Nurse moonlights as race-car driver

Most days Oksana Shavaryn-Sharkey is a nurse, but when she’s not at the hospital she’s working her other job: race-car driver.

When Shavaryn-Sharkey moved to America from the Ukraine, she barely knew how to drive a car. Now she’s racing for money, and hopes to put her future winnings towards starting a cancer treatment center back in her home country.

Shavaryn-Sharkey’s husband Jonathon has been racing for years, but up until a year ago, Oksana had only watched from the stands. That’s when she decided to give racing a try herself. Shavaryn-Sharkey was a natural and it wasn’t long before she was regularly outracing her husband.

Shavaryn-Sharkey has now been invited to join the F2000 racing series, an open-wheel racing competition. For now, she’lll keep her day job, because she likes the thrill of helping other people just as much as she likes the thrill of going fast.