Tanya Porter

**Tanya** Yvette **Porter** (17 December 1990 - 23 March 2014) was an American professional racing driver, best known for her time in the Indycar World Championship, where she raced from 2010 until her death in 2014. Porter was renowned for her ability to navigate close quarters oval racing, and excelled in intermediate oval races. She was the second of the three Porter sisters to compete in the Indycar World Championship, alongside older sister, Stephanie, and younger sister, Evangeline.

## Early Years

Porter was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the fourth of six children to David and Marina Porter. She grew up with her siblings in a suburb of Cincinnati, less than 30 miles away from a karting facility that the family would routinely visit. Tanya was keen to follow in her older sister, Stephanie's footsteps and pursue racing, but struggled initially with karting against others on the karting courses meant for road course development.

## Champ Car career

### 2009 Season

Porter made her Indycar World Championship debut in the 2009 Indianapolis 500 for Rising Sun Racing, driving the #7 with sponsorship from Motorola. She impressed immediately, qualifying 8th for her first Indy 500 with a four lap average of 225.955 miles per hour (363.64 kilometers per hour). Unfortunately, Porter was caught up in the large accident on lap 55 that ultimately claimed the life of Arimoto Tokutaro, as well as injuring several others.

### 2010 Season

On 18 October 2009, it was announced that Porter would be joining her sister, Stephanie Porter-Kelley, in her team at Striker Motorsports, which was expanding to a two car effort with Chevrolet power. Porter would drive the #22, while her older sister continued to use the #60.

## Personal Life

Porter identified herself as an unaffiliated Christian, after being raised in a strict Catholic household. After the death of her father in 2010, Porter excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and became one of its more vocal critics in the motorsports community. Porter openly supported LGBTQIA+ parades and gatherings, and in the latter years of her career, often invited members of the LGBTQIA+ community to attend races.

Porter was also a firm supporter of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, donating 25% of her yearly earnings to the charity each year she competed in the Indycar World Championship. Porter's untimely passing drew more support for the charity, with the 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner, and 2014 Indycar World Driver's Champion, Cristine Espinoza, donating her entire year's earnings to the charity in honor of Porter.

Despite the acrimonious relationship between her sister and Cristine Espinoza, Porter and Espinoza were extremely close friends, with Espinoza remarking on multiple occasions how Porter had "intellect and racing savvy that [she] could do nothing but respect". Espinoza was also deeply affected by Porter's passing, and was one of the pallbearers at her funeral. As recent as 2021, Espinoza has since driven with a pair of gloves that Porter used to wear when she raced, and has refused to use any other pair of gloves since.

## Death

On the evening of 23 March 2014, Porter was departing from the Aventura Mall, after doing a meet and greet in preparation for the Indycar World Championship events coming to St. Petersburg, and nearby Homestead-Miami venues. Porter pulled into a gas station off of Biscayne Boulevard at 6:41 p.m. local time, shortly before a man attempted to rob another customer in the store. A gunfight broke out between the two, with Porter struck by stray fire. Porter was rushed to Aventura Medical Center, just north of the Aventure Mall, but was pronounced dead at 7:04 p.m. from internal bleeding sustained from two gunshots to her chest. One of the shooters were also killed, with the attempted burglar fleeing the scene, but was apprehended later that evening and charged with two counts of second degree murder.

An autopsy on Porter revealed one of the bullets entered through her right side, ricocheting off of a rib and stopping in one of her lungs. The second, fatal gunshot, hit Porter from her mid back, indicating she was changing directions to face away from the gunfight when the second bullet hit her. The bullet, a .45 caliber shot, entered beside her spinal column and went through her aorta artery, causing instant profuse blood loss, a large quantity of which remained floating inside of her chest cavity until she was moved from the scene of the shooting.

### Racing Community Reaction

There was an instant outpouring of sorrow and mourning upon the announcement of Porter's death. Stephanie Porter-Kelley, Tanya's older sister, and her IndyCar team owner, was in China, having raced in the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai earlier that day. Porter-Kelley learned of her sister's passing after she returned to the United States on Monday the 24th of March, where she immediately secluded herself from media journalists. Her younger sister, Evangeline, was in Cincinnati, Ohio when the news broke, and was described as "inconsolable" by those close to her the immediate days after Porter's passing.

Porter's body was transported back to Cincinnati, Ohio on the morning of Wednesday, 26 March 2014, to allow the family to begin preparing funeral arrangements. The family elected to have a public funeral, with the service taking place at the Norwood English Lutheran Church on Monday, 31 March 2014. She was buried at St. Mary Catholic Cemetery, in a plot nearby both of her parents.

The Indycar World Championship for 2014, at the next event in St. Petersburg, Florida, carried an extensive tribute to Porter during the weekend, with memorabilia being sold as a fundraiser for Porter's family, and towards the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a charity Porter herself supported her entire professional racing career. The race broadcast on TNT Sports also featured a lap of silence on lap 22 of the event, as well as the following event at Homestead-Miami Speedway, less than an hour from the location of the shooting. 22 was the number Porter drove during her Indycar World Championship career.

## Legacy

Porter was viewed as a very proficient oval racer, excelling on short ovals, as well as on intermediate sized ovals that permitted pack racing, where a group of cars remained close together at high speeds for long durations of time. All of Porter's Indycar World Championship wins came on ovals, at a time where most teams were preferring road course-dominant drivers. While Porter never materialized as a World Championship contender, Porter did claim the 2012 Indianapolis 500 pole position, the only such Indy 500 where all three of the Porter sisters shared the same starting grid.

Multiple team principals have come out in the years since her passing lobbying for Porter to be inducted into the NAMRA Hall of Fame for her contributions to charity and her excellent oval racing resume, with NAMRA officials electing they would induct Tanya in the same year they induct Stephanie, due to Stephanie's first-ballot Hall of Fame resume, and in recognition of Tanya's growth as a driver before her death, in addition to her successes in the sport.

In late 2021, Horizon Corporation announced the Nissan Atlantic Championship's Oval Cup trophy would be named after Porter, a reference to Porter's World Championship race wins, but also her near undefeated streak on ovals in the now-defunct Indy Lights Championship, which the Atlantic Championship replaced.

## See Also

* Stephanie Porter-Kelley, Tanya's older sister.
* Evangeline Porter, Tanya's younger sister.
* Striker Motorsports, the team Tanya raced her entire career for.