TGR Staff -08/03/2021
Renee Brinkerhoff and her Valkyrie Racing Team have been waiting a long time for their next adventure thanks to COVID-19 shutting down global travel. But while they were waiting Renee and the team re-engineered her vintage 1956 Porsche 356A making it lighter and better able to handle the demands of driving 356 miles across the ice of Antarctica. This adventure will be the dramatic conclusion to Brinkerhoff's efforts to rally on all seven continents. The Antarctica endeavor holds two goals for the team: to drive 356 miles on the harshest, coldest terrain in the world, and to achieve a new land speed record on the ice of Antarctica.
The Project 356 World Rally Tour, will end after Renee's epic adventure to Antarctica, ending a 20,000-mile trek on all seven continents, a feat no woman or vintage car has yet to do. The challenge has earned global recognition for Brinkerhoff’s personal quest to end the plight of human trafficking on an international scale, and the mission includes the ability for donors to her Valkyrie Gives Foundation to come along.
Scheduled to depart from Union Glacier in Antarctica in early December, Brinkerhoff will be making the expedition with legendary adventurer Jason de Carteret as her navigator, while she stays behind the wheel and asserts the final voyage. De Carteret is a British explorer who has earned recognition by securing the world record for polar exploration, and to date has been to both the North and South pole nearly a dozen times.
As both a racer and a philanthropist, Brinkerhoff was determined to blend racing and social issues when she realized that she was a bit of an anomaly when it came to rallying as a woman driving a vintage car on the global stage. By competing since 2013 in world-renowned endurance rallies including La Carrera Panamericana, Peking-to-Paris, and the East African Safari Classic Rally, Brinkerhoff has earned a global platform to educate the world on the devasting reality of human trafficking.
Renee’s fundraising arm, Valkyrie Gives, is a Colorado-based non-profit foundation that has already raised nearly $400,000 with goals to reach $1mm and well beyond. Together with her daughter Christina, who helps steer the foundation and is the operation’s manager for Brinkerhoff’s worldwide racing efforts, the mother-daughter team have not only broadened awareness but have held on-site involvement at organizations in remote areas within China, Mongolia, Peru, and Kenya. Most important, Valkyrie Gives contributes 100 percent of all dollars raised to the cause.
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