Mia Lovell

Mia Lovell is an American racing driver who traded her skateboard for a steering wheel and hasn’t looked back since—burning through the Toyota GR Cup as the series’ only female Top 10 qualifier before graduating to the horsepower-heavy Trans Am TA2 series in 2025.

EARLY YEARS

Mia Lovell was born in China and spent her first seven months in an orphanage before being adopted and brought to the United States.[1] Raised in what would become the Phoenix, Arizona area, she grew up immersed in action sports rather than stick-and-ball games—a family preference that suited her just fine.[2] Her father, a lifelong club racer who spent weekends at track days, became the gravitational center of her motorsports education, though racing wasn’t even on her radar during childhood.[1][2]

Instead, Lovell was busy becoming a legitimate skateboarding talent. She started competing at age five and spent eight years carving through the semi-pro ranks, racking up sponsorships and regional wins.[1] By 2019, she collected multiple gold medals at the California State Games and qualified for Tampa Pro—her first professional contest.[1][3] It was a trajectory pointing straight toward pro skateboarding until COVID-19 cancelled everything, including Tampa Pro, and left her looking for something else to do with all that competitive energy.[1]

Enter her father. At 13, during the pandemic shutdowns, Lovell started tagging along to the local track just to watch him drive.[1][2] A year later, at 14, he let her get behind the wheel of his car.[1][2] The transition felt natural. As she later put it: “It was four wheel, with just a lot less horsepower!”[1] She was also an avid motocross rider, so the appetite for speed and risk was already well-developed.[1] What skateboarding had taught her—fearlessness, spatial awareness, commitment—translated surprisingly well to racing. She was hooked.

OTHER INTERESTS

Before racing consumed her life, Lovell was a competitive skateboarder with genuine credentials. She competed regionally and at the semi-pro level for eight years, earning sponsorships and multiple gold medals at the 2019 California State Games.[1][3] Her qualification for Tampa Pro, one of the most prestigious contests in skateboarding, marked her arrival at the professional threshold before the pandemic shut it all down.[1] She was also deeply into motocross, riding often and feeding the same action-sports adrenaline addiction that would eventually make racing feel like home.[1]

EARLY SUCCESS

Lovell didn’t follow the traditional karting path into motorsports—she started late and skipped straight to cars.[1][2] After her first experiences in her father’s car at 14, she trained with Tanner Reif in Arizona and entered Legend Cars competition at the end of 2023, making her debut at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the Silver State Road Course Series.[2] The Legend Cars proved to be the perfect training ground. “No technology, so it really is like a go-kart with a roll cage,” she explained. “That has really helped me a lot, especially with learning race craft.”[2] She wasn’t just logging seat time—she was battling at the front. “It was pretty competitive up there at the front of the field,” she said. “That really taught me how to race well.”[2] By the end of the 2023-24 season, she’d finished first in her division.[2]

In 2023, Lovell made the leap to professional racing with Copeland Motorsports in the Toyota GR Cup North America series—her first pro series.[1] She started at the back of the pack, but by mid-season became the first and only female driver to qualify in the Top 10.[1] She closed out the year with the Overall Fastest Female award.[1] The 2024 season was even stronger: she qualified Top 10 in all but one race, collected countless Highest Finishing Female awards, and earned her second consecutive Overall Fastest Female honor.[1][4] She also visited All American Speedway to test a late model in the SPEARS CARS Tour, continuing to expand her racing toolkit.[3]

Her consistency and competitiveness caught the attention of Nitro Motorsports, which partnered with Copeland Motorsports in a development alliance. On September 12, 2024, Nitro announced that Lovell would be the first driver promoted through the partnership, joining their TA2 Trans Am program for 2025.[4] “Mia has been a threat each race weekend this season,” said Nick Tucker of Nitro Motorsports. “She is feisty, which will help her in the bigger Trans Am car.”[4]

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• 2019: Multiple gold medals at California State Games (skateboarding)[1][3]
• 2019: Qualified for Tampa Pro skateboarding contest (cancelled due to COVID)[1]
• 2023: First and only female driver to qualify Top 10 in Toyota GR Cup (mid-season)[1]
• 2023: Overall Fastest Female, Toyota GR Cup[1]
• 2023-24: First in division, Silver State Road Course Series (Legend Cars)[2]
• 2024: Qualified Top 10 in all but one race, Toyota GR Cup[1]
• 2024: Overall Fastest Female, Toyota GR Cup[1][4]
• 2024: Multiple Highest Finishing Female awards, Toyota GR Cup[1][4]
• 2024: Selected as first driver advanced through Copeland Motorsports-Nitro Motorsports development alliance[4]

INSPIRATIONS

Lovell’s path into racing was shaped almost entirely by her father, a club racer who introduced her to the track at 13 and handed her the keys at 14.[2] His influence wasn’t just about access—it was about culture. Their bond formed around cars and competition, not traditional sports, and that automotive-first upbringing laid the foundation for everything that followed.[1][2] When she transitioned into Legend Cars, she worked with Tanner Reif in Arizona, who helped her develop the racecraft that would define her early professional success.[2]

REPUTATION

Lovell has quickly built a reputation as a scrappy, consistent competitor who doesn’t back down. Nick Tucker of Nitro Motorsports called her “feisty” and noted she’d been “a threat each race weekend” in the 2024 GR Cup season—high praise from a team owner preparing to put her in a 500-horsepower TA2 car.[4] The media has framed her as a skateboarding-prodigy-turned-racing-pioneer, and the storyline tracks: she’s the only female driver to crack the Top 10 in GR Cup qualifying and has dominated the Fastest Female awards with regularity.[1][3][4][6] Her ability to go from zero racing experience at 14 to professional-level competitiveness in just a few years has turned heads, and her progression through Legend Cars—where she won her division while learning to race wheel-to-wheel at the front—proved she wasn’t just fast in a straight line.[2]

FUTURE GOALS/PLANS

In 2025, Lovell will campaign a full season in the Trans Am Western Championship presented by Pirelli with Nitro Motorsports, along with select National Championship rounds.[4] The TA2 cars—lightweight, high-horsepower machines with no traction control or ABS—represent a significant step up in power and complexity from the GR Cup.[1][4] She’ll also participate in an off-season testing program to prepare.[4] “We will be joining the Championship winning Nitro Motorsports team for a campaign in the 2025 TA2 series, and couldn’t be more excited to make my mark!” she said.[1]

Long-term, her ambition is clear and unapologetic: “My goal is to make it into the NASCAR Cup Series,” she told INEX Series. “But you know, honestly, if I’m getting paid to drive, I will drive anywhere! I just want to race. That’s all what matters to me.”[2] It’s the kind of statement that separates the committed from the casual—she’s not chasing a particular series for the glamour. She’s chasing the drive itself.

References:

Mia Lovell Driver Bio – Trans Am Series
In the Pits with Mia Lovell – INEX Series
Meet the Driver – Mia Lovell – West Coast Sports News
Mia Lovell Joins Nitro Motorsports TA2 Program for 2025 Campaign – Trans Am Series