Terri Leigh O'Connell (born July 7, 1964) is a former motorsports racing champion, artist, author, and fashion model.
[1] O’Connell was named JT Hayes at birth and lived the first thirty years of her life as a man though she did not identify that way from a young age.
[1] Her father, Jimmy Hayes,[2] got her into racing at an early age, spending weekends at the Riverside Speedway in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the Devil's Bowl in Dallas, Texas.
[4] From her 2007 Newsweek article, “I was trapped upside down, engine throttle stuck wide open, fuel running all over the racetrack and me.
[3] Outside of racing, O'Connell, has worked as a model,[1] owned a clothing line,[2] and wrote a memoir, Dangerous Curves, which was published in 2008.