Sublime’s music blasted through her earphones, something upbeat and groovy to keep her motivated. Her hair pushed back in a balaclava, with a black and white helmet placed on top. Clipped into her five-point harness, sitting just above her multilayer firesuit with Charlie Hayes Racing inscribed on the front.
When she switched her earbuds for custom noise-cancelling ones, all sound disappeared and she was left with just the steady rise and fall of her chest and the air of anticipation.
After hours of training, Anna Cecchi, ‘29, admitted there was no more preparation she could do.
The green flag dropped. Game on.
As her Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport launched onto the track and the smell of rubber flooded her nose, Cecchi let out a feral scream, a noise so loud she said it sometimes scares herself.
In her second season racing, Cecchi competed in the season finale of the 2026 North America Porsche Sprint Challenge in Atlanta, Georgia. She began the race on Sept. 12 in the front row position, with a 48-point lead above her opponents.
But she wasn’t always dominating the track.
When Cecchi first got licensed on her 16th birthday, she had no idea she would soon be competitively racing. Her dad attended the Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA for track days and when they found out a non-profit was having a teen driving clinic, she signed up.
“It sounded kind of boring, kind of school-like, but she went along with it and just had a blast,” Greg Cecchi, Anna’s father said.
For the lesson she drove her father’s Chevy Camaro that she had fallen in love with the second it came home from the dealership. Afterwards,, she got a couple of extra minutes on the track: irresistibly sparking her interest in sports car racing.
In 2024, Anna Cecchi received her racing license. Her coach at the time notified her of a race she could compete in for the National Auto Sport Association.
Entering the race, rookie book in hand, Anna Cecchi found out not only must she drive a manual car, but it’s a standing start, meaning she’d begin racing from a standstill, and shift into gear.
“Talk about feeling like an imposter,” Anna Cecchi said. “I was an imposter.”
She said her heart was beating so fast she thought she was going to have a stroke. Like at the drop of an exhilarating roller coaster, she started to scream when the race began.
It’s become her signature quirk that has turned into a joke with her team. People ask her if the screaming rumors are true and “unfortunately, it is,” she said.
Anna and Greg Cecchi’s driving coach, Nik Romano, said Anna drives by feel, so she doesn’t have to consciously think about making adjustments to what she’s doing. But, that doesn’t stop her from developing her craft.
“A lot of people with talent never figure out how to work,” Romano said. “She does both. She works hard at it and she has the talent, which is what makes her so effective.”
Anna Cecchi said her main competitor this year, Keith Grant, 52, made her put in more effort because for the first half of the season, he was the fastest.
During the middle of the season, she had lost her point lead to Grant but after three consecutive victories, reclaimed the front-runner spot heading into the finale.
“She competes against a lot of people with ten, 20 years of racing experience and some really competitive drivers,” Greg Cecchi said. “It’s an amazing accomplishment.”
Anna Cecchi led the final race with a four second gap through difficult weather conditions, when a full course yellow – a neutralization of the race where all drivers must slow to 80 km/h and drive in a single-file line without overtaking – was called. With seven minutes remaining, the race was cancelled due to undriveable conditions and positions before the stoppage became the final results.
In only her second season, Anna Cecchi secured the 2026 Porsche Sprint Challenge in North America and made history as the first female driver to win the Cayman Class title. She finished 14 races with 12 podiums, four second-places and six victories.
She stepped onto the podium with a giant smile as a Road Atlanta trophy was placed in her hands and a medal over her head. She ran over to her father with a shaken bottle of champagne and poured it all over him before pulling him into a hug.
“This weekend was unreal,” Anna Cecchi said. “It’s that feeling (where I’m) on top of the world and just beyond grateful for everything that everyone did to help support me to get to this position.”
Romano said she’s at the perfect spot in her career where she’s still young, coachable and set to become faster. He said he’s looking forward to her making the next step in her career.
“Right now she’s about to be the big fish in a small pond,” Romano said. “The best thing she could do for her career is to become the medium fish in the bigger pond and have other fast drivers that she can learn from.
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