She’s 18 and has a really hot car — at Evergreen Speedway

A sleek new car is entering the Super Late Model field this year at Evergreen Speedway.

The black No. 52 is sponsored by the CW11 Seattle television station, and emblazoned on its side is the blue and red-clad image of the protagonist of the CW series “Supergirl.”

The decoration couldn’t be more appropriate, as the car will have its own super girl behind the wheel.

Brittney Zamora is coming to the Monroe racetrack this year, and the up-and-coming teenage driver from Kennewick is looking to muscle her way into the group of contenders at the head of the pack.

“I’m just really excited,” Zamora said about moving to Evergreen Speedway this year. “I remember visiting Summer Showdown at Evergreen and being in the stands watching, but this will be my first time racing, which is really exciting.”

Zamora’s car will be one of the most identifiable among those that take the green flag at Evergreen’s 2018 season-opening race Saturday. But Zamora isn’t just there as a promotional tool. She’s there to win.

The 18-year-old Zamora, who is a freshman at Washington State University Tri-Cities studying elementary education when she’s not racing, already has a long and illustrious racing resume. She comes from a racing family as her father, Mike, raced Super Late Models for 20 years. She was just 5 years old when she began racing go-karts, going on to win multiple championships. At 14 she moved into a Mini Stock, winning two more championships.

“When kids get into racing at that age, you don’t know what their reaction is going to be,” said Mike Zamora, who serves as his daughter’s crew chief. “They may say they want to do it, but until they actually do it you don’t know. But she took to it from the beginning, she was fast from the start — and fearless.”

Then in 2016 Zamora took another step up, getting behind the wheel of a Super Late Model to race in the Northwest Super Late Model Series, which tours tracks throughout Washington, Oregon and Idaho. In 2016 she was named the tour’s Rookie of the Year. Then last year she won two races, claiming the Douglas County 125 at the Douglas County Speedway in Roseburg, Oregon, on June 17, and the Neal Newberry 125 at the Wenatchee Valley Super Oval in East Wenatchee on Sept. 23. Not only was Zamora the first woman ever to win a race on the Northwest Super Late Model Series, she also became the first female to win the points championship.

“It was great,” Zamora said about her 2017 season. “We definitely had high expectations for our team, the championship was the goal. But to achieve it was a whole other level for us, given it was just our second year in the series and in the car. We had two race wins, multiple fast times, set a new track record (at the Douglas County Speedway) and to top it all off, won the championship. It was exciting for the team and it was exciting for me.

“It’s kind of surreal to this day,” Zamora added about her trailblazing accomplishments as a female driver. “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. But I’m pretty excited to be marked down in the the history books for that. Hopefully other girls will follow as time progresses, with more and more females claiming titles.”

Having conquered the Northwest Super Late Model Series, the decision was made to find a higher competition level this year, thus the move to Evergreen. However, it was the sponsorship from CW11 that made it possible — with a partnership that was a match made on Krypton.

“Last year one of the account executives went to the speedway to talk about some promotional ideas and to do some advertising, and they wrapped one of the vehicles (driven by Tyler Tanner) like the CW show ‘The Flash,’” Kevin Walsh, the regional general manager for CBS, said. “This year they came back and they liked the idea and they had the young woman driver, and I like the fact it’s an excellent device to promote one of our shows.”

And so the “Supergirl” car was born.

But can Zamora channel the power of Supergirl to fly past the competition? Zamora has almost no experience racing at Evergreen, as the one time she competed at the track was years ago in a Mini Stock. She’ll be competing against an experienced field that includes several drivers who have won multiple championships at Evergreen.

Yet Zamora’s record of success makes her a top contender in the track’s Rookie of the Year competition.

“Seat time is huge in Super Late Models,” Zamora said, “Every race the past two years I made big improvements, and last year I was a different driver at the end of the year than I was at the beginning.

“My main goal is that we are working towards a championship, but top three in points would be great as well,” Zamora added.

And if she can accomplish that, she will have more than lived up to the name on her car.

If you have an idea for a community sports story, e-mail Nick Patterson at npatterson@heraldnet.com.