LISBON — With a father who races and a mother who used to, getting behind the wheel might have seemed inevitable for Lisbon’s Breeanna Spaulding.

But it wasn’t until the passing of her best friend that Spaulding finally did strap into a race car.

“I started racing four years ago in memory of my best friend Rachel Dubois, who passed away from Cystic fibrosis,” Spaulding, 25, said. “I wanted to honor it in a special way and knew this would be make her proud. She used to race the 21 in the ladies a few years back before she got sick.”

Spaulding naturally drove a No. 21 car in Oxford Plains Speedway’s Ladies division when she made her debut in 2016. But the wins that she now is accumulating in droves weren’t there at the start. She went winless in each of her first two seasons, though she did finish fourth in the points standings her first year and fifth in 2017.

Then last year things started to click for Spaulding’s team. She picked up her first career win in the Acceleration Series season opener, then went on to win a handful more along with the season championship.

As good as last year went, this season is even better. Spaulding has won each of the first 10 races of the season.

“I am more comfortable with my car this year, I know how to handle it now compared to the past years,” Spaulding said. “We’ve made a lot of changes to make the car faster.”

Breeanna Spaulding has had help making adjustments to both her car and her driving style from both her parents.

Her father, Richard, is a competitor in Oxford’s Street Stock series (where he was fourth in the standings heading into the weekend), but also helps Breeanna fine tune her car. Her mother, Christina, was a former Ladies division driver until a racing accident in 2017 pushed her to stop.

Spaulding said both of them are her racing idols.

As far as her competition goes, Spaulding said Maggie Ferland and Shelby Shurtleff “were definitely the toughest competitors” in previous years. That duo went 1-2 in the points in each of Spaulding’s first two seasons, with Ferland taking the title both times.

Last year, Kathryn Childs gave Spaulding a run for her money, and title, finishing just 21 points back. Currently, Chloe Kiley is second in the points, and Sue Veinott close behind her, but both are already more than 100 points back thanks to Spaulding’s undefeated start deep into the season.

It’s a streak she hasn’t taken for granted.

“I never know how any race is going to turn out, so all the time (I feel the streak is in jeopardy),” she said. “My car could break down, I could blow a motor, anything can happen.”

Thankfully a lucky charm always rides shotgun with Spaulding in her car.

“I have a little glass heart that my grandmother gave me, with an angel in it, that I keep in my pocket of my race suit that I have to have every time I race,” Spaulding said.

Spaulding has proven that she knows how to turn the wheel in the Ladies division, so after this season she will be making the switch to the Outlaws division.

“I’m ready for some new competition and to get better as a driver,” she said.

Farther into the future, Spaulding says she hopes to eventually have some competition that she is familiar with — at least off the track.

“Someday I hope to be able to race next to (my dad) and give him a run for his money,” she said.