AFTER rediscovering her passion for motorsport Renee Gracie is on a mission to try and secure a third tilt at the Bathurst 1000.
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Gracie, who previously raced in the Bathurst 1000 in 2015 and 2016 alongside Simona de Silvestro, has gone on to become a prominent adult content creator on subscription site OnlyFans over the past two years.
Gracie is looking to use $1 million from the money earned in her new career to buy her own team and fund a wildcard entry in next year's edition of the Great Race.
It was midway through last year where the former Super2 series driver got herself back into go karting, and that sparked the beginning of her journey towards a possible Bathurst return.
"I was working heaps but I wasn't doing anything for myself. People were asking me 'What are your hobbies?' and I said 'I don't actually have any at the moment' so I thought I need to pick up a hobby again," she said.
"It made me realise the potential opportunities to get back into racing, not on a professional level, and that means I can still have fun with it, and that's what it was all about when I was doing it years ago.
"I've had a lot of support from people I used to race against years ago and that really lit the fire to do something I enjoy, and to potentially get other opportunities from sponsorships and marketing and make it a more enjoyable event rather than from a professional aspect, where I originally ended up."
Gracie has ruled out any potential return to a full-time racing career and would prefer to focus on taking part in select events where possible, in order to maintain that enjoyment factor she's rediscovered.
"Such a small percentage of my career I had at the time was to actually do with racing. We only raced around eight times throughout the year in the development series. I had a full-time job with sponsorships and sponsors were flying me out to do events," she said.
"When I did race, I wasn't doing very well, we didn't have enough money and I wasn't progressing at the rate I was hoping to. The stress and frustration was really getting to me.
"It would be great to do Bathurst again while having control in the team and management. When I was new to it I had some much external pressure put on me for everything - how I looked, how I dressed and how I presented myself."
The OnlyFans venture for Gracie has proven incredibly lucrative but she said the career change has also been a liberating moment.
"It's an amazing community online. The environment in the motorsport industry is not friendly at the best of times. I've met some amazing people in it, and 80 per cent of it is great, but the leftover 20 per cent can be toxic and demanding," she said.
"Now being in an adult industry ... we're in competition with each other but everyone wants people to do well and you want other girls to succeed. Everyone is always supporting each other.
"With the way the world is changing it's not an industry that's shunned and people are no longer embarrassed to talk about it."
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