? Her car lost control and rolled over two and a half times in the seventh round of the final race in November, but she walked away.

This year she couldn’t take part in competitions due to filming, but she never skipped a once–a-month practice. Lee will enter a race on November 26, and is now working hard to win.

jeon@donga.com