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Snow family courtesy photo Melanie Snow poses for a photo shoot April 2009 in her Porsche GT3 sponsored by Universal Industrial Sales and Ironclad.

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Snow family courtesy photo Melanie and Martin Snow hold up their crystal trophies in May 2009 after placing first co-driving together in an ALMS 3-hour race at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele. The Snows were the first husband and wife team to win the 12-hour race in Florida called the "12 Hours of Sebring" in 1999.

DanRBoyd

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Snow family courtesy photo Martin Snow, foreground, and Melanie Snow adjust their helmets as they get ready to strap into their Porsche's for a 45-minute race at the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in September 2009.

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Melanie Snow helps her daughter Madelyn, 8, with her spelling home work, as McKay, left, and McKenzie, also study at their Lehi home, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010. Snow, a mother of four, and race car driver, continually balances her passion and pastime with her family. PATRICK SMITH/Daily Herald

PATRICK SMITH

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School lunches? Check. Soccer practice? Check. Racing helmet? Check.

• FOR LEHI MOTHER MELANIE SNOW, life is more than running her four kids to school, doing laundry and cooking dinner. She and her family make time for a little professional race car driving, sometimes making long trips to get to the racetrack.

“This last year we had 14 or 16 races, but they were double races, so we did two races a weekend,” she said. “When we say weekend, we’re normally talking Tuesday through Sunday.”

Snow, who has lived in Lehi for about 15 years, has been around the racetrack for as long as she can remember. Her love for the sport grew when she was first introduced to it by her grandfather.

“He always took me everywhere he went and he took me to the racetrack,” Melanie Snow said. “What I love most is just the competition factor and the speed you can do when you’re out there. You’re so focused you don’t realize how fast you’re going.”

Since then, racing has always been important to Snow and even helped shape the course her life would take.

“I met my husband at the race track,” she said. “I was doing a little racing with my grandfather and I ended up meeting my husband.”

Melanie and Martin Snow were married a year after their first meeting and have continued racing throughout their years of marriage.

“She was the one who really got me to do more racing,” Martin Snow said. “She’s a little younger than me, but a little more enthusiastic.”

The couple both race individually, but will occasionally team up to race.

“We’re actually the only husband-wife team to ever win the 12-hour race in Florida, called the ’12 Hours of Sebring,'” Melanie Snow said. “That was back in ’99 and then after that we actually took some time off.”

She said they got back to back to co-racing in 2009 and won the championship together again.

“It was good year for us,” she said.

Up until only few years ago there were no racetracks in Utah, so the couple would travel out of state to compete and practice. In 2006, however, Miller Motorsports Park opened in Tooele.

“There was one in California, Vegas and Arizona, but there was none here,” Melanie Snow said. “This whole time we’ve been racing we’ve had to go to racetracks and compete out of state, so it’s really nice that Miller Motorsports Park opened up.”

The couple’s four children all enjoy racing go-karts at Miller Motorsports Park.

“We started them when they were young and they say that’s all they’ve known, being at the race track with us,” Melanie Snow said. “When you grow up around the track, it’s just a part of you.”

Madison, 14, the couple’s oldest child, said he has been racing since he was four and enjoys “going fast.”

So the question remains: How does Melanie maintain a racing career while also raising four children?

“Lots of prior planning and lists,” she said. “Be very organized. It’s hard especially because we want our kids to be able to do all their things. We have help. My mom lives right around the corner from us and we do have a nanny that helps and stays with the kids when we’re gone. It’s just being very organized and planning everything out and scheduling and sticking to them.”

Melanie said racing with her husband provides extra bonding time for them to grow closer together.

“That’s how I like to look at it — our little hobby that keeps us together. It helps with bonding. We enjoy it,” she said. “It keeps you together when you have the same interest and hobby.”

As for this year, the couple still isn’t sure if they are going to race.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do for 2010,” Martin Snow said. “We’re debating that a little bit. I’d like to spend a little more time at home … the kids get a little neglected, so I’m not sure.”

Melanie also said this past year may have been their last.

“We actually aren’t even sure if we’re racing this year,” she said. “The two boys want us to race and the two girls want us to stay home and do the local stuff. We actually haven’t committed to the pro-racing yet. Last year could have been our last year, but it was good. We won a championship together … so it’s not a bad note to go out on, but it’s hard to leave.”