On the track and in the courtroom, lawyer Lisa Vaughn has her foot on the floorboard

Lisa Vaughn remembers finding the car — a red 1995 BMW M3 she subsequently named “Red Car” — that sent her down the road of avocational auto racing.

The car was advertised for sale by a Sante Fe, New Mexico, man who, as it turned out, was trying to save his marriage. “His wife decided it was her or the car,” Vaughn, who bought the BMW in 2008, recalls.

Lisa Vaughn races “Red Car” six to eight times a year.

The marriage didn’t survive, but Vaughn, a lawyer with offices in Fort Worth and Arlington, had the car, a street-legal coupe she bought with 128,000 miles. She subsequently replaced the engine, made other modifications and slowly turned it into a race car. She estimates she competes in six to eight events held annually by the National Auto Sport Association for enthusiasts. Her circuit competes at tracks such as MotorSport Ranch in Cresson, Eagles Canyon Raceway in Decatur and ones in Colorado and Oklahoma. The circuit also hosts races in Houston and New Orleans, but Vaughn hasn’t made those.

Not that the prizes are life-changing. “Sometimes, they give away free tires to the winners,” she says. “But it’s never a full set.”

Vaughn, whose father — a retired Air Force fighter pilot — and brother have raced, is a longtime fan of cars.

“I liked cars before I got hooked on cars,” Vaughn, 59, says. “I like speed. I like to drive fast on the freeway.”

A turning point came in 2005 when she was invited to test-drive sports cars on a track in California. “When I discovered you can take a street car on a track, I was hooked,” she says.

Vaughn’s daily driver is a 2003 BMW 328 wagon she named “Wagon.” She swapped engines and transmissions and it has a manual transmission. With 235,000 miles today, “it’s the coolest car,” Vaughn says. “It’s the grocery getter.”

Vaughn also owns a 2004 BMW M3 convertible named “Silver” with just 45,000 miles. “I need help naming my cars,” she says.

Vaughn keeps Red Car in a garage she leased at MotorSport Ranch, and tows it to races behind her Ford F-350 crew cab. Her racing rig is a 44-foot trailer with a living room enclosure. That also provides room for Carbon, her Doberman she usually takes to races. Vaughn, who has participated in Doberman rescue for years, has had seven of the dogs, but Carbon is the first who wasn’t a rescue.

At her home in northwest Tarrant County, Vaughn figures she has enough garage space for nine cars, “if I cleaned it up and did it right. But I’ve never had that many cars.”

Lisa Vaughn says she’s thought about retiring from racing, but is having too much fun.

Vaughn doesn’t lay claim to being a full gearhead. She bought a Midas automotive service center in Arlington in 2006, and has her technicians there do most of the maintenance and repair work on her vehicles.

“I’m a little bit of a gearhead,” she says. “I can change the brakes and tires and liquids, and I now bring a technician with me to the races.”

The process of converting Red Car to racing meant stripping it of weight. It has no catalytic converter, padding or airbags. “We took out one headlight to get the air flow,” she says.

Vaughn drove to Colorado for a race in late August. During a run in July at MotorSport Ranch, she feared her transmission had gone out. But she had a spare one at the ready.

“I think I lost a second gear while we were out there,” she said.

Vaughn was a partner at the Shannon, Gracey, Ratliff & Miller firm and went solo when the firm dissolved several years ago. Vaughn, who specializes in business, oil and gas, and real estate litigation, sees parallels between racing and what she does for a living.

“A lot of it is keeping your eye on the ball and strategy,” she says. “In a race, you don’t get distracted by what happened in the corner before. You’ve got to focus on the corner ahead.”

Her fellow competitors, other than having the wherewithal to participate in the sport, have one thing in common, she says. “All of us are a little crazy.”

Vaughn says she’s thought about retiring from racing. In late July, she was in first place in championship points on her circuit. “I’d like to win more,” she says. “I thought I would retire by now, but I’m still having so much fun.”