Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're rubbing
Speaker 1: our engines and relishing in the fresh scent of burnt
Speaker 1: rubber and gasoline. It's Tuesday, April twenty ninth. That on
Speaker 1: the rest of our shows this week, we'll be doing
Speaker 1: something a little different. We're going to introduce you to
Speaker 1: some of the many wonderful shows on the Iheartwomen's Sports Network.
Speaker 1: Today we're bringing you an episode of Throttle Therapy with
Speaker 1: Catherine Legg.
Speaker 2: I had the.
Speaker 1: Pleasure of talking to the motorsport pioneer and twenty year
Speaker 1: pro racing vet on our January twenty second show, but
Speaker 1: today we want to bring you an episode of her
Speaker 1: podcast Uninterrupted. To prepare you for what you're about to hear,
Speaker 1: we ask Catherine to tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: her show.
Speaker 2: Take a listen. Hey, Hey, this is Catherine Legg and
Speaker 2: I am the host of the podcast Throttle Therapy. It
Speaker 2: will give you an inside of you of the mind
Speaker 2: and the life of a female race card driver in
Speaker 2: a male dominated arena, and we interview and speak with
Speaker 2: a bunch of influential people within the racing world, but
Speaker 2: also my friends and family. So you get a glimpse
Speaker 2: of what it's like to be the only female driver
Speaker 2: in a sea of men, and what my everyday life
Speaker 2: is like and what my life is like on track.
Speaker 1: We also asked what to expect from the episode that
Speaker 1: we're about to air. Her conversation with Lynn Saint James
Speaker 1: from March eighteenth.
Speaker 2: I absolutely adore this episode. It's with a very good
Speaker 2: friend of mine, lind Sent James. She is an absolute legend.
Speaker 2: For those of you who don't know her, she opened
Speaker 2: the door and broke the glass ceilings for all of
Speaker 2: the female race CLU drivers that came after her. There
Speaker 2: was really only two or three before her, and it
Speaker 2: was in a time when it was really tough to
Speaker 2: break into male dominated arenas. So she is one of
Speaker 2: the many reasons that we are able to do what
Speaker 2: we love today.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Catherine. I think we're more than
Speaker 1: ready for the episode now. And by the way, before
Speaker 1: we go to break here, I just I have to
Speaker 1: say something. Catherine raced in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race
Speaker 1: at Rockingham Speedway on April nineteenth, and she was involved
Speaker 1: in a crash on the fifty second lap that took
Speaker 1: her and fellow driver Casey Caine out she was eliminated
Speaker 1: from the race. Cain lost a lap but recovered to
Speaker 1: finish fourteenth overall. Now, after the fact, Catherine received a
Speaker 1: disgusting amount of hate mail and death threats from auto
Speaker 1: racing fans, even though she didn't start the crash, and
Speaker 1: she addressed it head on in the April twenty second
Speaker 1: episode of her podcast Bottle Therapy, saying quote, let me
Speaker 1: be very clear, I'm here to race, and I'm here
Speaker 1: to compete, and I won't tolerate any of these threats
Speaker 1: to my safety or to my dignity, whether that's on
Speaker 1: track or off of it. She went on to say, quote, Luckily,
Speaker 1: I have been in tougher battles than you guys in
Speaker 1: the comment sections.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: And I just want to say, anybody who played a
Speaker 1: role in the hate and the vitriol sent Catherine's way,
Speaker 1: it is neither surprising nor novel to see a woman
Speaker 1: in a male dominated field get an outsized amount of hate.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't make it any less infuriating. And I
Speaker 1: have to say I loved seeing longtime racer Marco Andretti
Speaker 1: call out the trolls.
Speaker 2: He posted quote.
Speaker 1: It's wild to me how many grown men talk badly
Speaker 1: about badass girls like this. Does it make them feel
Speaker 1: more manly from the couch or something as usual? And
Speaker 1: as we've seen over and over over again, game recognize
Speaker 1: this game. So anyway, now that we're done addressing that bullshit,
Speaker 1: the episode of Throttle Therapy with Lynd Saint James is
Speaker 1: coming up right after this.
Speaker 2: Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
Speaker 2: production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
Speaker 2: can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. Hey you guys, Welcome to
Speaker 2: Throttle Therapy with me Katherine Legg. I've obviously come off
Speaker 2: a pretty rough first NASCAR weekend. It was a long
Speaker 2: week and I've got a lot of work to do
Speaker 2: too for redemption and to come back. But I'm going
Speaker 2: to take a few days with my very good friend
Speaker 2: Kara Chris Dolin. She is the head engineer for Bridgestone
Speaker 2: Firestone Racing in North America. We've been friends for a
Speaker 2: very long time and we're going to go and let
Speaker 2: our hair down and do some skiing this weekend, so
Speaker 2: that will be a lot of fun. This week we
Speaker 2: are talking to the wonderful Lencent James. Lynn is a
Speaker 2: legend who came up through the racing ranks a little
Speaker 2: bit before me, when it was a little bit harder,
Speaker 2: and she definitely was breaking barriers and glass ceilings and
Speaker 2: has dedicated her life to the pursuit of women in
Speaker 2: motorsport and she's become a very good friend of mine,
Speaker 2: a sounding board and as I said before, an absolute legend. Hi,
Speaker 2: Lindca and James, how are you hello?
Speaker 3: Well, locut you, I'm just glad to be a you know,
Speaker 3: I've been watching these and I'm like, I wonder if
Speaker 3: she'll ever reach out to me and write.
Speaker 2: Of course you're on the list, like pretty early on,
Speaker 2: I think it was who do you want to go
Speaker 2: on the podcast? And I think your name was like
Speaker 2: first or second after my dad. So I want to
Speaker 2: actually start off before I get you to tell everybody
Speaker 2: what you've achieved in your momentous like career. I want
Speaker 2: to start off with a little story about how you
Speaker 2: and I met and then I will let you take
Speaker 2: it from there. But from my perspective, I reached out
Speaker 2: to you as a young race card driver in England
Speaker 2: when you were doing a shootout for the Indie Lights
Speaker 2: series back in the day. I think it was like
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, and you were doing it with
Speaker 2: Catherine Nunn, Monan's wife. You were helping her to run
Speaker 2: a team in Indie Lights, and you wanted to find
Speaker 2: the next female race car driver stuff. So I've read
Speaker 2: about this in England. I read about this, and so
Speaker 2: I reached out to Lindsay James and I said, Hi,
Speaker 2: my name's Catherine Legg. I'm the best girl race card
Speaker 2: driver you'll ever see ever. Can I come and be
Speaker 2: part of your shootout please? And I got an email
Speaker 2: back saying never heard of you, and and I said, okay,
Speaker 2: can I come and watch then? And I bought my
Speaker 2: helmet and I got on a plane and I showed up.
Speaker 2: I think that was in Phoenix. Was that not in Phoenix,
Speaker 2: That was in Texas. You're right, it was Texas. And
Speaker 2: I met you, and I met Catherine, and I met
Speaker 2: the team, and I did the shootout and I won
Speaker 2: the won the event, and then unfortunately the sponsorship didn't
Speaker 2: happen and it fell through. But that's how I got
Speaker 2: to know about you and your program of helping young
Speaker 2: female drivers and then I kind of became part of it,
Speaker 2: and after that the rest is history. We became friends,
Speaker 2: and you've obviously been somebody that I can go to
Speaker 2: for advice and help and everything since. But i've known
Speaker 2: you for now over twenty years.
Speaker 3: Then absolutely, But I'm going to now tell the story
Speaker 3: you had a couple of those weeks. They aren't quite accurate,
Speaker 3: of course, your memory and my memory are just different,
Speaker 3: but you had it right until.
Speaker 2: My response was not that I know I was being funny.
Speaker 3: My response was that Catherine is making the decisions, Catherine
Speaker 3: Nunn and not me. And I went to Catherine and
Speaker 3: she said no, because you're coming all the way from England.
Speaker 3: And she, you know, I had a hard time convincing
Speaker 3: her because she just wanted who's the best driver in
Speaker 3: and she was just going to go with that. I said,
Speaker 3: the best way is to do the shootout, and as
Speaker 3: it turned out, we got a lot of publicity around
Speaker 3: the shootout, and I said, well, i'll help you would
Speaker 3: give you a list. You weren't on the list because
Speaker 3: I didn't know you existed. You contacted me. I then
Speaker 3: added that to the list, and she said no, because
Speaker 3: you're coming over from England and what if you don't
Speaker 3: get it? Blah blah blah. When I saw the lineup,
Speaker 3: I contacted you. I said, you get your butt over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah you did, and you did and you did.
Speaker 3: You showed up. You know they are because it was
Speaker 3: a multi day test and you showed up and you
Speaker 3: did win. And it wasn't the sponsorship fell through. She
Speaker 3: just pulled the plug.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I heard that that was the money and
Speaker 2: the money didn't come through.
Speaker 3: Well, that may be it, but I think it was
Speaker 3: not too long after that Boat shut his team down.
Speaker 3: So I think you know that there was anyway. Maybe
Speaker 3: it was sponsorship, but I was only and Catherine just
Speaker 3: said I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2: So the other girl that was there, I say, girl,
Speaker 2: she's a woman now was Sarah McCune. I often think
Speaker 2: I wonder she was the only other one I think
Speaker 2: that was being considered at the time. I wonder what
Speaker 2: happened to her. Have you ever heard anything from her
Speaker 2: to said.
Speaker 3: No, I haven't you know. And there's so many like
Speaker 3: that that came to my driver development program. Or it's
Speaker 3: like Katherine Sarah mcune, and it's like I had no idea.
Speaker 3: In most cases, I have no idea what happened to them,
Speaker 3: but you know, I think of her because I also
Speaker 3: think like Kaylee Bryson and some of the other gals
Speaker 3: that are doing midgets and sprint cards. You know that
Speaker 3: that's there was a Sarah McCune, you know, and she
Speaker 3: was kind of a contemporary with Sarah Fisher, but Sarah
Speaker 3: Fisher was still not on the horizon yet.
Speaker 2: So I want to actually talk about the driver development
Speaker 2: and like what that's changed into and what you're doing now.
Speaker 2: But first of all, I was at Daytona this year
Speaker 2: for when you were honored, and there were things in
Speaker 2: that presentation that even I, being a Lindsea James fan
Speaker 2: and a friend of yours for a number of years,
Speaker 2: did not know. And so I wanted you to give
Speaker 2: our listeners the same experience that I had during that
Speaker 2: presentation in a way, and tell them all the incredible things,
Speaker 2: starting at the beginning, how you got started in racing.
Speaker 2: You don't have to go into great detail. You can
Speaker 2: do the cliff note version, but I want them to
Speaker 2: know lyns epic like you're a badass, like I had,
Speaker 2: I only knew about fifty percent of it. Honestly, I know,
Speaker 2: it's a tool order in a big ospit stop from
Speaker 2: the beginning and just give us a brief but expensive
Speaker 2: overview of everything that you achieved.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because again I think people that are
Speaker 3: IndyCar fans, and because Indy is so big, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: they know what I did at Indy, right, And then
Speaker 3: the people that are a sports car people, you know,
Speaker 3: imps of people a sports car. The decade of the
Speaker 3: eighties was really my ims A decade, so sometimes they
Speaker 3: don't overlap. But it started in the seventies where just
Speaker 3: an SCCA. So I just started as an amateur, went
Speaker 3: to driver school, got my competition license, started out in
Speaker 3: a Ford Pinto, moved up to a Cosworth Vega, and
Speaker 3: all I wanted to be was the national champion. I
Speaker 3: mean to me, I just wanted to be a national
Speaker 3: champion in SCCA. Went to the runoffs in a Cosworth Vega,
Speaker 3: blew an engine, had driven the car to the track,
Speaker 3: had no backup, carn, no nothing. I didn't have a
Speaker 3: you know, engine builder or anybody that I was dead,
Speaker 3: you know, even though I and.
Speaker 2: You didn't come from money either, No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no exactly, so you did it clawed from the from
Speaker 2: the ground up.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And I mean we had an
Speaker 3: auto parts business and I sold shock absorbers, and we
Speaker 3: had another consumer electronics business, and you know, we were
Speaker 3: just two people trying to make a living. Who became
Speaker 3: we were both car guys. Car you know, he took
Speaker 3: me to the DY five hundred and on my second date,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's.
Speaker 2: That's a good that's a good second that he did
Speaker 2: well then, So you know.
Speaker 3: Then I went to the twenty four hours of Daytona
Speaker 3: as a spectator for the first time after I moved
Speaker 3: to Florida to start the business with him, and I
Speaker 3: had never seen sports car racing or endurance racing or
Speaker 3: anything like that, and it totally totally I mean I
Speaker 3: just got hooked. And I went to Seabury, became a
Speaker 3: member of SCCA, found out you had to go to
Speaker 3: school to get a competition license, and that's how it
Speaker 3: all started on my own dollars. And then a couple
Speaker 3: of things happened. I mean, I do believe someone in
Speaker 3: you know, there's tipping points, there's destiny whatever you want,
Speaker 3: and then there's you work hard to get into your destiny.
Speaker 3: But I saw an article and Car and Driver magazine
Speaker 3: that was about a Ford product. But there was a
Speaker 3: sidebar article and it was entitled Ford and Feminism, and
Speaker 3: it said how for this was in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 3: and how Ford Motor Company wanted to create support and
Speaker 3: create opportunities for women in non traditional areas within the company.
Speaker 3: And so I figured that they needed me because I
Speaker 3: could demonstrate that that commitment was alive out to the public,
Speaker 3: you know. So I wrote them letters that I wrote
Speaker 3: them letters for three years trying to get a meeting,
Speaker 3: and I did get a meeting, but not until nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: But in nineteen seventy eight I also got a deal.
Speaker 3: I was contacted the only time I've been contacted by
Speaker 3: a team owner or a car owner when wrote Atlanta
Speaker 3: was bought by the Whittingtons. I mean, this is kind
Speaker 3: of good trivia stuff.
Speaker 2: This is this is stuff I didn't know either. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm learning.
Speaker 3: Where was a deal when they bought that track? There
Speaker 3: was this old Plymouth Malare in one of the garages
Speaker 3: or shops, and this guy in Oklahoma, brand dole knew
Speaker 3: about it. He bought the car. He contacted MS, talked
Speaker 3: to John Bishop and asked if there's a woman driver,
Speaker 3: because Kelly's Services had just decided to sponsor a new
Speaker 3: series called The Kelly American Challenge and John Bishop. I
Speaker 3: was told this by John Bishop, gave him my name,
Speaker 3: gave him my number and said she's the best one.
Speaker 3: She drives like a man, and he cons a compliment,
Speaker 3: and it was meant to be a compliment really, So
Speaker 3: I raised that season. It cost three thousand dollars. I
Speaker 3: had to buy the ride for three thousand dollars, so
Speaker 3: I had to borrow. My husband wouldn't give it to me.
Speaker 3: I had to borrow three thousand dollars from a friend.
Speaker 3: And then because I finished second seventy nine hundreds of
Speaker 3: a second behind Jane Felton and was the top female driver,
Speaker 3: I won like thirty five hundred dollars, so I could
Speaker 3: pay this thought thousand of dollars back to the guy
Speaker 3: that and I had a whole lot at five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: So you didn't share it with your husband, saying he
Speaker 2: was too tired.
Speaker 3: I's pretty mad at him at that point. So I
Speaker 3: ran that whole season on that same kind of a deal.
Speaker 3: Then they had a bonus prize money at the end
Speaker 3: of the year, he got all that, the owner got
Speaker 3: all the prize money, and I was so excited that
Speaker 3: maybe the next year I would be able to go
Speaker 3: for the whole championships overall. And that's what he told me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going to tell you this. You know
Speaker 3: what he told me. I'm gonna forget this. It was
Speaker 3: the finale that the finale used to be an at Daytona,
Speaker 3: like around Thanksgiving weekend. So I'm having a meeting with
Speaker 3: this car owner and I'm excited because I was in
Speaker 3: People magazine. I could go into that because I raced
Speaker 3: over at the derber Ring and had won the race
Speaker 3: and he was in the picture, and so I figured,
Speaker 3: I made this guy a hero, right, And I am
Speaker 3: sitting with him ready to have a meeting to negotiate
Speaker 3: the fact that I'm going to run the next season.
Speaker 3: And he said, I'm not running next year. I said,
Speaker 3: what do you mean, You're not running next year? My
Speaker 3: wife thinks we're having an affair. Oh Jesus, And that's
Speaker 3: what he told me. I looked at him like, you
Speaker 3: have got to be kidding me. And so I had
Speaker 3: no deal the next year. So that's what I and
Speaker 3: I was already talking to Ford, and I finally got
Speaker 3: a meeting with Ford, and I ran races. I ran
Speaker 3: one Offs, I ran seaver Ring, I ran Daytona. I
Speaker 3: ran in an acid Martin Nimrod. I mean, I just
Speaker 3: did whatever I could do to get in a race car.
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember showing up relate to the test
Speaker 3: in the first of the year at Daytona, which is
Speaker 3: now called the Roar. It used to just be an
Speaker 3: open test. I would showed up because I lived in Florida.
Speaker 3: I'd show up my helmet and suit and everything. And
Speaker 3: Jim Bell was at the party that you're talking about
Speaker 3: on October thirtieth. I invited him because he was there
Speaker 3: running the Whittingtons in a nine to thirty five and
Speaker 3: they were testing before the twenty four. And I walked
Speaker 3: up to him and introduced myself and I said, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm really looking for a ride. I don't know what
Speaker 3: the hell I said. Jim came up to me maybe
Speaker 3: two or three hours later, and he said, hey, you
Speaker 3: bring your gear. I said, I sure did. He said, oh,
Speaker 3: Bill Whittington wants to borrow it. I was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: my face went from being excited to them being and
Speaker 3: then he looked at me and he laughed and he said,
Speaker 3: I'm only kidding. Gear up, Bill Don Whittington is going
Speaker 3: to leave, and he said, you could serve some laps.
Speaker 3: I got to turn it lapse at a nine thirty
Speaker 3: five at that test.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 3: And I remember when I sat in that car. I
Speaker 3: mean I had the most powerful thing I'd ever raced
Speaker 3: was a Corvette and I sat in this nine thirty
Speaker 3: five and I just remember two things. One I sat
Speaker 3: there after I got all hit, you know, I got
Speaker 3: all suited up. I'm sitting in the car and now
Speaker 3: I'm not moving. Jim puts the door down, closes the door,
Speaker 3: and I'm looking for the starter button and he opens
Speaker 3: the door and he goes, what are you waiting for?
Speaker 3: I said, I don't know how to start it. He said,
Speaker 3: turn the key. Porsches have it the key? Yeah, like
Speaker 3: rather a starter button because it was basically a street
Speaker 3: car that they turned into a race car that I
Speaker 3: think nine thirty five. And then he looked at me
Speaker 3: and he said, I'm gonna just give you one piece
Speaker 3: of advice. Either you drive it or it's going to
Speaker 3: drive you. Good advice because that turbo comes on and
Speaker 3: you've got so much power and you don't feel it
Speaker 3: until it comes on. Because of that ride, I got
Speaker 3: to race a nine thirty five at the Twelve Hours
Speaker 3: of Seabrey that year. So I mean you just scrape
Speaker 3: and dig I said, you always be at the track,
Speaker 3: Always have your gear, Always talk to people. Always let
Speaker 3: people know who you are, what you've done, and how
Speaker 3: how much you want to do it.
Speaker 2: You know, show them you're just why am I still
Speaker 2: doing that then?
Speaker 3: Because you have Catherine? I mean, I think unless you've
Speaker 3: got an agent or somebody that's out there doing it
Speaker 3: for you. And there's a couple of the galps today
Speaker 3: I know that do that. I mean they have somebody
Speaker 3: representing them, and that representative hopefully has a good relationship
Speaker 3: and a good reputation and talks to the ker chiefs
Speaker 3: or team managers and so I didn't have that back then.
Speaker 3: But the reality is, there are so many more race
Speaker 3: car drivers than there are seats available. I don't care
Speaker 3: what series you're telling about, And the higher up you go,
Speaker 3: the harder that is, the more drivers there are those
Speaker 3: than they're exactly, So somebody's got to be speaking up there.
Speaker 3: Letting them know what you can do. So I spent
Speaker 3: the decade of the eighties racing for Ford. I wanted
Speaker 3: to share some of those only because I just didn't
Speaker 3: even think about it. They just came out of how
Speaker 3: they happened. And you know Ford, I bugged them for
Speaker 3: three years for sponsorship. I finally got it. I ran
Speaker 3: the Kelly Series and then I raced whatever Ford told
Speaker 3: me to race. I mean, the good news is I
Speaker 3: got in the door. I had to. I negotiated my
Speaker 3: own deals. I had one year contracts, but I always
Speaker 3: wanted to do the endurance races, and sometimes that didn't
Speaker 3: include the endurance races. You know, so I just I
Speaker 3: just I just raced whatever the hell I could race.
Speaker 3: I mean, it really was. They had me drive an
Speaker 3: off road.
Speaker 2: Pickup truck, and they at least pay you good money.
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't pay me. The only time I got
Speaker 3: money when I ran my own car the first year.
Speaker 3: What I realized was that a I'm not a good
Speaker 3: team owner or team manager. I can't do this. I
Speaker 3: can't wear both hats. So I went back and renegotiated
Speaker 3: during that year for a personal service contract. So I
Speaker 3: had a racing contract and I had a personal service contract.
Speaker 3: Smartly any the racing contract, that money went to the team.
Speaker 3: I didn't get any right, yeah, the personal service contract,
Speaker 3: and I went from making I had to guarantee fifty
Speaker 3: appearances a year, which is a lot. Besides that's a lot,
Speaker 3: but I needed to make some money, you know, even
Speaker 3: though I had my own horse business, and whatever money
Speaker 3: I was making, I was also using it to get
Speaker 3: these other rides.
Speaker 2: Ford was get yourself there and accommodation and everything else.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing, yeah, yeah, And I'm very proud of the
Speaker 3: fact that how much I was making for the first
Speaker 3: couple of years per a day for appearance based on
Speaker 3: because I had fifteen years of one year contracts and
Speaker 3: every year I've negotiated.
Speaker 2: And made a little bit more money.
Speaker 3: I was building value, you know, because of I mean
Speaker 3: it was a win win. They were winning because of
Speaker 3: the success I was having on the racetrack. I was
Speaker 3: winning because of the success I was having, and because
Speaker 3: I was involved with Ford Butter Company, and I was
Speaker 3: actually starting to make a little more money. And so
Speaker 3: you know, all of the pieces kind of went up.
Speaker 3: The records at Talladega that I did. I convinced Ford
Speaker 3: that we needed to do that. I pitched Ford to
Speaker 3: do that the first time. It was in the Ford Probe,
Speaker 3: because I wanted to race the Ford Probe and I
Speaker 3: was racing the Mustangs, and the head of Ford Racing
Speaker 3: was this German by the name of Michael Crnifice who
Speaker 3: a didn't want me on the team but had to
Speaker 3: because of the Ford's sponsorship. I came with the Ford sponsorship.
Speaker 3: B didn't think that I, I mean, he didn't want
Speaker 3: a woman on the team, and he didn't think I
Speaker 3: was good enough. And I wanted to drive the big car.
Speaker 3: I wanted to drive the big car. I wanted to
Speaker 3: drive the Ford Probe. So I thought, well, if I
Speaker 3: can take that car around Talladega and go at two
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty or two and thirty miles an hour,
Speaker 3: then I'm going to convince him that I can drive
Speaker 3: that race car. And so I did. I didn't go
Speaker 3: that fast on and went to a four. But and
Speaker 3: the next season I got to race the Probe, and
Speaker 3: then I saw Ford was directing more and more towards
Speaker 3: a NASCAR so I decided maybe I should try to
Speaker 3: convince them that I should go NASCAR. Racing, because what's
Speaker 3: different between a NASCAR and a big Ford Bustang gt
Speaker 3: O car, you know?
Speaker 2: So I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I learned. So I convinced them to take the Ford Thunderbird,
Speaker 3: which was a brand new supercoop body that they were
Speaker 3: coming out for the for their production car. And I
Speaker 3: went to Talladega to break the records that I'd already
Speaker 3: set and break my own records and a bunch of more.
Speaker 3: I convinced Bill Elliott and his team to build the
Speaker 3: car and we went and successfully went to twelve average speed.
Speaker 3: But Catherine, I hated that car. Why hated it? It
Speaker 3: was numb.
Speaker 2: Oh didn't get any feedback.
Speaker 3: This is in nineteen eighty eight, so they were a
Speaker 3: lot different than they are now. I turned the wheel
Speaker 3: and nothing happens, And I mean it was numb. It
Speaker 3: is the best way I could put it. And I
Speaker 3: spent two days and I couldn't wait till it was over.
Speaker 3: Three weeks later, I got an opportunity to drive an
Speaker 3: IndyCar for the first time, and I made up my
Speaker 3: mind in October of nineteen eighty eight, if I'm going
Speaker 3: to climb this mountain, it's going to be that mountain
Speaker 3: and not trying to get into stock cars.
Speaker 2: Not a numb race car either, Like at least you
Speaker 2: get feedback from that one.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know. I mean lots of feedback obviously.
Speaker 3: I mean the first time, the first time in the
Speaker 3: IndyCar is it Memphis? It was, which is a drag
Speaker 3: strip that they do a lot of testing. At the
Speaker 3: very first lab. I go around and I come down
Speaker 3: the front straight away, and I thought, okay, I go
Speaker 3: really fast down the front straight away because I you know,
Speaker 3: And then I put my foot on the brake to
Speaker 3: go through turn one, and I'm not used to having
Speaker 3: brakes that work like that. The car literally stopped on
Speaker 3: the racetrack. I had to put it in first scare
Speaker 3: to drive down to the corner.
Speaker 2: Was like, oh my god, So you'd never driven anything
Speaker 2: with downforce before that moment.
Speaker 3: I driven an open wheel car twice before. I raced
Speaker 3: in the June Sprints in a Formula Ford in like
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty two, and I had raced here at Phoenix
Speaker 3: in a like what would be equal to a Formula
Speaker 3: Atlantic car in a in a support race when they
Speaker 3: had the Formula One race downtown Phoenix. Those are the
Speaker 3: only two times i'd ever been in an open wheel car?
Speaker 2: Wow, did you want to do Formula One? If you
Speaker 2: were in the support? Did do you ever have the never?
Speaker 3: No? You know they used to because Jackie Stewart was
Speaker 3: also a Ford spokesperson, so they would you know, always
Speaker 3: hit and Ford for a while actually owned a Formula
Speaker 3: One team. And I mean I looked at that and
Speaker 3: what that's way over my I mean, that's so complicated,
Speaker 3: and now it's even more complicated. And I also knew,
Speaker 3: you know, all my goals were doable for me. Everything
Speaker 3: I did that I set as a goal, I thought,
Speaker 3: it's because I know I can do it, and I
Speaker 3: think I can convince others. Formula one, I knew there
Speaker 3: was no way. Well, I try to chase something that
Speaker 3: you just know there's absolutely no way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has to be achievable. I think though, had
Speaker 2: you found racing as a kid and done go cutting
Speaker 2: and done everything like that, I think it would have
Speaker 2: been achievable. It was just the circumstance that you came
Speaker 2: into it. But I mean, what a career. It reminds
Speaker 2: me a little bit of mine in a way in
Speaker 2: that you raced anything and everything that you got the
Speaker 2: opportunity to race, and if you look at the long list,
Speaker 2: like I did when we were at that thing at
Speaker 2: Daytona in the museum there, it was so cool, honestly,
Speaker 2: Like it still gives me goosebumps to think about that,
Speaker 2: because like when you see how much you jumped around
Speaker 2: from different cars and what you achieved, and like just
Speaker 2: the tenacity and the and the grit and everything. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's honestly it's inspirational because you don't really meet many
Speaker 2: people like us, right, Like it's I think we're definitely
Speaker 2: a different breed and for me to be able to
Speaker 2: see it and you, it gives me some power back too,
Speaker 2: you know, like it's it's been. It's been a wild ride,
Speaker 2: and I know that we did things very differently in
Speaker 2: a way, but it's really neat to see that there
Speaker 2: are so many different parallels too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I think I've told people, I mean, a,
Speaker 3: you have more natural talent than I do. I mean,
Speaker 3: I absolutely watching the way you stepped in that test,
Speaker 3: you know that would have been indie lights and see
Speaker 3: you and see you run. I've watched you a lot
Speaker 3: run in in sports cars in Daytona and all that
Speaker 3: and I just you have a lot of natural ability
Speaker 3: and you're willing to work hard. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 3: a lot of times people that have a lot of
Speaker 3: natural ability are lazy. You know that it comes easy
Speaker 3: to them and they don't work very hard. So and
Speaker 3: you know, the passion that you have, I feel we
Speaker 3: have that very much in common. And also just the
Speaker 3: stick to itiveness, not to be not to give up,
Speaker 3: you know, doesn't mean we don't get disappointed or discouraged
Speaker 3: or you know, there's times I've been, oh my god,
Speaker 3: there's so many times that I've either wanted to kill
Speaker 3: somebody or or quit, you know, because I figured there's
Speaker 3: no way. But I never that didn't stay around for
Speaker 3: very long, and you know I wouldn't be I just
Speaker 3: nobody was going to deny me.
Speaker 2: I feel like I said a blund But what would
Speaker 2: you do if you did, if you weren't racing.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. I met Burkup and I don't
Speaker 3: know how to pronounce your last thing, but she's from
Speaker 3: Turkey and she's the new head of the FA Woman
Speaker 3: and Motorsports Commission. Lovely lady. She came over for our
Speaker 3: summit in Indianapolis and December, and she's she's probably inter four,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I mean, yeah, she does, but
Speaker 3: she's not like really young, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: She's not just twenty or thirty years old or whatever.
Speaker 3: But so we kind of related in a different way.
Speaker 3: But I remember her saying, so what do you do?
Speaker 3: What do you mean? What do I do? Like, well,
Speaker 3: what do you do for fun? I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: have any nothing. I mean, I paint, I tried to paint,
Speaker 3: so I have painted a little bit. But I look
Speaker 3: for other opportunities. I mean, at that time, I was
Speaker 3: still vintage racing. I mean I was, you know, I
Speaker 3: was planning to continue vintage racing until I had that
Speaker 3: back crash in nineteen. So or I'm at the races,
Speaker 3: staying current, learning, I'm reading about it, I'm going to race,
Speaker 3: and still I go to races because that's the only
Speaker 3: way I can stay current, and I and the and
Speaker 3: the fact that there are so many more young gals
Speaker 3: racing now. I want to be able to watch them
Speaker 3: race because if I don't see them race, and I
Speaker 3: don't have this opportunity to see them, like this, anything
Speaker 3: I read is almost irrelevant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not accurate.
Speaker 3: I've got to feel that energy, I have to see
Speaker 3: that passion, and I have to see some damn talent
Speaker 3: in the car. So I am an observer or participant,
Speaker 3: a fan, and I try to continue to be an
Speaker 3: expert and to be able to be a mentor. To
Speaker 3: do that, you have to stay current.
Speaker 2: Do you like cause as much as you like racing
Speaker 2: or is it more of racing, because I remember seeing
Speaker 2: something with Anika that said she was like, I have
Speaker 2: no interesting cars really at all. I just love racing
Speaker 2: as a sport, and I feel like I can relate
Speaker 2: to I love cars too, but not to the extent
Speaker 2: that I love racing. I think it's the sport that
Speaker 2: I fell in love with rather than the cars.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of curious about cars, and I know what
Speaker 3: I like and what I don't like. That I'm not
Speaker 3: a car nut. The other thing is it isn't even
Speaker 3: just the racing. It's the driving something at the limit,
Speaker 3: finding the limit, and then being able to do it.
Speaker 3: I like testing more than I like racing. The only
Speaker 3: reason why the racing's fun is because that's what you're
Speaker 3: really You're pitted against you know where the hell you stand.
Speaker 3: But testing you also know where you stand. You know
Speaker 3: what a good time is there, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: But I love the testing because I love trying to
Speaker 3: find that perfect flap, that perfect corner, you know, every time.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what excites me is that, Yeah, the sound,
Speaker 3: the smell being at the track and then looking for
Speaker 3: that apex for every corner and feeling the car and
Speaker 3: feeling how it changes, you know, how the tires change
Speaker 3: and how the weight balance changes. And it's like when
Speaker 3: I drove that Indy car at Memphis, I was so pleased.
Speaker 3: Dick said to the guy that was working on the car,
Speaker 3: put ten gallons of fuel, bring her in, Let her
Speaker 3: do ten laps, ten gallons of He wanted to keep
Speaker 3: that the weight of the car balanced and the same
Speaker 3: almost for the entire time because those weight changes really
Speaker 3: make a difference, you know. So I just because I
Speaker 3: didn't know what the hell I was doing at that point.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I love the driving the race car. I'm
Speaker 3: a good time. I'm a real good test driver because
Speaker 3: I was told that by some tire engineers because if
Speaker 3: they want, if they're going to change tires, they don't
Speaker 3: want you to adapt. They want you to still drive
Speaker 3: the way you got.
Speaker 2: And it's not that easy to get the perfect that, like,
Speaker 2: you can chase the perfect lab forever and ever because
Speaker 2: the conditions are always changing and the tires are always changing,
Speaker 2: you're always changing its cars getting lighter when it blends
Speaker 2: off fuel. And so yeah, I don't think that anybody
Speaker 2: anywhere ever has ever got the perfect lab. And you
Speaker 2: know what, you see the self driving cars these days
Speaker 2: that are supposed to be able to be programmed to
Speaker 2: do like the edge of the grip if you like.
Speaker 2: I think maybe one day that will take over from us.
Speaker 2: But I think that that's what makes us more interesting.
Speaker 2: Like I have something that can go at the ultimate
Speaker 2: limit without making mistakes. It's the mistakes and it's the
Speaker 2: learning and everything that makes it interesting. But I love
Speaker 2: the competition to you like the competition with yourself as
Speaker 2: much as with everybody else, right because mentally you're competing
Speaker 2: with yourself to be as good as you can be
Speaker 2: and then yeah, no hitting those marks, making as few
Speaker 2: mistakes as possible, driving on the limit, all of it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I love it too, and it's a passion
Speaker 2: and I don't know what I will do when I
Speaker 2: stop racing because I love it so much, but I
Speaker 2: almost think that I want to follow in your footsteps
Speaker 2: and help other young female drivers too. So I'm just
Speaker 2: following you all the way up through. I'm just being
Speaker 2: a meanie, a mini you.
Speaker 3: I've heard you're rid of here from Predix. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: were saying that. So I mean, if you ever want
Speaker 3: to brainstarve about that, my dear, I'm happy to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think your passion kid, carry on past
Speaker 3: your time in the race car.
Speaker 2: Explain to us how you started your program, because I
Speaker 2: didn't go through it in its entirety, I was lucky
Speaker 2: enough to be part of it at times. But explain
Speaker 2: why you started it, Explain what it was and some
Speaker 2: of the people who came through it. For those of
Speaker 2: us listening.
Speaker 3: Well, I started in the nineteen ninety four, so two
Speaker 3: years after I did INDY, but I was still doing Indy.
Speaker 2: Okay, you were still driving at the time you started it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's interesting because I was thinking to myself, I'll wait
Speaker 2: until the transition point so i can focus, because I've
Speaker 2: got like OCD where I want to put everything in
Speaker 2: its neat and tidy box. But you were doing both
Speaker 2: at the same time, which is crazy and awesome.
Speaker 3: But remember I was doing Indy only, so I mean
Speaker 3: I only did I did fifteen IndyCar races over nine years.
Speaker 3: The only year I had more than Indy was ninety
Speaker 3: three and I had six races, Okay, So when I
Speaker 3: was back to just one, I mean, to be honest,
Speaker 3: I had to put it this way. It was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do the rest of the year. I
Speaker 3: wanted to do more, and I was trying to get
Speaker 3: sponsors to do more, but ultimately, you know, I only
Speaker 3: had an indie only program, and you know, after hanging
Speaker 3: out with Billy Jim King for those years that I
Speaker 3: went to the Women's Sports Foundation, I realized I have
Speaker 3: to find a way to give back, a way to
Speaker 3: make a difference. And then I got so much fan mail.
Speaker 3: A lot of them were young drivers wanting advice. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't know who these people are. I don't know
Speaker 3: if they're any good. And I was also being interviewed
Speaker 3: a lot saying that there were more coming and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: then where are they. I'm like, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: got to find them. So my deal was an invitation only,
Speaker 3: and I literally would I would scour National speed Sport
Speaker 3: news every week and look at all the race results
Speaker 3: and look for stories about a woman driver looking for
Speaker 3: you know, and I only had usually the first initial
Speaker 3: in the last names, you know. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: really hard sometimes. And this was before we had the
Speaker 3: Internet and you know, Google and all of that. But
Speaker 3: I literally would and I started contacting sanctioning bodies asking
Speaker 3: for who do you know? Is there anybody any good
Speaker 3: that's running at your track? So I created a program
Speaker 3: once a year. I would only do it once a year.
Speaker 3: I would max out at twenty people because I could
Speaker 3: never remember more than twenty names over the course of
Speaker 3: a weekend. I don't want to keep looking at name tags.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I had a vision, Catherine, of everything that it
Speaker 3: took me so long to learn, and I thought, if
Speaker 3: I can compress the learning time that these gals that
Speaker 3: are out there racing and give them the tools that
Speaker 3: in my mind they were like, go now they should go,
Speaker 3: because now they shouldn't be held back by these things
Speaker 3: that we don't know, because you don't know what you
Speaker 3: don't know, you know, doctor Jacques Dhlaire, Because I'd gone,
Speaker 3: you know, with them, I'd worked with them, since nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty eight, and truly was it.
Speaker 2: By the way, Yes, I saw him at Seabring. I
Speaker 2: still yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: But if I hadn't met he and his partner at
Speaker 3: that time, doctor Don Marsi, who has since passed away
Speaker 3: from a heart attack. If I hadn't met the two
Speaker 3: of them in nineteen eighty eight, that changed my physical fitness,
Speaker 3: changed my mental preparation, changed by how I think, how
Speaker 3: it changed everything about me. It took a while. I
Speaker 3: was a hard one to convince, Oh no, are you really,
Speaker 3: I can tell you in ninety two at Indy, I
Speaker 3: would have not been able to do what I did
Speaker 3: in ninety two at Indy had it not been for
Speaker 3: doctor Shock the training and I could go on and on.
Speaker 3: I could do a whole session anyway. So I asked
Speaker 3: doctor Joe.
Speaker 2: Should by the way, we should point out to the
Speaker 2: business that Jacques de Laire is a mental coach. If
Speaker 2: they know who he is.
Speaker 3: He's actually a sports physiologist. His training is in the
Speaker 3: physical part. But his partner with psychologists. There was the
Speaker 3: brain guy in the body guy. But when when the
Speaker 3: brain guy died, he had so much information from them
Speaker 3: that he was able to Boorf and really develop that expertise.
Speaker 3: But he is available. It's called human performance. Now I
Speaker 3: think performance, I mean because I think every race car
Speaker 3: driver should have somebody good to help them train their
Speaker 3: brain because we are our worst enemies most of the time.
Speaker 3: And then I had the whole We went to a
Speaker 3: gym and I was It was in Indianapolis where I
Speaker 3: went and met with people at the gym, and I
Speaker 3: explained to them the stuff that we had to test.
Speaker 3: Cardiovascular strength, flexibility, grip strength. We had a grip strength
Speaker 3: so we had a whole training physical training. They'd go
Speaker 3: through this whole exercise with doctor Jock. On the mental
Speaker 3: part of it, I hired a camera crew. They had
Speaker 3: to be interviewed so that they could learn about media training.
Speaker 3: And then every night at dinner, I had a nutritionist
Speaker 3: prepare all the meals and so that they could learn
Speaker 3: what they're supposed to eat, whether on the road or whatever.
Speaker 3: Every night at dinner, I would pull a name out
Speaker 3: of a hat and they didn't know who they were
Speaker 3: going to who was going to get pulled that night,
Speaker 3: and they had to get up and give a speech.
Speaker 3: Because as a race driver, when you're invited to go
Speaker 3: to dinner and then say, oh, tell it, tell the table,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, and most people aren't really good
Speaker 3: at that, you know, and.
Speaker 2: So nope, oh that's scared of it.
Speaker 3: I mean I was, Yeah, I mean I used to
Speaker 3: used to break out in a rash if I had
Speaker 3: to talk more than three people. So there was media training,
Speaker 3: there was nutritional training, there was the physical training. There
Speaker 3: was and then we went to the racetrack and I
Speaker 3: had go carts. Everybody started in go carts because I
Speaker 3: had to see could they really were they really able
Speaker 3: to be a race car driver? And if they passed
Speaker 3: the go kart test, then different years I would have
Speaker 3: different cars. I mean when I was out here, I
Speaker 3: did it at Bob Vodra, and so then we'd have
Speaker 3: openheel cars and then we'd have closed wheel cars, and
Speaker 3: you know, so there was on track. There was one
Speaker 3: day of on track programming. So with four days, I
Speaker 3: required one family member or one responsible person that's in
Speaker 3: their life attend with them. So this wasn't like where
Speaker 3: you drop the kids off and then go off somewhere.
Speaker 3: Because I wanted the parents, because in most cases kids
Speaker 3: were still living at home. I wanted the parents to
Speaker 3: hear everything that we told them. So I did that.
Speaker 3: I had over two hundred and thirty drivers from thirty
Speaker 3: states in six countries. So we did it at Daytona,
Speaker 3: we did it at Charlotte, we did it at Indianapolis,
Speaker 3: and we did it in Phoenix. Over that twenty plus years,
Speaker 3: and I could count on one hand out of that
Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty of who were really good.
Speaker 2: Okay, who's the one that didn't make it that was
Speaker 2: really good and should have made it?
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Her first name is Alison. She was
Speaker 3: really good, and I was so pissed off because I
Speaker 3: mean she just sort of she did some racing after that,
Speaker 3: and then she dropped off the radar, and I was
Speaker 3: asking somebody, I forget who, it's a long time ago,
Speaker 3: what happened to Alison? She got married and she got
Speaker 3: married like a screw chief guy that works in NASCAR.
Speaker 3: So she was really good, and I was disappointed. But
Speaker 3: I mean, Danica Sarah, Milanie Troxel, actually Erica Anders came
Speaker 3: through the program. Aaron Crocker. I was trying to think, well,
Speaker 3: for sure, Aaron was really good.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I'm surprised she didn't do more I
Speaker 2: thought she was to be the one, honestly, yeah.
Speaker 3: And she could have been, but you know what happened there,
Speaker 3: so I finally have forgiven Ray. I wasn't for the
Speaker 3: longest time.
Speaker 2: I was. It worked out for them in the end,
Speaker 2: That's exactly just I.
Speaker 3: Was just with them and Kate, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean there is a certain I mean, Shaye Holbrook
Speaker 3: was also an outstanding and the part of it was
Speaker 3: they were really good and then they also took what
Speaker 3: we were telling them and at least started to incorporate
Speaker 3: it into their program. I mean, things like writing thank
Speaker 3: you notes for the people that help you, you know,
Speaker 3: the returning phone calls. Of course now it's emails and everything.
Speaker 3: But I mean I had like Linda Conti came in
Speaker 3: and would talk about finances, talk about how to manage
Speaker 3: your find what are you going to do if you
Speaker 3: actually get sponsorship. I had John Bickford, which is Jeff
Speaker 3: Gordon's Oh Sarah. He recommended Sarah Fisher to come. He
Speaker 3: actually paid for Sarah. I charged five hundred dollars, by
Speaker 3: the way, five hundred dollars for four days.
Speaker 2: That's really good.
Speaker 3: And that's what I did through my foundation. I raised
Speaker 3: money to help because I had to pay for all
Speaker 3: of the resources that we had, you know. But I
Speaker 3: just the way I looked at it is that it
Speaker 3: was mostly the off track tools that you need to
Speaker 3: be successful, because if you're running sprint cars or you're
Speaker 3: running drag racinger, you know, every one of those, the
Speaker 3: on track part is different, but the off track part
Speaker 3: is the same. To sort of clarify, women in motorsports
Speaker 3: in North America is about all disciplines of racing for
Speaker 3: all careers, for women in all careers in racing, which
Speaker 3: is important, very important.
Speaker 2: Racing is not just about us as drivers, even though
Speaker 2: we're inherently selfish. I think it is about the engineers
Speaker 2: and the mechanics, and the teams and the series and
Speaker 2: the sponsors and like this, so many other aspects.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that will help generate more support for the
Speaker 3: women drivers because now they'll see that this is actually,
Speaker 3: you know, women can be successful in this industry. That
Speaker 3: it will kind of help break some you know down.
Speaker 3: But I also I have not given up on women
Speaker 3: race cars driver. So I mean there's still me who
Speaker 3: is passionate about wanting to figure out what you just said,
Speaker 3: how can we get more women winning. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: I want to see that desperately, and that I'm not
Speaker 3: expecting women Motorsports North America to be that solution necessarily,
Speaker 3: you know, I just sometimes I want to defend the
Speaker 3: fact that I want a woman to win.
Speaker 2: I don't think you need to defend it. I think
Speaker 2: I want it to and maybe here and then their future,
Speaker 2: you and I can start something that helps that to
Speaker 2: happen in some way shape to be continued TVC. Why
Speaker 2: do you think there's been this gap behind my generation?
Speaker 2: Then the Danica's and the Simonas and the Anti Beatrices
Speaker 2: and the me and then you look at like I
Speaker 2: thought Jamie did a great job last year, but then
Speaker 2: Jamie said it was too physical for her and went
Speaker 2: back and did sports cars, which was disappointing honestly because
Speaker 2: I thought maybe we had somebody coming in. But now
Speaker 2: there seems to be this big gap and this big hole,
Speaker 2: and there's nobody winning in the lower formula like we
Speaker 2: did at the time. Why do you think that that is?
Speaker 2: Do you think it's just cyclical or do you think
Speaker 2: there's a reason for it.
Speaker 3: Well, there's more numbers now, at least there are more
Speaker 3: females racing now than I think there were for the
Speaker 3: any of the decades before, and they are actually more
Speaker 3: of them are capable of being good. I don't really know.
Speaker 3: I have some theories.
Speaker 2: First of all, I shouldn't say this, but you can
Speaker 2: know anyway.
Speaker 3: I somehow think that women when they don't succeed and
Speaker 3: if they have, and one of the biggest words that
Speaker 3: could get us in trouble is that word expectation. So
Speaker 3: I think Danica said the bar that everybody felt that
Speaker 3: they could do what Danica did, you know, and when
Speaker 3: that didn't happen, whatever level they were racing at, I
Speaker 3: think they get discouraged sooner and easier because they also
Speaker 3: they look at the world and say, you know, there's
Speaker 3: other things I can do. They see options. The majority
Speaker 3: of the guys that race they can't do anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I can't do anything else.
Speaker 3: They don't have a plan B. But they don't have
Speaker 3: a plan B.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of the gals and if they've
Speaker 3: done it for seven or eight years, and the other
Speaker 3: is that they're doing it out of their parents' pocket.
Speaker 3: I mean they're still doing it out of their parents' pocket.
Speaker 3: And so if the money doesn't show up from and
Speaker 3: they expect again that word expectation, because they have accomplished
Speaker 3: something better than let's say average on their parents or friends' money.
Speaker 3: They don't understand that that isn't enough to get to
Speaker 3: that next level.
Speaker 2: What do you make of this old female one makes
Speaker 2: series with that runs with one the academy? What was
Speaker 2: the W series? What are your thoughts on it? If
Speaker 2: we ever discussed that.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think we are.
Speaker 2: I didn't think we have.
Speaker 3: I mean when the W series, when it was announced,
Speaker 3: I was on the fence but also pretty much against it,
Speaker 3: but was careful, you know, I needed to learn more
Speaker 3: because it was, let's face that it hadn't been done yet,
Speaker 3: and they hadn't when they announced it. We didn't see
Speaker 3: what it was really going to be like, right, And
Speaker 3: then I got to over to Ostrica and was part
Speaker 3: of the original selection process. I watched them go fifty
Speaker 3: drivers go through that test, the initial test, and realized
Speaker 3: that it actually was The intentions were really to provide
Speaker 3: a quality on track experience at the level that we're
Speaker 3: talking about, which is not really entry level, but it's
Speaker 3: let's just say it's the lower of the mid level.
Speaker 3: I mean it's after you get past the entry level
Speaker 3: of whatever it is you're doing. Now you're on that
Speaker 3: bottom wrong of the ladder to that next step up.
Speaker 3: So I think that having a series that commits to
Speaker 3: good race cars, good crews working on the race cars,
Speaker 3: if it is all females, it's it's creating an opportunity
Speaker 3: for them to race that they probably wouldn't have an
Speaker 3: equality program. Plus they usually they did at the W Series,
Speaker 3: and I know they're doing it at F One Academy.
Speaker 3: Is they are providing the off track training that we're
Speaker 3: talking about, They have to do media training, they've got fitness,
Speaker 3: They really bring in all of the elements, so it's
Speaker 3: a quality experience. I don't believe we need a bunch
Speaker 3: of all female racing series because it's one of the
Speaker 3: best assets about our racing is the fact that it
Speaker 3: is gender neutral or there is no definition.
Speaker 2: Right, is it the only sport that we can compete
Speaker 2: equally well.
Speaker 3: Equestrian is open and sailing is open, So.
Speaker 2: Then something near every day talken to you and I pay.
Speaker 3: A lot of attention, and I have friends over there
Speaker 3: in the sailing world, and I have some friends in
Speaker 3: the equestrian world. And I mean I think that you know,
Speaker 3: that's what the Iron Dames Devra is now supporting equestrian True, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's so it's one. We aren't the only, but we're
Speaker 3: one of the few. But it for you to get
Speaker 3: enough experience to be at your best. It took me
Speaker 3: too damn long. I mean I had to didn't waste
Speaker 3: but I ended up using up so many valuable years
Speaker 3: doing this over year and that, I mean the whole
Speaker 3: decade of the eighties. If I hadn't had Ford, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have had the kind of experience that I had.
Speaker 3: At the same time, it was also limiting me. And
Speaker 3: if I was because I was bold enough to do
Speaker 3: a midget race, I was bold enough to still do
Speaker 3: the twenty four hours and something else, or to go
Speaker 3: to do Lamal. Ford didn't. Ford didn't help me go
Speaker 3: to Lamal and so and going to La Ma going
Speaker 3: down before them alls on straight helped me. When I
Speaker 3: got to Indy, I know how all of a sudden
Speaker 3: I knew what it was like how to go over
Speaker 3: two twenty or two un three miles an hour. So
Speaker 3: I mean I was building my toolbox of experience on
Speaker 3: my own but having a base of having ford. But
Speaker 3: it took forever. I mean, it takes a long time.
Speaker 3: And so I think these gals are benefiting. And I
Speaker 3: told Courtney Crone that when who I was working with,
Speaker 3: you know, had been working with for a number of years,
Speaker 3: I said, I don't turn your nose down at something
Speaker 3: that will provide you with an opportunity to get good experience.
Speaker 3: But don't think that's going to blow the doors open
Speaker 3: and everybody's going to come, no matter how successful you are.
Speaker 3: I mean, look at Jamie. She won the b A
Speaker 3: Series and the F one Academy and yet still had
Speaker 3: to really work hard to put a deal together to
Speaker 3: come over to do the Indie Lights. And then it
Speaker 3: took her two season into the second season and to
Speaker 3: really shine, you know. And even then it took her
Speaker 3: a while towards the middle of the latter part of
Speaker 3: the season to come into her of her own. And
Speaker 3: my understanding, it wasn't that she didn't feel she was
Speaker 3: strong enough to do Indy She knew she was going to.
Speaker 3: She wasn't strong enough to do Indy Lights and develop
Speaker 3: the ability to do that, but there was no sponsorship.
Speaker 2: I mean, I thought I thought she had the money
Speaker 2: and wasn't I thought she tested it Bober and thought
Speaker 2: she strong enough to do that.
Speaker 3: Well, no, she she knew that she had to step
Speaker 3: up a little bit more because Barbara is probably one
Speaker 3: of the hardest tracks to run as far.
Speaker 2: As it went to the hardest, most physical track to
Speaker 2: do it. I was thinking, I.
Speaker 3: Mean she did, and I think the team felt, but
Speaker 3: there was no sponsorship.
Speaker 2: I hope that the next generation are on their way
Speaker 2: because it would be nice to be able to pass
Speaker 2: the baton over like you have and then still be
Speaker 2: involved in some way, shape or form. If you were
Speaker 2: looking at twenty year old Lynn coming into her first
Speaker 2: ever car season, assuming you had the money and everything
Speaker 2: sorted to go and do an entry level season, what
Speaker 2: would your advice be to yourself back then, knowing what
Speaker 2: you know now.
Speaker 3: Part of our challenges there's just so many different ways
Speaker 3: to go bat it, so many care all that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff. Yeah, you know, I think I kind of
Speaker 3: would you know something that day I could do. I
Speaker 3: would put my butt in about as many different race
Speaker 3: cars as I could. In other words, I would go
Speaker 3: and do a variety of cars depending on what sort
Speaker 3: of direction you think you want to go. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at the MX five. You know, there's so
Speaker 3: many great things that come out of that, the racecraft
Speaker 3: and how to take care of the car and the
Speaker 3: drafting and huge fields and keeping the car under you
Speaker 3: and not you know, I mean, there's so many skills
Speaker 3: that come out of that. I mean, I look at
Speaker 3: Connor's Illich's career right now as a model for what
Speaker 3: somebody should in a way be doing, is not not
Speaker 3: just attached yourself to one series or to one form
Speaker 3: of racing. What I learned how I felt a Talladega
Speaker 3: in that Thunderbird versus how I felt three weeks later
Speaker 3: in that indie car in Memphis. I still and I
Speaker 3: tell a race card artist, you know, you know in
Speaker 3: here what just feels right like this is what I want.
Speaker 3: I have wrestled cars, I have, you know, I've wrestled
Speaker 3: bears feeling like I'm wrestling bears with race cars and
Speaker 3: did whatever I had to do to make something work.
Speaker 3: And I'm not just talk about chassis set up or
Speaker 3: car set up or and also the team. You got
Speaker 3: to find your home. You've got to find where your
Speaker 3: hot butt are hit. And the only way to do
Speaker 3: that is if you're early on, is to try some
Speaker 3: different things and then hone in and then find partners,
Speaker 3: not just money, but find a team, a crew of people,
Speaker 3: because right now the timing is perfect. Right now, the
Speaker 3: timing they want to find successful women drivers. And no
Speaker 3: offense to you, but the younger you are right now,
Speaker 3: the more talent you bring and also develop your personality
Speaker 3: to find out who that. Don't be too timid, don't
Speaker 3: be too bold, but find out who you are and
Speaker 3: bring that, bring that with you as an asset and
Speaker 3: find a home, find a family or a home or
Speaker 3: a team who goes, damn, we can build this together.
Speaker 3: I had that with Dick Simon. I mean Dick Simon.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you the difference that it made to
Speaker 3: have a team owner who just said, we're going to
Speaker 3: make this happen.
Speaker 2: I had that in Atlantics with Jim and Pan. They
Speaker 2: were fantastic.
Speaker 3: And build on that, you know, find it and then
Speaker 3: build on it, and you may become the best at
Speaker 3: something that's less than into your less than cop or
Speaker 3: less than the very top level. But if we need
Speaker 3: more women winning, yes, even if it's winning it, I
Speaker 3: mean like this, Jade who just want to see your
Speaker 3: copp or whatever the hell that series is called.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I can't remember you lady, that lady Abuse
Speaker 2: that I introduced you to. That I saw a race
Speaker 2: here that I think has something special. She races in
Speaker 2: the same championship, So maybe that championship is going to
Speaker 2: produce some really good race card drivers.
Speaker 3: So win and win enough before you get ready to
Speaker 3: go somewhere else and try to go somewhere else with
Speaker 3: the people that got you where you were.
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes good sense. Well, then, thank you very
Speaker 2: much for your insight, your stories, and your wisdom. I
Speaker 2: could talk to you for another episode, and we may
Speaker 2: well have to do that and get you back on
Speaker 2: because I have so many more questions. I love you
Speaker 2: heaps and I will see you very soon, And thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you again, thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll
Speaker 2: be back next week with more updates and more overtakes.
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Speaker 2: next show. Throttle Therapy is hosted by Katherine legg. Our
Speaker 2: executive producer is Jesse Katz and Our supervising producer is
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