It’s 20 years since Price competed in the Supercars championship, when she was part of the high-profile Castrol Cougars all-female team that contested the Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000 and selected other events in the championship.

“I had raced at both tracks before the Cougars, and I have since, but it is just fantastic that I get to race these two great circuits, at two of the biggest events in the Australian motorsport calendar, on the anniversary,” Melinda says.

It is an anniversary with extra significance for Melinda, because this year marks the important five-year ‘all clear’ mark after a battle with breast cancer.

Price was diagnosed in 2011, when she was eight months pregnant with daughter Lily. Price had her first surgery for the cancer when Lily was just eight days old.

“I didn’t really have time to feel sorry for myself because I had this beautiful little baby to take care of, and she put a smile on my face every day,” Price says. “And the good thing about chemotherapy is that I have forgotten most of the awful part!”

Price has teamed up with Breast Cancer Network Australia and the group’s logo will feature on her 1974 XA GT Ford Falcon over the Sandown weekend.

“I was lucky to get through it and be given a second chance to live my dreams. I’m very grateful for that, and if I can put some smiles on the faces of other people who are going through it, and help them by taking them for rides, or raising funds or whatever I can do to raise awareness about what BCNA does, then that will be fantastic. It’s a way of giving back for all the support I had.”

BCNA joins Melinda’s major sponsor, VicRoads Custom Plates, which named her earlier this year as an ambassador for its ‘Keep It On The Track’ and off the street road safety initiative.

Melinda lives in Melbourne’s Bayside area. She has an honours degree in immunology but is now studying to be a naturopath. Once qualified (at the end of 2018), she hopes to work in oncology, supporting cancer patients through their treatments.

While she once dreamed of a career as a professional racing driver, these days Price, now 46, is happy to be able to compete in the Touring Car Masters Series – where she races against past touring car greats such as John Bowe, Jim Richards and Glenn Seton.

She competed against all three of those past Supercars champions during her Castrol Cougar days 20 years ago. Sadly, the Castrol-backed plan to give rising young female racing drivers a chance in the top echelon of the sport was to be extremely short lived.

Despite Price and team-mate Kerryn Brewer finishing an excellent 11th in their first attempt together on the Bathurst 1000, funding and support for the all-female Supercars team did not continue into the next season.

Twenty years on and the Supercars series finally has a full-time female driver on its books in the form of former Indycar star, Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro.