{"id":2943,"date":"2010-08-19T11:56:25","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T18:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=2943"},"modified":"2010-08-19T11:56:25","modified_gmt":"2010-08-19T18:56:25","slug":"cpa-enjoys-the-rush-of-stock-car-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=2943","title":{"rendered":"CPA enjoys the rush of stock car racing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"rebecca
School of Business alumna Rebecca Machinga, a partner at WithumSmith+Brown, races stock cars in her free time. Photo (c) Joseph Moran.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rebecca (Astmann) Machinga <\/strong>jokes that, had she known she was being interviewed by a partner from WithumSmith+Brown (WSB) during the on-campus recruiting event she attended her senior year, the outcome might have been a little different.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me I\u2019d be meeting with a staff accountant,\u201d the Class of 1992 grad recalls. But when she finished her interview the person with whom she had been speaking handed her a business card that read \u201cPartner.\u201d \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019m really glad I didn\u2019t know that ahead of time,\u2019\u201d she says now with a laugh, because it likely would have unnerved her a bit.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the interview went well and Machinga landed the internship. Almost 20 years later, she\u2019s still with the firm and is now a partner herself. A licensed certified public accountant in three states, Machinga heads the firm\u2019s real estate-services group and also works with closely-held companies, mainly in the service industry through attest, tax, and consulting engagements. She also co-leads the firm\u2019s Women\u2019s Leadership Development Group, and serves on TCNJ\u2019s Dean\u2019s Advisory Council for the School of Business.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Machinga has also learned to keep her nerves in check\u2014a useful skill for someone who spends her free time tearing up racetracks at 180 MPH.<\/p>\n

Since 2003, Machinga has been fine-tuning her skills as a stock car driver. She came to the sport almost by accident\u2014if you\u2019ll excuse the pun\u2014while looking for a Christmas gift for her husband, Jarod \u201992<\/strong>. She read about Pocono Speedway\u2019s \u201cStockCar Racing Experience,\u201d which teaches anyone with enough courage to get behind the wheel how to race Sprint Cup\u2013style stock cars. It was the perfect gift for her thrill-seeking husband\u2014and sounded like so much fun that Machinga booked herself a spot.<\/p>\n

Although her racing career got off to an inauspicious start\u2014her first time on the track her car ran out of gas and had to be towed back to the Pit area\u2014Machinga was hooked from the get-go. \u201cI absolutely fell in love with racing,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was so different from anything else I have ever done. It\u2019s such a rush, and an absolutely amazing feeling\u2014the thrill, the noise, the power. It\u2019s hard to describe.\u201d<\/p>\n

One might wonder how a CPA\u2014who by the nature of her work must be careful, thorough, and deliberate\u2014can excel at racing, an inherently risky sport focused on speed. Machinga says the skills needed to be successful in both areas are not as mutually exclusive as they might seem at first.<\/p>\n

CPAs do need to be methodical, she says, \u201cbut we also have to be a little creative while still working within the boundaries.\u201d Those familiar with racing can understand how such skills would come in handy on the track. And while it\u2019s true many of the other drivers are only concerned with going as fast as possible, Machinga says speed isn\u2019t the first thing on her mind when she\u2019s behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some sense it is very deliberate what I do when I\u2019m racing,\u201d she explains. \u201cI\u2019m always looking for when to go to the bottom of the track, when to speed up, when to slow down. I\u2019m trying to hone those skills that will make me a better driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, to be successful as a driver one can\u2019t be afraid to put the pedal to the metal. And while the birth of her daughter four years ago briefly slowed her down, Machinga\u2019s driving skills have developed to the point that she\u2019s posting speeds even her driving instructors sometimes find hard to believe. That\u2019s when the accounting background comes in handy again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cars we drive don\u2019t have a speedometer, only a tachometer, so to determine your speed you find your \u2018tach\u2019 reading on the chart and convert it,\u201d Machinga explains. After one of her track sessions, an instructor asked Machinga how fast she had been going. She told him 180 MPH.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018That\u2019s not right. You can\u2019t be going that fast. Go check the chart again,\u2019\u201d Machinga recalls. She did, and when her numbers worked out the same, the instructor again told Machinga she must have done the calculations incorrectly. As politely as possible she said, \u201cThat speed is right. I\u2019m an accountant. I\u2019m pretty good at math.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebecca (Astmann) Machinga ’92, a partner at WithumSmith+Brown who also serves on the Dean\u2019s Advisory Council for TCNJ’s School of Business, spends her free time tearing up racetracks at 180 MPH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-september-2010"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}