These women are one of the boys

With the roaring sounds of speeding cars and three radio headsets on, Melanie Correll maintains her cool.

After 29 years of working as a timer and scorer for race teams, the job has become second nature to her.

Correll's office is a small desk and chair lifted a couple of feet above the wall of the track in the Corvette Racing team's pit.

On Friday's American Le Mans Series practice run, her eyes were fixed on the track. Her right hand typed in the numbers to the cars that zoomed by as she listened to three different radio channels to alert the crew chief to what was going on on the track.

"It's the best seat in the house...I am doing a job that women are suited for. We're great at multitasking," Correll said.

Being the only woman in the Corvette pit doesn't put any pressure on her and neither does working 12 hours without a break during the American Le Mans Series or the 24 hour of Le Mans.

"If you're the best driver, they'll put you in a car because they want the best driver. The same goes for the crew; I guess you can call me a tomboy," she said.

Her job is one of the most important to the team because she keeps tabs on the conditions of the track, safety and scores, and times the cars.

It's vital to the teams tracking of stats and trends for their drivers and their competitors.

Correll said she chose her career path in 1969 when her father, an amateur race car driver, handed her a timer. She went from paper, pencils and a stopwatch to three computer screens, four radios and a number keypad she uses today.

"My job has evolved as technology has evolved," she said.

To be part of a team that has won eight consecutive manufacture and team championships from 2001 to 2008 and seven consecutive driver champions from 2002 to 2008 in the GT1 class is more than she could have ever asked for, she said.

Tess Gape is another woman who's just one of the guys.

Both Gape and Correll are working in technical and mechanical fields with their race teams.

Gape has been a mechanic for Risi Competizione, a Ferrari of Houston-based racing team, since 2007. This year makes her third with the team at the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Her career path was anything but planned, she said.

Gape, from Toronto, Canada, was on a waiting list for one of Toronto's fire academies when she enrolled in Bridgestone Racing Academy in Toronto. There she got an internship with a race team, and things took off.

"It's Ferrari; how does it get any better than that?" Gape asked.

In 2003, Gape was the first woman to ever go over the wall to do a tire change on a champion car in St. Petersburg. Ten photographers surrounded Gape as she completed the tire change, she said.

"If I was a man, nobody would've cared. I would've just blended in," Gape said.

Gape and Correll break the stereotypes of women working in a male-dominated field. Both say the first few years of proving themselves were the hardest but well worth the effort.

"If we do a good job, gender shouldn't matter," Correll said.