Dawn Burlew lines up the Watkins Glen International pace car behind a Corvette Z06 Supercar. The Vette’s tag reads “W8 4 US.” “Beautiful car,” Dawn says, while waiting for lead pace car driver Rob Roessel to guide eight Corvettes around the track for Drive the Glen.

Dawn pulls onto the track, elbows at sixty degrees, hands at three and nine o’clock, shoulders against the seat. Her sleek, silver-blonde hair frames her face, very focused at the moment, eyes hidden behind stylish shades. This is no mellow Friday afternoon cruise to a winery. Dawn looks like a NASCAR driver. All she needs is a fire suit and a helmet.

“Rob races, so he’ll probably take the cars around for some pretty quick laps,” Dawn says. The Vettes take off. The W8 4 US Vette isn’t waiting. Dawn says, “I’ve been learning how to drive this track,” as she accelerates past sponsor signs, crash barriers, and grandstands.

Coming up on a section of track called the Boot (because it looks like, well, a boot), Dawn talks through the process of turning. Turns in the Boot are tricky. The track loses elevation before bending 180 degrees right around the toe and climbing up to a ninety-degree right around the heel, then two lefts and a right before she zooms down the start/finish straight. A complex section of track with a short line of sight, the Boot, like the Glen more generally, is about the turns. Drivers have to be flexible, nimble, quick, and willing to trust there’s space for them even when they can’t see around the next bend.

A perfect metaphor for a local farm girl who loves horses and loud cars and who became the first woman president of Watkins Glen International, AKA the Glen.

Dawn saw a turn and she took it.

Getting On Track Early

The Glen’s new president grew up in Erin, New York, in Chemung County, about twenty minutes south of the Watkins Glen racetrack. Now sixty, Dawn still lives in the area. As a child, she lived and worked on a farm with her parents, where her attraction to things with motors came early. Her dad worked on all types of farm equipment as well as trucks and jeeps.

“My father had a passion for the Jeep Willys, Ford Mustangs, and Ford trucks, all of which we owned either new or by buying and rebuilding,” Dawn says. “There was always some type of garage work happening, and often I was there with my father, watching and handing him tools until the vehicle was ready for a test drive.” They then used the machines to work the farm.

Cars really grabbed Dawn when she learned to drive. She recalls, “My first car was a Pontiac Ventura with a manual transmission. Luckily, I knew how to drive standard.” These days, she enjoys driving her 2001 BMW Z3. Which, of course, is a stick. She also loves the sound of race cars roaring around the track.

After finishing high school in the early eighties, Dawn found herself trying to figure out a way to stay in Chemung County. Not one to spin her wheels, she enrolled in Cazenovia College, then transferred to Keuka College to earn a business management degree. While there, she laid out the course that would lead her to fulfilling her dreams of having an indoor horse arena, owning a show horse, and owning a sports car. She developed the plan for the arena and a horse boarding facility while at Cazenovia. In July 1995, she married Rodney Schmidt. They were a great team for the farm. Rod took care of the horses—feeding, cleaning stalls, maintaining equipment, putting up hay (they grew their own)—while Dawn managed farriers, veterinarians, show schedules, and transportation for their daughter, born in 1998, who competed in horse shows once she was old enough. As she had planned in college, Dawn also bought a horse and a Toyota Supra sports car right after graduation. By her mid-thirties, married with a successful horse farm, show horses, a sports car, and a kid, it seems Dawn had already finished her race.

One Turn Leads to Another

One turn she couldn’t see beyond at the time was an internship in corporate communications at Corning, Inc. while she was an undergraduate at Keuka. That internship led to a job with Corning in IT, which led to corporate services (mail, copy centers, payroll checks), which led to accounts payable/employee expense, which led to corporate facilities, which led to corporate real estate. When Dawn retired from Corning in January 2024 (starting at the Glen a day later!), she had been the director of government affairs and the director of business development for ten years. Same number of turns as the Glen’s NASCAR track. Dawn says that working at Corning was “great.” They like people who are “change agents” and “nimble.”

The internship connected her to the track. The Glen was struggling when Corning motored in and bought it, thanks to the vision of Jim Reisbeck, the comptroller for Corning Glass in the eighties and a racing nut. As Carrie Hagen relates in the May 2019 issue of Mountain Home, Jim could see far enough down the track to make the Glen into a NASCAR destination, a change that cost less than staging Formula One races, and that injected some high-octane fuel into an economic engine for the region. Dawn saw the twists and turns up close as an intern, supporting the writers and the communications team working on the track project. (Read “Coming to the Rescue” at mountainhomemag.com.)

Dawn’s experiences at Corning, Inc.—corporate communications, IT, facilities, real estate, accounts payable, government affairs, business development—read like a job description for a racetrack president. Between Corning and the horse farm, she’d learned the skills necessary to keep the Glen, a sprawling organization with a lot of moving parts, in tune. Though Dawn says she didn’t plan to become president of the Glen, that college internship during the winter of 1984 and the spring of 1985 certainly steered her that way.

Green Flagging the Mark Twain Trolley

A local to the bottom of her white tennis shoes with the checkered-flag soles, Dawn values community. As she says, “community is my passion.” One way she seeks to build community is by recognizing the region’s history and working it into events at the Glen.

Based in Chemung County, the Mark Twain Trolley was used to provide tours for Twain enthusiasts until a few years ago, and Dawn, who sits on the Chemung County Chamber of Commerce board, saw an opportunity to connect the counties.

Perhaps she saw the trolley like her dad would see a broken down Willys—an idle machine that could be put to use. In this case, the use was in connecting Chemung and Schuyler counties and sharing some history. Everyone knows Twain, right?

The trolley rolls up just as we sit down to talk. “I’m sorry,” she says, hustling out of the room, “but I’ve got to see this!”

Three maintenance guys climb off the trolley, whose engine hums steadily. “You got it running!” Dawn exclaims.

“Everything on board works, too,” one of them comments. Dawn’s enthusiasm hums along with the trolley’s diesel. She and other staff members climb on board, look around, and climb off. “It looks great inside!” Dawn says. “This is great!”

Dawn’s crew introduced the trolley as a hospitality bus at the July Finger Lakes Wine Festival, where it was a big hit. The Glen will use the bus for other events and teach people about Twain’s history in Chemung County.

“Mark Twain wrote a lot at Quarry Farm,” Dawn says, “and we need to remember that. And we’ve got great mechanics and woodworkers to keep it in top shape.” History powering community. So it’s no surprise that Dawn sits on the council of the International Motor Racing Research Center, an organization dedicated to collecting, sharing, and preserving the history of motorsports.

Steering Yesterday into Today

The Glen encompasses just under 1,800 acres and includes everything from RV parking to tent camping to its own medical facility to the Media Center to the Jack Daniel’s Club. A road course means slower speeds and more turns, but it’s popular with fans. USA Today readers voted the Glen “Best NASCAR Track” in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020. The short course, used for NASCAR events, measures 2.4 miles with seven turns. The long course, used for Grand Prix and other events, measures 3.4 miles with eleven turns. Turns are banked between six and ten degrees, and the long course drops about thirteen stories each lap. NASCAR laps at the Glen average around 120 mph—slow compared to super speedways like Talladega—but the turns keep things interesting.

People come from all over the world to drive the Glen, bringing an international vibe. During Drive the Glen events, drivers pay thirty bucks per vehicle (no motorcycles, RVs, or motorcoaches), then channel their inner Jackie Stewart or Chase Elliott for three laps of the long course, escorted by an official WGI pace car. Drivers can also practice their turns as members of car clubs. Dawn mentions that, three weeks before the Wine Festival, Ferrari rented the track for six days. Some drivers shipped their cars from Europe to drive. Ferrari, who will be back with another spectacular event in 2025, even brought in their own red Adirondack chairs, splashing some Italian accents across the track.

“We have cars on the track 177 days a year,” Dawn says. That’s a lot of turns.

Speaking of turns, this year Dawn will preside over the Go Bowling at the Glen Weekend race, the first year the Glen has been included in the NASCAR playoffs Round of 16. This turn involves the Glen shifting the traditional August race weekend to September 11 to 15. The Round of 16 brackets the road race with the intermediate oval of the Atlanta Motor Speedway the weekend before and the short oval of Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway the weekend after. Three exciting and different races for the fans (you can find out more at nascar.com).

Given her love for loud cars, it’s perhaps not surprising that Dawn also digs loud music. She’s aware that one of the most famous—and the largest—concerts of all time took place at Watkins Glen. Summer Jam was on July 28, 1973, on the land that is now the Geico camping grounds. The Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, and The Band played to over 600,000 people, dwarfing Woodstock by 200,000 and shutting down the roads around Watkins Glen for several days. Dawn’s sense of history shows in her appreciation of Steeln’ Peaches, an Allman Brothers revue that played Saturday night, July 27, after the Finger Lakes Wine Festival corked festivities for the evening. Nearly fifty years to the day, the band ripped through songs that the Allmans covered in their Summer Jam set, including “Blue Sky,” “Southbound,” and “Whipping Post.” Exuberant jams captured the Allmans’ vibe and prompted more than a few wine drinkers and old Deadheads to groove with the band. Like the trolley, Steeln’ Peaches fired on all pistons, and their inclusion in the festivities suggests the sense of history Dawn and the Glen’s crew bring to their events at the track.

Just over a week after the wine festival, Winning Wednesday at the Corning Museum of Glass celebrated it’s twelve-year partnership with the racetrack. Visitors could see WGI pace cars and stock cars up close. Dawn and Rob (in addition to driving the lead pace car he is director of corporate sales) talked to visitors at the Hot Glass race-themed glassblowing demonstrations about the one-of-a-kind champion trophy CMoG provides each year for the ARCA Menards Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series, and NASCAR Cup Series Major Events at WGI.

A Team Effort

Watch any clip of a NASCAR or sports car driver in the winner’s circle and you’ll see them thank their crew. Dawn understands the need for a strong team, whether at the track or at home. Growing up, she saw one with her parents, and she and Rodney worked the farm together and raised their daughter, Sydney, now twenty-six. They supported Sydney’s horse competitions, and she repaid the effort by winning some. After graduating from SUNY-Morrisville in 2020, Sydney came home and, a week later, took over the horse farm.

Good presidents, like good drivers and good parents, know they can’t win alone. As Dawn told her staff at the Glen when she was hired, “You’re not joining my team. I’m joining your team.” Dawn also says, “I prefer to work in streams, not silos.” Seems she learned this in part from her parents, in part from her time at Corning.

“My mother worked a full-time job, then came home and helped my father with the farm,” Dawn says. “Multitasking was her specialty. My father worked for the Village of Horseheads, was a town board member, and ran a small farm. Both believed in volunteering and being part of the community and the organizations that supported our hobbies, which was horses and our church.”

As for her tenure at Corning, Dawn says, “I had some great mentors and team members during my career that provided professional insight as well as personal support that can’t be learned in a classroom or book.”

Like the drivers teaching her to drive, Dawn passes on her knowledge to the next generation. The Glen hosts around five interns a year. One of those individuals, Jordyn Robinson, is studying marketing at the University of Tampa and interning at the track while home for the summer. Taking in the action when the trolley appears, she says, “Dawn’s great. Keeps us in the loop. She’s so involved.” No surprise there. If anyone understands the value of internships, it’s Dawn.

Part of her drive for helping others comes from her student days at Keuka, which admitted only women during her time there.

“I had both men and women professors who truly believed that women could and should be able to do anything career-wise they wanted to, and pushed me outside my comfort zone,” she recounts. Yet, like a driver connecting turns by setting up early, Dawn understands the need to connect with people as people. She got her internship in part because she connected with Susan B. King, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Corning, Inc., through a mutual love of horses. Horses to horsepower.

Pontiacs to President to Porsches

Scattered clouds hang in a clear blue sky as Dawn walks toward pit row. Drivers from the Porsche Club of America (metro New York) prep their cars for the track, which the club has rented for the weekend. Club drivers are not professionals, but they take driving seriously and train with instructors before they drive the track solo. Club members rip around the track in morning and afternoon sessions.

A maintenance worker with a gray ponytail and beard near the start of pit row walks from behind his work cart festooned with weed eaters and other hand tools. He shouts at Dawn, “Hey! Is your radio channel number forty?”

“What?” she responds.

“Is your radio channel number forty?” he shouts again.

“No,” Dawn replies, with a chuckle. “I’m number one. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t have my radio with me.”

The worker throws his head back and laughs. “Number one? I like that better!”

Dawn waves and continues walking toward pit row. A staging coordinator, Lynn Finck, takes her green flag and her place at the pit row entrance. With a wave of her flag, Lynn starts releasing Porsches onto the track. Helmeted drivers flash thumbs up, turn right past Lynn, and mash accelerators, engines brapping as the horses are loosed. “This is cool,” Dawn says, whipping out her phone and videoing the Porsches speeding by.

Sporting a Watkins Glen black polo shirt, white pants, and a checkered flag pattern on her phone and her shoes, Dawn looks the part of a track president. But she also looks like a kid with the biggest slot car track ever, a kid who loves the cars, the fans, the staff, and the place where it all happens. Loves the noise. A kid who appreciates wine festivals and concerts. A kid who wants everyone to feel welcome. She’s like the spark that keeps the pistons of community firing. Or maybe the driver who keeps mashing the accelerator down, making history one turn at a time.

Race on over to theglen.com to find the event for you. As Dawn says, “It’s a beautiful day. Where’s there a better place to be than at the track?”