Whenever Amber Denton takes to the starting line, her mother, Judy Franklin, isn\u2019t far behind. She takes her role as the \u201cteam mom\u201d very seriously, cheering on and supporting the four Tommy Franklin Motorsports drivers and their crew members with passion and purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared as a side bar in Amber Denton\u2019s cover story<\/a> in DI #195, the Women of Power Issue, in July\/August of 2025. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cShe comes along every weekend, week in, week out, going to the racetrack,\u201d Denton says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not always the perfect weekend, whether it\u2019s 100 degrees out or 50 degrees out, and she\u2019s out there sweating or freezing with us and making the sacrifice to allow us to accomplish our goals, and I\u2019m really grateful for that. She\u2019s always making sure we\u2019ve got all the right safety equipment and all the small things that a lot of people forget about. She\u2019s the one that makes sure we have what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n Every once in a while, the roles will reverse and Judy will hit the track in the family\u2019s bracket truck at one of VMP\u2019s weekend points races or test-n-tune nights. It gives Denton and the rest of the family the chance to return the support Judy provides, though getting behind the wheel is more about having fun than collecting trophies or earning points for Judy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have more fun watching her than I think she realizes because she just doesn\u2019t care,\u201d Denton laughs. \u201cShe\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, if I want to race, great. If not, oh well.\u2019 She really, truly does it just to have fun, and I think that\u2019s what\u2019s important. At the end of the day, that\u2019s why we all do it. It\u2019s great to have passion, but realizing that at the end of the day we do this for fun, and if we\u2019re not having that, then there\u2019s no reason that we should even be doing it in the first place. I think she\u2019s a good reminder of that to us all. Watching her have fun while she does it and being in reverse roles and being able to do that for her is really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Drag racing has become more than just a hobby for the Franklin family. In addition to businesses outside the sport, they own and operate the PDRA and Virginia Motorsports Park, with Judy playing major roles in each of those ventures. But team matriarch at TFM is where she thrives, and her family takes notice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe always say she\u2019s our biggest cheerleader, and we mean that loudly too,\u201d Denton says. \u201cAnd now with Blake, too, she cheers him on just as much as the rest of us, and that\u2019s something that means a lot to me and I know it does to him too. She is going to cheer us on no matter what, and she always has our back at the end of the day, and we\u2019re really grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n The post WOMEN OF POWER 2025: Amber Denton Talks About Her Mom, Judy Franklin<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever Amber Denton takes to the starting line, her mother, Judy Franklin, isn\u2019t far behind. She takes her role as the \u201cteam mom\u201d very seriously, cheering on and supporting the four Tommy Franklin Motorsports drivers and their crew members with passion and purpose.\u00a0 Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared as a side bar in Amber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}