Girl, 16, crushes competition in monster trucks and math Youngest female monster truck driver is also among nation's top math students and is looking toward studying at MIT

Rosalee Ramer knows how people see her.

They see the grease smudged across her jeans and they think "redneck."

They see a 16-year-old girl from Watsonville who'd rather spend the weekend surrounded by the growls of monster trucks than the squeals of Justin Bieber fans.

"I get judged a lot," Rosalee said recently before heading into her father's garage that houses a 10-ton hulk of machinery named Detour. "They think monster truck driving is brainless. They think the trucks are our toys, that we just want to go out and smash things up. But there's a lot of planning and thinking that goes into it. There's a lot there that people don't see."

Rosalee not only lives for weekend truck rallies at fairgrounds along the West Coast, but she works on, designs and pilots the metallic beasts. She's considered the nation's youngest female professional monster truck driver in a sport heavy on testosterone.

"I'm amazed by how many people I meet who can't wrap their head around what I do," Rosalee said. "It's not disrespect to me. But it bothers me that they just can't imagine it - a girl who drives monster trucks."

Now imagine, for a moment, how those eyes might widen further if they saw the e-mail Rosalee opened two weeks ago and got a look at her SAT score: 2160.

Family first

Rosalee Ramer waves to the crowd before a September monster truck event at the L.A. County Fairgrounds. Rosalee Ramer waves to the crowd before a September monster truck event at the L.A. County Fairgrounds. Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Girl, 16, crushes competition in monster trucks and math 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

The near-perfect 780 in math put Rosalee among the nation's 99th percentile and on a track for the Ivy League. Earlier this month, the straight-A student and her father, Kelvin Ramer, visited Harvard and MIT, the two universities her advisers at Pacific Collegiate charter school in Santa Cruz suggested.

Rosalee would be the first Ramer to go to college. She plans to major in mechatronics, the study of mechanical engineering and electronics, so she's leaning toward MIT.

"If that's where Rosalee wants to go, we'll make sure it happens," said Kelvin, who's been a tow truck driver since he started his own company, Auto Care, 22 years ago. "I just wanted to make sure she'd get to her classes safe at night. Like any dad, I walked around wondering how I would feel when I'm not there with her."

He walked the halls of both campuses in Cambridge, Mass., with an apple-sized knot of pride stuck in his throat. The father and daughter are so tight they perform synchronized monster truck routines side by side - her in the yellow Detour, he in the red-and-black Time Flys. Fans along the railings notice the two have a habit of falling into the same gait, walking stride for stride in harmony.

Mom Janette oversees the paperwork of the family endeavor. Ben, 14, is also enthusiastic about the sport, but can't match Rosalee's passion.

"If it has a steering wheel," Kelvin said, "she's interested in it."

Under the hood

At age 3, the girl held the flashlight for Kelvin and his buddies as they built engines at night, her hands small enough to reach the tiniest bolts. Kelvin was always a gearhead, drawn by the power of big wheels and big torque.

"To me it's amazing that you can make a vehicle that heavy launch 30 feet in the air and land safely on the ground," Kelvin said.

He learned the math of engines by trial and error and passed his knowledge onto Rosalee over thousands of hours spent together under the hood. Long before she was big enough to reach the gas pedal, Rosalee understood how - and why - the truck responded to the touch of the accelerator.

Years later, Rosalee is now designing the first electronic fuel injection system for a monster truck. She's building a new ride with her father and wants to name it "Wild Flower."

"It's kind of fun now to watch her come home from computer programming classes and explain what happens and why it happens," Kelvin said. "And I'll show her how I did it and survived without an engineering degree. She gets the best of both worlds."

Always a quick study, Rosalee's aptitude for math showed up during the East Coast college visit. During the trip, Kelvin needed to pass a certification test to tow big rigs, including those that jackknife and turn over. Getting the vehicles upright safely requires a sophisticated rigging system that relies on calculus.

Rosalee stepped in as her father's study partner. She learned so much she took the test alongside Kelvin, and now Rosalee may be the youngest person certified to clear a semi from a freeway during rush hour.

"It meant a lot to me that she saw it as father-daughter bonding time," Kelvin said. "Even though it's not her direction in life, she saw it a chance to spend more time together."

'A different world'

A Ford Taurus hubcap hangs on the wall of Rosalee's bedroom. A monster truck driver, she said, always remembers the first car she smashes.

The Taurus was part of a Ramer tradition. Every Halloween the family takes a junker from Kelvin's tow yard, pancakes it under a monster truck, puts a skeleton in the driver's seat and scatters empty booze bottles all around. The wreck is then displayed outside the house as a statement against drunken driving.

Three years ago, at age 13, it was Rosalee's turn to take it to the Taurus - and she became hooked. As a kid she had raced go-karts, but it never felt like there was enough horsepower beneath her, she said.

"Just being in a truck that loud, feeling it under you, stepping on the throttle," Rosalee said, "it almost doesn't feel real. You feel like you're in a different world. You're taking something that weighs 10,000 pounds and with a tiny touch of the throttle, you can just roast the tires."

Rosalee began performing in monster truck rallies at age 14, with her first show at the Watsonville Municipal Airport. It wasn't long before competitors began to wonder why Kelvin would encourage his teenage daughter to climb into the cockpit of a steel cage that can roll over and catch fire.

Kelvin waved off the concerns. This is the girl who, at age 10, hijacked a Bobcat tractor in the backyard and spun wheelies. They've trained for hours on safety protocol after crashes - cut fuel and power, and then figure out if you're upside down or sideways to escape.

And, as Kelvin likes to point out, he designed and built the roll cage in Rosalee's truck himself.

"You can say it has more bars and crossbars than the average cage," the father said.

Bruised egos

At rallies featuring Rosalee Ramer, it's more likely the crashes and rollovers will feature the drivers who try to one-up her.

During freestyle sessions, drivers blast over jumps, perform stunts like wheelies and doughnuts and earn style points from judges. Before Rosalee takes the course, the rumors have already passed through the pits and returned back to her: She'll avoid the most daring jumps or obstacles.

But when she hits them, and flies across a gap or crunches across a train of sedans, it forces the hand of competitors who watch with bruised egos.

"You can tell when they don't want 'the little girl' to beat them out, so they try going for something they wouldn't normally do," Rosalee said, "and then they crash or break a wheel off."