28 ENGINEBUILDERmag.com | AUGUST 2020
I
don’t remember a time in my life that we weren’t involved in tractor pulling,” says Ashley
Corzine, the daughter of the late, great Larry Koester. “My dad has been in the sport of
tractor pulling since my very early years of childhood.”In fact, Ashley was just three years
old when her dad lost both his legs in
a tractor mowing accident, and the
trajectory of the Koester family would
forever change.
“In the process of healing, one of
his friends wanted to get him into
motorsports as a kind of pick me up,”
Corzine says. “ ey rigged up the
tractor so that it would work for his
amputee situation. From then on, he
and mom took us kids everywhere
with them. I don’t remember a time in
my life when I wasn’t pulling.”
Fittingly, Ashley met her husband
Craig at a tractor pull in Tomah, WI
and the seeds of what is now Corzine
Motorsports were planted.
“We have four daughters, so we’ve
kind of had our hands full, but both
of us love tractor pulling,” she says.
“Since both of us have a love for it andour family, we decided it was time to
do something as well. In 2012, [we
started Corzine Motorsports] and we
built a two-wheel-drive truck for Craig
to drive.
“We had our last daughter in
2014, and 13 months later, Craig
looked at me and said, we’re building
a second truck and you’re going to
drive it. I was like, ‘What? Excuse
me? How are we going to do this
with four children?’ But we did, and
in 2015, I started driving my own
truck.”
While Ashley wasn’t quite sure
how the juggling act of competition
and family would ultimately turn
out, she admits she’s glad to be in the
driver’s seat.
“Once I had my real life in order
enough to be able to compete and be
a driver, now I tell my husband all thetime, he can’t get me out of the seat,”
Corzine says. “It’s an adrenaline rush.
e competition is so much fun.”
Ashley admits that her rst season
was a little bit of a learning curve, but
it didn’t take her long to adjust and
her second season was a di erent story.
She won Bowling Green, Louisville,
the National Farm Machinery Show
Championship, and the Enderle Pull
O .
“I was on top of my game,” she
says. “ e next year, we pulled again
with three trucks. We gured out that
was just way too much to try to do.
is past year, 2019, we switched gears
all together, sold all three trucks and
built what is called a light unlimited.
“It’s called a light unlimited because
we are unlimited on setup. e only
speci cations are the measurements of
the actual tractor itself. It has to have
two automotive-style engines on it. It
can be any type of supercharger – we
run screw chargers. Besides that, it just
has to weigh 6,000 lbs., including the
driver. Again, I was on a huge learning
curve trying to learn how to drive that
tractor.”
For someone juggling four kids
and winning tractor pulls, Ashley has
never been afraid of the challenges she
faces as a woman in motorsports.
“I know that I can go out there
and compete with the guys,” Corzine
says. “ ere’s no level of arrogance
there, because the moment that you
do try to be, you get knocked right
back down just like any of the guys.
I would say the hardest part for me is
learning how to manage motherhood
with four daughters and being a
driver, because I have to turn that
switch o when I go to the track so I
can concentrate and do my job on the
track as well.”
For 2020, Ashley is once again
looking to win in the light unlimited
division. EBASHLEY CORZINE
DRIVER, CORZINE MOTORSPORTS
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23-32 eb.aug20 Women in the Industry.indd 28 8/7/20 8:29 AM
Naresh Jariwala