Sweat drips down the side of her face as she races around the wooden rink; she shoves and dodges her opponents in order to be the first to reach the finish line, the booming sound of the audience resonating, inspiring her to win. As she laces up her skates, she knows that one day this dream will become reality.

Sophomore Claire DeVroede, a self taught roller skater, hopes to create and participate in a junior roller derby team for Oakland by the beginning of 2016-2017 school year.

“I’ve been skating since last summer,” DeVroede said. “I really like being on wheels. You can go really fast without even trying.”

Claire first began skating when she saw the movie “Whip It”, which then prompted her to do her I-Search about roller derby during her freshman year, her twin brother sophomore Hunter DeVroede said.

“My dad would always go skateboarding,” Claire said. “I wanted to find a mode of transportation so I could go skating with my family, my dad and brother skateboard and my mom would scooter, so I chose roller skating.”

Since there are no local roller derby teams, Claire has been making efforts to start one. She has reached out to girls through a skating shop and tried to find facilities for practice.

“I like the camaraderie and the speed,” Claire said. “I also like how it is totally owned by women. It is one of the only sports that was started by women, for women, which is very rare.”

In roller derby, there are two teams made up of five players: four blockers and one jammer. The game consists of 30 minute halves with two minute jams making up the halves, where the jammer for each team must muscle her way through the blockers. The players are allowed to use contact to get through the blockers, but not too much as that could result in a penalty.

“I also like how aggressive it is,” Claire said. “I really like contact sports and it’s kind of like football on wheels.”

Claire’s new team would join the other surrounding junior roller derby leagues under Bay Area Derby Girls. She plans to hold a sign up for girls and potential coaches at The Golden Skate, which is a facility in San Ramon, to recruit potential team members.

“I think her trying to start the team is really cool,” sophomore Morgan Shelly said. “We went to a match together and she helped me to understand the rules. It’s kind of an aggressive sport, but it’s really fun to watch if you know the rules.”

Since roller derby is currently not in season, which is from February to August, Claire is hoping to have a plan in place by the end of the school year for what the team is going to look like. There would be a preseason consisting of scrimmages and individual games, but once the season began they would be playing in tournaments and travelling.

“Practices are starting now, but there are only about four or five games a year,” Claire said. “Since we would be participating in the junior derby league, we would be competing against teams from Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley, the Peninsula and possibly more.”

Depending on the experience of the girls who try out for the team, they would either be playing level 2 or level 3. The difference between the two is the length of the halves and the amount of contact allowed, Claire said.

“I really like the idea of sharing this whole experience,” Claire said. “By the start of next school year, it would be really epic if I could get a team together.”