NHRA Team Owner, Philanthropist Cathi Maynard Dies

Cathi Maynard, co-owner of JCM Racing in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series along with husband Joe, died on Friday from complications related to a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis.

Cathi Maynard was 65.

Cathi was long-time fan of racing and of the NHRA, and she was the driving force behind the Maynard family first becoming team sponsors in 2021 and last year forming JCM Racing. The team fields eight-time Top Fuel Dragster champion Tony Schumacher and brought Schumacher back to full-time racing after sponsorship woes put Schumacher on the sidelines following the 2018 season.

Schumacher earned his 86th career Top Fuel win and first for JCM Racing last summer at the Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways near Seattle. The win came in the Maynard's first weekend as team owners after Don Schumacher announced the Maynards had assumed controlling ownership of the team one week earlier.

“She was such a fighter, such an amazing person, and she’s in a better place,” said Tony Schumacher. “It’s a privilege to have known her, and I would say, by far, I’m a better man for knowing her. She was so kind and so good to people. No one that met her left a lesser person.

"We want to go out and make her proud this weekend. I would love nothing more than to earn ourselves a trophy that we can send back to Clarksville (Tenn.) in her honor. Our hearts go out to Joe, Joe C., and the whole family. Now, we just need to go out and win this race, and I know we’ve got an angel riding with us.”

The Maynards are well-known throughout their town of Clarksville, Tenn., as business owners and through their involvement with Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. The couple has been active in giving to the university's athletic department since 2017 and were named Austin Peay's 2020 Philanthropists of the Year. The couple is credited with a $15 million donation—the largest donation in the school's history—to the school's athletic department. Austin Peay's baseball field is named Joe Maynard Field and the softball park is known as Cathi Maynard Park.

The couple were honored during a naming celebration of the Joe and Cathi Maynard Family Athletics Complex at the school last October.

“Today we mourn the loss of a great governor, Mrs. Cathi Maynard,” Austin Peay Director of Athletics Gerald Harrison said in a statement on Saturday. “During my time in Clarksville, Cathi not only discussed or wished to make an impact on Austin Peay Athletics, but she also was a force that made an impact.

“She never accepted enough was enough; she pushed me to do more, fundraise more, encourage more, and impact more, and that’s the way she lived her life."

Racing and philanthropy kept Cathi busy in recent years. She was particularly passionate about A Soldier’s Child and American Mobility Project. The Maynard family has supported A Soldier's Child since 2008, and are among the original contributors to the nonprofit which aims to serve the children of fallen military personnel.

Since 2021, the Maynards have hosted Gold Star families at the dragstrip to enjoy a day at the races. In 2020, Maynard became involved with American Mobility Project, a nonprofit which provides mobility and adaptive equipment to those living with disabilities. As a recipient of an iBOT Personal Mobility Device, Maynard had a firsthand understanding of the importance such a device can make in one’s quality of life.

She was constantly on a mission to raise dollars and awareness for the two organizations, and getting to close out the 2022 NHRA season by fielding A Soldier's Child and American Mobility Project ‘giving cars’ at the final two events was the perfect way for the Maynards to cap off their first year of NHRA team ownership.

Cathi is survived by her husband, Joe Maynard, sons Joe C. Maynard and Lucas Maynard, and three grandchildren, Joe, Shelby, and Haylee. An Army veteran, Cathi Maynard will be laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Va.