A former bikini model who became one of the faces of America’s Fast & Furious-era car scene says she’d spend her days scooping up beauty titles before jumping into her 1,000HP Toyota Supra and thrashing the men on the drag strip.
Jessica Barton, from Orlando, carved out a name doing what almost no other woman in the male-dominated car world was doing at the time – looking every inch the glamour model on stage, then proving she could out-drive the lot of them once she was strapped in.
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The 42-year-old, who boasts more than 500,000 followers on Instagram @jessbartontwin, says rivals wrote her off the moment they clocked a blonde bikini model – right up until the lights went green.
For Jessica, silencing the doubters fast became the best bit of the whole scene.
She said: “I’d go to these huge car meets in Texas and somehow end up doing every part of the event.
“I’d place in the bikini contest, win the dyno competition and then go drag racing.
“It was hilarious because I’d go straight from standing on stage in a bikini to getting in the car and banging gears with the boys.
“People never expected it. They’d see the blonde girl and assume I was just there to look pretty. Then I’d get behind the wheel and beat them.
“That was always the best part. I absolutely loved proving people wrong. The boys would laugh at first, but they stopped laughing once the racing started.”
Her petrolhead streak blindsided even her own family.
As a teenager she was a self-described goth glued to Marilyn Manson, while it was her brother who was the designated car nut.
That all flipped when she picked up a Toyota Supra just as The Fast and the Furious exploded across the globe.
She said: “My brother was always the car guy. I couldn’t have cared less. I was the weird goth kid with black lipstick listening to Marilyn Manson. Cars weren’t really my thing at all.
“Then, eventually, I decided I wanted a cool car and bought a Supra.
It happened right when Fast and Furious was becoming huge and all of a sudden I was completely obsessed.
“The more I modified it, the more addicted I became. I couldn’t leave anything alone. Every time I upgraded one thing, I wanted to upgrade something else.
“Before I knew it, the car was making around 1,000 horsepower and had become my baby.”
The deeper she got, the further she travelled – criss-crossing the country for meets, contests and races.
And the buzz, she says, was like nothing else on earth.
Jessica said: “Those events were insane. You’d have thousands of people there, incredible cars everywhere and everyone partying together.
“There would be racing, competitions, music and all kinds of crazy stuff going on. It genuinely felt like living inside The Fast and the Furious.
“I got to meet so many amazing people and travel all over the country. It was one of the most fun periods of my entire life.”
Then the dream turned into a nightmare. One morning Jessica stepped outside to find her pride and joy had simply disappeared.
A frantic hunt eventually led her to the car – but what she found left her gutted.
She said: “I woke up one morning, walked outside and thought, ‘Didn’t I park my Supra here?’ The car was gone.
“We drove all over town looking for it and eventually somebody told us to call a tow yard. When they said they had my car, I was so relieved.
“Then they told me it was hard to tell whether it was even my car because it had been chopped into so many pieces. I couldn’t believe it. My heart absolutely sank. The thing I’d spent years building had basically been dismantled.”
The thieves were later collared – but rather than jack in the hobby, Jessica channelled the heartbreak into building an even wilder replacement.
She said: “You can’t keep me down. I wasn’t going to let that be the end of the story.
“I ended up building another Supra and honestly, it was faster, crazier and better than the first one. Looking back now, I think the comeback was even more satisfying. Sometimes the setbacks end up pushing you towards something even bigger.”
Jessica has since moved on to new ventures, but she still rates her days in the car world as one of the biggest highs of her life.
She said: “I won trophies, travelled the country, met incredible people and beat a lot of boys on the drag strip. I got to live out a real-life Fast and Furious fantasy. When I look back on it now, I just think, what more could a girl want?”
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