Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Dedicated, Fast & Fearless: Cindi Lux

Transcript

Dedicated, Fast & Fearless: Cindi Lux · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
0:04
all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
0:09
designers, and everything in between.
0:11
Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
0:16
How did they get that job or become that person?
0:19
The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
0:24
The following episode is brought to us in part by the Women in Motorsports
0:28
North America, a community of professional women and men devoted
0:31
to supporting opportunities for women across all disciplines of motorsport
0:35
by creating an inclusive, resourceful environment to foster mentorship,
0:38
advocacy, education, and growth, thereby ensuring the continued strength
0:42
and successful future of our sport.
0:47
Our guest has won 14 road racing championships, more than 90
0:52
victories, over 170 podium finishes and more than 55 pole positions.
0:57
Included in that are accomplishments like being crowned the first ALMS
1:01
Women's Global GT Series champion.
1:04
She was a Dodge Motorsports team driver, competed in World Challenge.
1:07
She's also a NASA bronze and silver medalist, as well as the second woman
1:11
in history to win the SCCA June sprints.
1:14
Twice.
1:15
She's dedicated, fast, and fearless.
1:17
Cindy Lux is recognized as one of North America's most
1:20
talented and versatile drivers.
1:22
And she's here with us on Brake Fix to share her story.
1:25
And with that, let's welcome Cindy to the show.
1:27
Hey, thanks.
1:28
Thank you very much.
1:29
I appreciate this.
1:29
This is going to be fun.
1:30
Well, like all good Brake Fix stories, there's always a super heroine origin.
1:35
So let's talk about your background.
1:37
How did you get into motorsports?
1:38
Did you come from a racing family?
1:40
Did you pick it up as a hobby?
1:41
Was it by way of friends?
1:43
I came from a racing family.
1:44
My grandfather raced the Pan America Road Race, USA down to Mexico.
1:48
My father raced Ferrari Testarossas and a whole variety of stuff.
1:52
And then my two brothers raced also.
1:53
One is a drag racer and the other's a road racer.
1:56
But the key thing is actually being the youngest girl in the family.
1:59
I was never allowed to go to the racetrack.
2:00
I never really was a part of it.
2:02
I grew up showing horses.
2:03
I grew up doing other stuff.
2:05
I was quite a bit younger than they were.
2:06
It's in the family, but no, I didn't go the traditional route of kind of
2:10
hanging out at the racetrack as a young kid, watching everybody race and stuff.
2:13
And so it really wasn't until I graduated from college.
2:16
Grew up out here in the Northwest and graduated and I don't want to
2:19
say unmotivated, but I took a couple months off and just went skiing
2:22
and used the rest of my savings account for after graduation.
2:25
And then I knew I liked cars, but again, I didn't want to go to
2:27
work for the family dealerships.
2:29
I think our first dealership was back in 1924 and my brothers
2:33
were all in the family business.
2:34
But again, I didn't want to.
2:35
going with that.
2:35
So I graduated from college and then I actually, you know what, I
2:38
want to try the corporate world.
2:39
I took a flight down to Torrance, California, and that's when
2:42
all the imports, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and all that stuff were
2:45
done in Southern California.
2:46
And I just went down there and just dropped off some resumes and hung
2:49
out at the beach for a little bit.
2:50
On the way back to the airport, I got a phone call.
2:52
I said, Hey, come back for an interview.
2:54
I kind of got into the automotive aspect that way.
2:56
Went to work for Toyota Motor Sales and then went to the Long Beach Grand Prix.
2:59
And I was like, you know what, this is kind of cool.
3:01
My family does some of this.
3:02
Living down in California, I didn't know anybody, lived in an apartment.
3:05
Started talking to people and no shop, no nothing.
3:08
And I was like, this is actually pretty cool.
3:10
And went out and bought a race car.
3:12
I maxed out 14 credit cards to get the cash to do it.
3:15
And what was that first race car?
3:17
It was a Dodge Shelby Charger, like the old L body.
3:20
The thing was a hunk of junk.
3:21
It really was, you know, but it was the only thing I could afford.
3:24
I look back on it now and I truly, I don't know what I was thinking.
3:27
I really, really don't because I legitimately went down
3:30
and read another U Haul.
3:31
Trailer to pick it up and I brought it back and I found a storage places.
3:35
I can kind of stuff cars into.
3:36
And again, I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing.
3:38
I was going to load it and then I'll figure it out later.
3:40
And that was back in 1987 when I was living down in Los Angeles and then
3:44
kind of one thing led to another.
3:45
And it's a weird story.
3:46
I mean, even my family are just like.
3:48
You're just weird, you know, like, I know, I know with your brothers influencing
3:52
you and even your dad having a background in racing, but it also sounds like there
3:57
was a mixed set of disciplines in there.
3:59
How did you settle on road racing versus maybe circle
4:02
track or dirt or something else?
4:04
There's so many other disciplines of motorsport.
4:06
What drew you to road racing?
4:08
I didn't really know there was other forms out there other than roads racing.
4:11
You know, when I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix at that time, when there
4:13
was still callback, I just thought everybody turned left and right.
4:16
I was really pretty ignorant to the world of motorsports a little
4:18
bit, but I was fascinated by sport.
4:21
I mean, I ski raced.
4:22
I did martial arts competitively.
4:24
I was on the swim team.
4:25
I played on the tennis team.
4:27
So I have a very much of a competition background.
4:30
When I went there to the Long Beach Grand Prix, I was like, yeah,
4:32
this is, this is kind of cool.
4:34
I'm going to go figure it out, you know, saved up my nickels and went to the
4:36
school up in Willow Springs, California.
4:38
And, you know, again, I had, I had no business doing this.
4:40
I really, really didn't.
4:41
But again, you know, here sat this race car.
4:43
I went and bought and I had again, no tools, no crew, nothing.
4:46
One thing kind of just led to another.
4:47
I started meeting people and they kind of probably felt sorry
4:49
for me more than anything else.
4:51
At that time in the eighties.
4:52
There weren't, let's say, too many other women out there racing, especially in
4:57
SECA and amateur racing, things like that.
4:59
There's some names that come to mind, and we'll talk about them as we go along.
5:02
Were you starting to hear, oh, she reminds me of so and so, or oh, you know, other
5:06
drivers like this and that and the other?
5:08
Were you starting to see maybe some other women in motorsport that
5:12
you could look up to some other stories that you could pull from?
5:15
No, I wish I could, you know, I was out there on my own trying to do this thing.
5:18
And luckily the men, you know, the other drivers and stuff, I think they kind of
5:22
more admired the fact that I was out there trying, even though I was fumbling over
5:25
things, I didn't know what I was doing.
5:27
And I think they kind of, I don't want to say took pity on me, but they kind
5:29
of say, Hey, if you're going to do this, you know, you need to at least
5:32
be safe and put some air in your tires or, Hey, you need to kind of do this.
5:35
Oh, really?
5:35
I didn't, you know, again, I was about as new.
5:37
But when I told my family I was doing this, they were all very supportive.
5:42
This is fantastic, this is great, but you need to learn it on your own.
5:45
My dad was very old school.
5:46
He's like, you know, I raced for a lot of years.
5:49
You know, if you're going to do this, you're going to
5:50
learn to do it on your own.
5:51
At first, I was kind of like, geez, dad, you know, everybody else kind of gets
5:54
help a little bit from family and Now looking back on it, I'm very blessed
5:57
because he taught me the business side of racing a little bit more and have to
6:00
kind of put my big girl panties on and go figure out how to get it done without
6:04
someone just sitting there stroking a check or making my life easy and stuff.
6:07
I mean, the family is very supportive, but did they go out to the racetrack with me?
6:10
No, not at all.
6:11
There weren't a ton of, let's say organizations like exists today, like
6:15
high performance driver education groups, HPDEs, you kind of jumped into a Barber
6:19
or Roosbertal or one of these schools, and then you went club racing, right?
6:23
Or you, you went into the pro am circuit or something like that.
6:26
It's really trial by fire.
6:27
And when you're learning like that, there's a lot of learning
6:30
moments, you know, shadowing other drivers, things like that.
6:32
You're picking up their lines.
6:34
What was your biggest, what we call oops moment or code Brown.
6:37
And what did you learn from it?
6:39
I just knew I wanted to do it.
6:41
I was just every weekend trying to get out there and just learn from others.
6:44
I think the biggest thing, I think when some of my couple of other competitors
6:47
that drove the same car, when I was being lapped, probably by lap number
6:51
two, during a race, kind of came over and said, okay, if you're going to do this,
6:56
we need to kind of get you up to speed a little bit more because it's embarrassing
6:59
you driving this car the same as ours.
7:00
And you're pathetic slow.
7:02
And they said, Cindy, it's not the car right there.
7:04
It really was kind of an aha moment in terms of, well, if you promised
7:07
me my car's fast, Then I will learn, I will get the help, I will figure
7:11
this out, I will become a student of the sport to figure out what it takes
7:15
behind the wheel to make a car fast.
7:17
Right when I was beginning is when Riverside Raceway kind of closed down,
7:20
I was at that event and that's where I honestly I was like I said lapped in
7:23
lap number two and I think it was the factory Shelby team that was there racing
7:27
the same body style cars as myself.
7:29
They said, give us the car for a couple of hours.
7:31
They went through it.
7:32
They kind of changed some stuff.
7:33
They put one of their drivers in it, sitting on the racetrack.
7:35
It went ungodly faster than I ever did.
7:38
This was before the world of data.
7:39
This was before the world of other things.
7:41
But at that point I said, I was excited because I knew it was up to me.
7:45
The car was good.
7:46
And so it kind of inspired me.
7:47
And I think that's where, you know, like I said, I grew up on a farm,
7:50
raised animals and did a lot of horse showing and competition and you got
7:53
to learn how to do things right.
7:54
I just got fascinated.
7:55
Well.
7:56
It's me that's kind of a wanker right now.
7:58
You know, it's me that's not being able to figure this out.
8:00
So, all right, let's get to work.
8:01
And so from there, I just studied as much as I could.
8:03
I went to every single event to watch and talk to people.
8:06
I wasn't racing myself.
8:07
I just volunteered and hung out and just watched.
8:09
And, you know, I was just a big sponge looking for any type of a knowledge base.
8:13
I mean, I was going diving through the garbage dumpsters looking for tires,
8:16
takeoffs, you know, I had no money whatsoever, you know, and, and they're
8:19
just like, okay, Cindy, you don't need to be sleeping in my car because you couldn't
8:22
afford a hotel room on a race weekend.
8:24
And people, once they saw the passion and once they saw the commitment I
8:27
was trying to make, they're apt to hear, here's some takeoff use pieces
8:30
of crap we're going to throw away.
8:31
You can have them and kind of run with them.
8:32
So.
8:33
I think truly that big moment of mine was once I realized my car is
8:38
quicker than what I'm doing behind the wheel, then, okay, this is awesome.
8:42
And I was like, okay, that means I can fix this.
8:44
I can figure this out because I have the trust in myself.
8:46
It's funny how we look at motorsport and it is competitive, but at the same time,
8:51
it's a fraternity or sorority, right?
8:54
We're all there to help each other get to not only the grid,
8:58
but to the finish line, right?
8:59
Because it's no fun to be out there by yourself.
9:01
You want to compete with your friends.
9:02
Right.
9:03
It's an interesting dichotomy, but at the same time, you develop
9:06
some rivalries along the way.
9:08
So who would you say were your biggest allies and maybe your biggest rival?
9:11
First starting out, the Factory Shelby team, luckily they were like maybe a mile
9:15
from where I lived when I was kind of down living in Southern California and stuff.
9:18
And you hear the stories now, you know, but being a girl at that point,
9:21
and I was probably maybe 22, 23.
9:25
And I was still working at the corporate level at Toyota.
9:27
At the end of the day, I'd run and change into my jeans and, you
9:31
know, sweatshirts and whatever, and run over the factory Shelby team.
9:34
And I would be picking up a broom and learning stuff.
9:36
And any other race team, you know, around there and stuff, I would just go do that.
9:39
I think at that point, though, there were so many people that wanted to
9:43
help, but it was never financial.
9:44
It was more just, hey, let me kind of show you the ropes of this deal.
9:48
Once I started getting a little bit better, well I should say better, but
9:50
I mean I wasn't embarrassing myself, I'm getting lapped on lap two at least,
9:54
you know, pick up the pace a little bit and it was kind of interesting.
9:56
I remember the first time that I actually won a small little regional
9:59
race at Willow Springs, you know, outside of Lancaster in California.
10:03
And I remember going into the, I don't want to call it the winner's circle,
10:06
but he's coming to impound, you know, and they, you know, look at the car
10:08
and look at you and give you a flag, you know, the sticks, I call it a piece
10:11
of fabric, you know, and a 3 trophy.
10:13
That was really the first time that I had an encounter, and I wouldn't even call
10:17
it an encounter, it was just more like a, maybe an aha moment where, hmm, one of the
10:21
wives of one of the drivers that I just beat, you know, wasn't a, hey, Right on.
10:26
This is really awesome.
10:27
Congratulations.
10:27
This is really cool.
10:28
You're a girl, you know, you're out there do it's more like,
10:30
who are you beating my husband?
10:32
And it was really weird.
10:33
It was almost like, I was like, look, and I'm like, she's mad
10:35
because I actually beat her husband.
10:37
And the husband came over later and he's like, Hey, I'm really sorry about my wife.
10:40
You know, she's kind of myth that I got beat by a girl.
10:42
I'm like, Huh?
10:43
Well, that's, that's kind of not how it should be, but okay, whatever.
10:46
You said the Shelby was a whim, but that was the jumping
10:49
off point into bigger things.
10:50
I had the support down there, and I think that if I would have done it any
10:54
other way, I think I would have probably thrown in the towel many years ago at
10:57
this sport, and I think this just gives you a solid base of if you want anything
11:01
in life, you just got to work hard, and you just have to get used to the word no.
11:05
You know, I look back on it now and I cringe at some of the stuff that I did
11:09
starting off, but like they say, you know, The ends justify the means or the
11:12
means justify the end or whatever that the theorists say It was something where
11:15
it was I didn't know any other way So it's kind of strange because I didn't
11:18
know I was doing things the hard way It's really kind of the only way I really knew
11:22
how to do it As you continued, obviously cars came and went, and your first car
11:26
was a Dodge, and you got deeper into the Dodge lineup as things went along.
11:30
You know, you kind of alluded to the business of racing a little bit.
11:33
How did you find yourself after your first, and your second, and
11:36
your fifth, and so on seasons?
11:38
Did it become easier?
11:39
Did it become harder?
11:40
Did the money suddenly appear as you started winning more?
11:44
How did all that sort of shake out?
11:45
I met a gentleman that ran the Mitsubishi race team again, just kind of hanging
11:51
out, going to their paddock and I started asking him questions and we
11:54
ended up going to lunch and he says, we'll come by the race shop and he kind
11:57
of realized it's a newbie at this thing and he says, well, let me just tell you,
12:00
you're going to have to learn how to get.
12:01
Money to run a program like you're doing and whatnot.
12:03
And he says, well, the very first thing is to get a tire sponsor, you know?
12:06
Okay.
12:06
So I made presentations, a typical five a night, terrible presentations.
12:10
Long story short is I got hooked up with Toyo Tire and I think they were with
12:14
me for almost five, six, seven years, but they taught me and thank goodness.
12:18
Cause it's still a little bit today this way.
12:20
You get financial support, you get product support, but it's
12:23
not just winning on a racetrack.
12:24
And that's very important.
12:25
You still have to kind of win races to get ahead of life.
12:28
That's to say, but they taught me the business side.
12:30
They taught me, you know, it's making the appearances.
12:32
They taught me it's going to the dealer openings.
12:33
They taught me it's doing this and that.
12:35
So I think my very first sponsorship from Toyota really taught me,
12:39
I need to figure this out.
12:40
So then, then from there, I talked to mobile one oil and they're like,
12:42
okay, let's do this and then it kind of morphed and so everything just
12:45
kind of snowballed at that effect.
12:46
And so I think the business side really started taking off a little bit more,
12:50
but again, I was still an amateur, still just trying to rub two nickels together
12:54
to go racing on Saturday and Sunday when I was still living in California
12:57
and still working for Toyota motor sales because I was an employee of
13:01
Toyota back then they had a corporate policy that Toyota employees could not
13:05
receive any sponsorship, any type of assistance to raise a Toyota product.
13:10
Because back then that would be considered a monetary gift.
13:14
I don't want to call it a gift, but it'd be a conflict of interest.
13:16
Yeah.
13:16
If you and I both work for Toyota, then all of a sudden Toyota said, well, Hey,
13:19
Cindy's an upcoming, we're going to put her in an MR2 or something like that.
13:22
We're going to give her a car.
13:23
We're going to give her some tires, you know, when we're going to support her.
13:26
They had a concern that the other employees would consider that
13:29
favoritism, regardless of the background or credentials to get this.
13:33
So they made a flat out policy that there's nobody's going to receive
13:35
any type of motor sports sponsorship.
13:36
If you worked for Toyota motor sales, I was like, okay, well, then that kind
13:40
of made my life actually a little bit easier because I go race for another
13:43
manufacturer without getting in trouble because ethically I had struggled
13:46
because here I was making my living producing products for Toyota in the
13:50
parts industry Monday through Friday.
13:51
But on weekends here, I was racing another product.
13:54
I was a little bit confused by that and it was kind of the way it was back then.
13:57
And so.
13:58
There was a point where I actually stored my Dodge race car in the tech
14:02
center at Toyota's technical proving grounds in the corner covered up.
14:06
I mean, I had no place to work on it.
14:08
And a couple of guys that worked in the technical side like racing and so forth.
14:12
And so they'd help me out at night or on weekends working on my car.
14:14
I said, but I don't have a place to store it.
14:16
Can I shove it in the back in the corner?
14:17
I said, yeah, yeah, we got room, but man, just make sure you cover it up.
14:20
I'm like, okay, so here it was, here was a Dodge sitting in the corner of
14:23
all the R and D cars, Toyota stuff they brought over from Japan at that time.
14:27
So there's an interesting scenario here that I would say is not common
14:31
for most people, or maybe it is, you know, waiting tables by night,
14:34
trying to race a car on the weekend.
14:35
You hear those stories too, but you have this corporate job where
14:38
it helps to sustain the racing hobby that's turning into a career.
14:43
And it sounds like you were able to leverage that, capitalize on maybe some
14:47
connections and other things that you had.
14:50
Did you face any other types of adversity?
14:52
What kind of challenges were you presented with trying to build your career and
14:56
then eventually sort of switching over to making driving a full time thing?
15:00
My career at Toyota started taking off also, which required
15:03
me to travel a lot more.
15:05
My job for Toyota at that time was traveling around to all the U.
15:08
S.
15:08
based vendors and to teach them about the Toyota production line system and the
15:13
efficiencies of production and so forth.
15:15
And so I was kind of moving up through the ranks and I was trained over in
15:18
Japan and The whole Kaizen, you know, constant improvement type thing that
15:21
was happening back in the 80s and 90s.
15:23
I was traveling a lot more, which really started to hurt
15:26
my little local racing effort.
15:28
But it was also affording me the financial means to pay.
15:31
I can go buy used tires now versus, you know, getting them out of the
15:34
dumpsters or something like that.
15:35
So I really kind of had to decide what's more important.
15:38
And luckily at that time, I always told myself I need that.
15:41
I need to have a paycheck.
15:42
You know, I'm not willing to jump off the deep end into the flames per se.
15:46
And try to go racing when I really didn't have the talent at that level.
15:49
I was smart enough to realize that.
15:51
I still had to collect the paycheck and then on the weekends to kind of
15:54
work with the sponsors and so forth.
15:56
There wasn't really any a ha.
15:57
Everything just kind of kept growing more.
15:59
My career at Toyota started going crazy and then my racing
16:02
got a little bit better.
16:03
I started getting newer cars.
16:04
I was always just getting, you know, used pieces of crap that
16:07
I buy off people or whatever.
16:08
But it wasn't really until I moved.
16:11
Out of Los Angeles, back up to the Northwest where my family's from.
16:14
At that point, I was starting to do a lot more testing for
16:16
other manufacturers on the side.
16:17
Started wearing many, many hats like everybody kind of does.
16:20
It really was, you know, almost 30 years ago to the day that I said, well,
16:23
I'm done with the corporate stuff.
16:25
I am going to go ahead and jump into this thing because I've been able to
16:27
make enough money doing other things besides the racing, you know, but
16:30
doing product launch and, and, you know, the typical ride and drives.
16:33
And I just formed my own business.
16:35
And I was at that point on the road constantly.
16:37
But then it also afforded me that I can.
16:40
Travel when I wasn't racing.
16:42
So I was kind of more the creator of my domain at that point.
16:44
And so that was a real scary moment for me to leave the corporate
16:47
world and to start my own company.
16:49
And so at that point, you know, we just kind of did it and held our
16:51
breath and it's kind of worked out.
16:53
And that's the genesis of the Lux Performance Group.
16:55
Correct.
16:56
What does that provide?
16:57
How did you take with you the knowledge from Toyota and
17:01
spin it into your own company?
17:02
Is it devoted strictly to motorsports?
17:04
Is it tied into the dealerships that your family had?
17:06
How does Lux Performance Group work?
17:08
So really I just formed at that point, just a company name just
17:11
so I can go off and subcontract out to these other manufacturers.
17:14
I worked an awful lot for Mercedes, BMW, you know, again,
17:17
doing these product launches.
17:18
And so really I just had to form more of an agency for me to go off and do
17:21
all these other subcontracting world.
17:23
But then really things started taking off personal life.
17:26
I finally met my soon to be husband and he worked for 20 some
17:30
years for Mitsubishi racing team, and we ended up getting married.
17:33
I mean, so it was kind of, I don't see a match made in heaven, but at
17:36
that point he was the crew chief for Mitsubishi's efforts, all the Baja truck
17:40
builds, all the escort endurance cars.
17:42
He built all the Pikes Peak cars.
17:43
So at that point it was.
17:45
Hmm.
17:45
Well, we might be able to team up together here and let's expand my personal company.
17:49
And so at one point they said, well, Cindy, what does your company do?
17:52
And I said, I know it sounds strange to say, but we do almost everything in
17:55
the world of automotive, whether it's racing, whether it's doing prototypes
17:59
for auto shows, doing cutaways.
18:00
I mean, we had a sub business, you know, within the main umbrella where we built
18:04
robotics for battle bots, you know, mtv shows for many years and so forth.
18:08
So basically, it's my husband and I, we just kind of started building race cars,
18:12
and then I started getting clients that wanted to do driver training, and so my
18:16
coaching career started taking off, and then from the engineering side, so it was
18:19
great, because he didn't really do the things I love, and I, you know, obviously
18:22
can't do the things that, you know, the engineering side that he does, and then
18:25
basically Lux Performance started, geez, I want to say almost 25, 30 years ago,
18:29
and it's just, Kind of grown every year and we've always been very diversified.
18:33
We just don't know how to say no and we're very small.
18:36
It's not a large company.
18:37
So primarily right now, you know, we build race cars.
18:39
We supply, we call people's cars around the country.
18:42
We provide trackside support, coaching.
18:44
We do the whole thing for them.
18:46
And it's kind of nice because we've gone the real big route, had transporters going
18:49
to separate locations doing all sorts of craziness and stuff, but nowadays it's
18:53
kind of like we've pulled things back a little bit more and kind of saying,
18:56
Hey, we don't need to be big to be successful, but it was a learning curve.
18:59
It was interesting starting off, but it was a lot of hard work.
19:02
I loved it so much because I had more control of my racing, and I want to
19:06
say that's when things really took off.
19:07
When I made the relationship with Dodge back in 2005, it really afforded us
19:12
to really kick our company and also my driving career into high gear.
19:16
For each tipping point, You seem to move forward in lockstep, or at least
19:21
it's like a three legged race with your driving career and your personal career
19:24
and everything continues to just move forward in a really interesting way.
19:28
And we're gonna get back to your time in 2005 with the Dodges.
19:32
Let's back up a second and talk about racing.
19:34
You've raced all over the country, as you said, transporting cars all over the
19:37
place in one of what we call our pit stop.
19:39
What is your favorite or worst track?
19:42
And you know, they say, you know, your favorite racetrack is the last one you
19:45
win on, you know, that's kind of boring and generic, but I love high speed tracks.
19:49
I really adore the road Americas, the Watkins Glen, VIRs, road Atlantis.
19:55
You know, I, I don't know why anything well over, you know, 170,
19:59
80 miles an hour, it just seems to click for me because I think I'm able
20:02
to really give technical feedback back to engineers from aero grip to
20:06
mechanical grip in bigger size cars.
20:08
Once I kind of figured out.
20:09
The difference between that from an engineering standpoint, I think my
20:12
career from a high speed tracks really kind of evolved the least favorite.
20:16
Geez, there's kind of least favorite.
20:18
Well, let's just say a track that you struggled with the most and
20:21
maybe you've learned to overcome it.
20:23
Yeah.
20:24
I think the biggest was, I want to say Mossport.
20:26
Up in Canada, that one kind of really threw me for a loop, mostly because my
20:29
first race weekend in world challenge, huge rain, it was just a rainstorm,
20:33
you know, and I was just struggling and it was just not a good weekend.
20:36
And I just never have, I never has been able to wrap my hands around that place.
20:39
And I just think that one's kind of been my nemesis.
20:41
I love all sorts of race.
20:42
I mean, it's kind of weird.
20:43
It's there's very few racetracks that I cringe.
20:45
Had a couple pretty serious accidents and people kind of usually tend to
20:49
kind of shy away from those tracks, you know, after you have that, but to me,
20:52
it's kind of like slaying the dragon.
20:54
I want to go back and I'm gonna get back on the horse at this track and show who's
20:57
boss kind of sort of, but I'm so weird.
20:59
I just love driving.
21:00
I just love the art of racing and I just love all tracks.
21:04
Any bucket list tracks or events that you still want to do, check off your list.
21:07
You know, I want to go do the Bathurst 1000.
21:10
I'd like to do a little bit more racing overseas a little bit.
21:13
You know, there's some things in the works right now that we're actually
21:15
trying to do in the next couple of years to get over there to do some stuff.
21:18
From a cost standpoint, this is going to seem crazy, but I've got
21:21
several of my compadres, you know, or several of my friends in the industry.
21:24
They're like, Cindy, I'm spending less money.
21:26
I am a racing in Europe than I am in the States.
21:28
And I'm like, you got to show me the spreadsheet on that,
21:30
because that makes no sense.
21:32
But let me just tell you, it's like.
21:33
Huh.
21:34
Well, they did.
21:35
So anyways, yeah, I would really like to go do a little bit more
21:37
racing in Europe, just kind of maybe, you know, endurance racing.
21:39
I've always loved endurance racing more than a sprint driver type of a deal, but
21:43
I'm just so fortunate to get into a race car all the time and I'm just so blessed.
21:46
I think the older I get, the more I really realized that you just got to keep
21:49
putting one foot in front of the other and keep what they call swinging the bat.
21:52
And so.
21:53
My biggest bucket list from a race standpoint actually is
21:55
the Australian touring cars.
21:57
I would love to go down and just go compete with them.
21:59
I'd probably be towards the end of the pack, but it doesn't matter.
22:01
I just think it'd be awesome.
22:02
If you're in a V8 supercar, it doesn't really matter at that point.
22:05
Not at all.
22:06
Not at all.
22:07
I mean, that would just be, I mean, a total bucket list.
22:10
Well, before we get into a conversation about Ford versus Holden, a lot of times
22:15
we like to ask our guests, Porsche versus Ferrari, you know, stuff like that.
22:18
But I think in your case, I want to ask you this question because you've been
22:21
behind the wheel of both of these cars, and it is a rivalry that is often for.
22:27
Because it's 20 years old at this point, if you look back over the days of ALMS,
22:31
Grand Am, and before it all got enveloped into IMSA, it's Corvette versus Viper.
22:35
Of the two, which do you choose and why?
22:38
Yeah, you're talking about putting my head into a snake pit.
22:41
You gotta realize too though, because I used to race Corvettes.
22:43
I loved them.
22:44
I mean, they're just a different beast.
22:47
I gotta kind of be a little bit careful here, but the cars require
22:51
a different type of driving style.
22:52
The fans are completely different.
22:54
The enthusiasts for the Corvettes versus the Vipers.
22:56
The cost of emissions and back in its day for a Corvette was a little bit less
23:01
to go racing, but I was putting a lot more parts on the car on a weekly basis.
23:05
You can just kind of read between the lines there.
23:06
Back in 2005, when I was racing a C5 Corvette, loved it.
23:10
I mean, I just loved the car and the cars was great, but it became very apparent.
23:15
It was kind of an eyeopening deal, even on the amateur level, how much factory
23:19
support was being given at that point.
23:20
I was really kind of beating my head against the wall and it wasn't until
23:24
that season was just about over in 2005.
23:27
And I'm like, this is not right.
23:28
And I'm not going to get mad and I'm not going to point fingers, but I'm like,
23:30
I'm never going to compete with the.
23:32
Quote unquote the people that get the good stuff.
23:34
Let's just say and i'm not pointing figures I'm, not saying we weren't doing
23:37
well because they had all the good stuff This is where the business side comes
23:40
in i'm like well I'm, never going to be able to get into that secret handshake
23:43
club Okay, and at that point I just picked up the call and legitimately it
23:47
was in the end of 2005 I just googled somebody's name and just Picked up
23:51
the phone cold called that point.
23:53
It was the SRT motorsports at Dodge and introduced myself and just said, I want
23:58
to meet him and here's what we want to do.
23:59
And I just flew back there and met with them.
24:01
And that was it.
24:02
It was a hard transition because I did race for the Corvette
24:04
brand for about four years.
24:06
Back then it was the amateur level of T1 and we developed a lot of fans.
24:10
And when we switched over to the Viper.
24:11
Oh my God, you would have thought that I ran over their puppy or something.
24:15
I mean, it was, they were not happy.
24:17
It took a while for people to kind of chill out a little
24:19
bit and get used to the Viper.
24:20
But the one that even to this day, the Viper itself, I've been fortunate
24:23
enough to get in with Dodge and fortunate doing some testing behind
24:26
the scenes for new cars, new gen Vipers have come out, gotten to know the
24:30
people that work at Dodge Motorsports versus Chevrolet Motorsports truly is.
24:34
You know, about 1 8th in size, but when I'm able to talk to the head of the Dodge
24:38
Motorsports on a Sunday morning, when we have a question going on versus pick up
24:42
the phone and call him at home, they're just operating a much different level,
24:45
you know, stop as corporate per se.
24:47
And the Viper project was very much a skunk works project.
24:49
Very much so.
24:50
Yep.
24:50
You go back into his history.
24:52
And more importantly, IACOCA is actually quoted in his first autobiography as
24:56
saying something along the effect that.
24:58
He always admired the Chrysler engineers, even when he was at Ford, because they
25:03
were always thinking outside the box.
25:05
But the problem was they were asked to do surgery with screwdrivers and wooden
25:09
spoons, rather than given the tools appropriate to execute on their ideas.
25:13
And I think he finally got to realize some of that stuff when he crossed the
25:17
threshold at Chrysler and then birthed the Viper project alongside of Carroll
25:20
Shelby and all that kind of stuff.
25:21
So I personally have a sweet spot for the Viper.
25:24
You know, and I've coached both Corvettes and Vipers.
25:26
I've driven both on track, on the street.
25:28
And I tell you what, the Viper went through a much more interesting
25:32
evolution process than the Corvette did in some ways because you can tie
25:37
the Corvette to these generations where they're kind of based on each other.
25:41
Where Dodge sort of took and said, all right, we're going to rip that page out.
25:44
We're going to start over again.
25:45
The only thing that stays the same as the engine, when you get up to the fifth
25:48
gens, the last ones, the ACRs, I mean, I got an opportunity to get in one of
25:52
those at Watkins Glen with the gentlemen.
25:54
And it was just like, I got out of the car and I was like, this thing
25:56
is unstoppable with the right driver.
25:59
And you can keep all your Corvettes and your GT three, nine 11s.
26:02
The Viper is just an amazing vehicle.
26:04
So I wax.
26:05
Poetic about it being an actual pro driver of a Viper.
26:08
What's it like to run one on track?
26:10
Is it as unruly as they say it is when it's at the limit?
26:13
It is.
26:14
And it's almost scary.
26:15
And I don't mean scary.
26:16
Like I'm going to crash scary, but it's almost like, really, you guys produce this
26:20
car to be on the street in some regards, you know, you got to understand that car
26:23
that you drove, that version of the Viper, the gen five Viper, which is the last
26:26
one they started producing back in 17.
26:29
That was the first Viper that Chrysler at that point or Dodge finally said
26:33
okay legally we have to put some type of traction control System in the car, but
26:38
there were four generations of Vipers that had absolutely zero what I call nannies
26:43
You know or any type of assisting and I give them credit I wouldn't want to be
26:46
a lawyer at that point for Chrysler or SRT Back in its day when you have umpteen
26:51
600 horsepower with zero traction control or any type of stability control system.
26:55
So, you know, you're talking the carbon on carbon brakes on the new gen five.
26:58
You're talking just an ungodly amount of downforce on the deal.
27:02
I give them credit even to the last day.
27:04
I can tell you the name of the five or six guys and I still talk to them.
27:08
In fact, I talked to them this weekend, even though they're retired from Chrysler.
27:11
They still do work for us.
27:12
Hey, I need you know, this I need a new ecu program for this type of
27:15
a track and blah blah blah They're still doing stuff for us But anyway,
27:18
the point is I think honestly people think the viper is all about the
27:22
v10 They think it's all about the horsepower and it's like you know what?
27:25
Even with the car that I race right now in trans am I will go door handle
27:28
to door handle with any other sports car whether it be a Porsche, Corvette,
27:32
BMW, whatever, and I promise you I will be able to outbreak them.
27:35
So the point is, it's not just, you know, grunt.
27:38
People keep saying, especially, and one thing just still just makes me, I don't
27:41
want to say giggle, but it's just, I shake my head and I have to leave the room.
27:44
It's when I hear the announcers on TVs when, you know, back in the
27:46
day when, you know, the Vipers were racing and, you know, they're all
27:49
like, hey, look at the horsepower, you know, coming from this car.
27:51
They're known for the straight line speed.
27:53
And it's like, God, people, The car's got so much finesse.
27:55
It's got so much ability to go around the corners.
27:57
It's got so much more than the straight line speed.
28:00
And why don't you ask them how much of a restrictor plate is put on us,
28:03
you know, in a lot of this stuff.
28:05
And so I'm with you, you know, I just give them credit.
28:08
I'm so blessed to be a part of that family and so blessed to be a part
28:10
of it, you know, during a time that it really was a family, you know,
28:13
kind of an entity type of a thing.
28:15
But I don't think the Viper's dead, to be honest with you.
28:17
Yeah, I know there's a lot of talk, and I think it's a lot of, you know,
28:19
changes in the guard, but I think someday the Viper will be joining us
28:23
back again from a production level car.
28:25
I agree with that, and I think it's also interesting, Stellantis, the parent
28:28
company, which comprises Fiat, Chrysler, and PSC, and which in the halls are also
28:33
Ferrari, but back in the day, Ferrari was fascinated by what was going on.
28:39
With the Viper project, there has been rumors too, that things like the Alfa
28:43
Romeo 8C might resurrect itself as a viable platform for a new Viper with
28:48
Fiat and Ferrari having that intrigue.
28:50
And I think that's part of the reason why they bought Chrysler
28:54
on top of Jeep, because it's the most lucrative line in the family.
28:57
There was never.
28:58
A good reason to get rid of Viper, but I think if a sixth generation
29:02
does come, it might be a little more front engine Ferrari, but it's
29:06
still going to have that DNA in it.
29:08
I agree.
29:08
And I think the covers will come back.
29:10
I think the true stories will come out.
29:12
What really happened with all these buyouts and all these changes and so forth
29:15
was happening back at the corporate level.
29:17
You're exactly right.
29:18
There was so much fascination by the Ferrari camp regarding the Viper on so
29:22
many things and especially back in 08 when the automotive industry tanked,
29:26
you know, I hope they do some type of a historical story on it because, you
29:30
know, let's just say that there were cars shipped to us during that time
29:34
when they were going through bankruptcy.
29:35
That all that was said is just keep these cars for us for a while.
29:40
And we put them in the back of the shop, put car covers on because all the
29:43
auditors is the way I, you know, I just heard of horror stories when they were
29:45
really declaring the bankruptcy or going through all this stuff that everything
29:48
in motor sports was being physically destroyed from an accounting standpoint.
29:52
In the skunk work department and stuff like that.
29:54
So it was interesting.
29:55
I yeah, I mean one viper finally left like three to four years
29:59
later Finally, I said, okay.
30:00
Hey, we're gonna send a truck and pick that thing up and i'm like sweet Anyway,
30:03
that was just kind of a weird story.
30:05
But yeah, it was just I mean legitimately on a sunday I got a text or a phone call
30:08
saying yeah, I think reliable is dropping off Some cars tomorrow for you guys.
30:13
Just don't ask any questions and just hang on to them Okay.
30:16
Strange.
30:16
So Cindy, you cut your teeth on the third gen Viper, which I jokingly always
30:20
refer to as the Mercedes Viper, because that's when Daimler that period, you
30:24
know, they kind of came in and shook the Apple card a little bit, but it doesn't
30:27
have the nostalgia of the first two.
30:30
And it doesn't have the refinement of when Fiat got its hands into the fourth
30:33
and fifth gens and things like that.
30:35
So the third gen is, it has that German utilitarian.
30:39
To it.
30:39
And a friend of ours actually has a third gen and I've driven that one as well.
30:42
And I mean, I love all Vipers, but do you still go back to that third gen?
30:47
Do you prefer the newer ones?
30:48
What about the early cars?
30:50
Yeah.
30:50
You know, it's interesting because even back with the gen two Vipers,
30:54
those cars were not easy to drive the differentials in them and then the
30:58
whole variety of reasons of geometry and some other stuff, I don't want to say
31:01
it where they was kind of a point and squirt type car, but at that point, your
31:05
biggest concern is trying to get out of the race car without burning your.
31:08
The snake bite.
31:08
Exactly.
31:09
Yeah.
31:09
I'm trying to teach people that.
31:10
But I think when we jumped into Gen 3, it was refined more so than the Gen 2.
31:15
But it was still a difficult car.
31:17
The geometry still wasn't proper, let's just say in a few things.
31:20
And I just remember the differential, we could not get that out quick enough.
31:25
It was a tough car to drive, but luckily the class we ran, we were able to put
31:28
the parts on it legally wise, rule wise, that were really suffering with the car.
31:32
Absolutely hands down, the Gen 4 Viper, when that came out,
31:36
it was truly a refined car.
31:38
I think it really addressed some of the inadequacies of the Gen 3 car so much, to
31:42
the point where that's still my favorite car, even when we're in Gen 5 right now.
31:46
From a race car standpoint, I just cannot tell you what a fun
31:49
car that the Gen 4 Viper is.
31:51
And it's such a pleasure to drive, but again, they really took seriously
31:54
the enhancements, the improvements, even though it's gen three had the 8.
31:57
3 liter motor, and then it went to an 8.
31:59
4 liter with the gen four, the gen four, I think started production in the 08,
32:03
you know, then that went to the drive by wire versus, so there's a lot of
32:06
changes per se from a racing standpoint.
32:08
I don't remember the first time I started racing the gen fours.
32:10
I'm like, we got to reprogram this ECU.
32:12
We got to do something because when you lift the throttle,
32:14
you know, I can count to 30.
32:15
By the time before it revs, you know, so tweaks like that, we were finally
32:18
able to make on like, so we went in the reprograms and stuff, and so
32:21
we made it more of quote unquote, racy, tailor made more on a racetrack
32:25
environment versus a street environment.
32:26
But I just give them credit.
32:28
I really do.
32:28
But I think the gen five is by far.
32:31
A absolute beast.
32:32
It is a work of art.
32:34
The fit and finish is fantastic.
32:35
I mean, look what they're bringing right now where they're being resold
32:38
in the market for God's sakes.
32:39
But I think that the stars aligned from a fit and finish the interior, the sexiness,
32:43
everything about it is just fantastic.
32:45
But.
32:46
I think the bang for the buck price tag for a zooted up, you know, or just a
32:49
proper gen four ACRX versus a gen five.
32:52
I mean, you're talking a difference that easily, easily of over a hundred
32:55
plus thousand dollars between the two.
32:56
I still think the gen four, you have a hard time beating it.
32:58
You mentioned earlier about coaching.
33:00
I commiserate with you on that.
33:02
You know, I spend my weekends in the right seat teaching people
33:05
how to go around racetracks.
33:06
Fast, maybe not at the same level you're at because you're
33:08
doing all sorts of diverse stuff.
33:09
But, you know, HPDE is where we all sort of get our jollies off
33:13
when it comes to passing down our motorsport knowledge to other people.
33:16
There's some interesting videos on your social media, one of which I just saw
33:20
recently again, and it was about heel toe downshifting and stuff like that,
33:23
which is super important in the Viper.
33:24
But there's another one that I think is really, really interesting.
33:28
You were teaching a blind person how to go around the track.
33:32
How did that play out?
33:33
How did that even happen?
33:34
Yeah, well, again, I don't know the word.
33:36
No, this is actually a friend of mine.
33:38
Who's also in the racing industry that, Hey, there's a gentleman
33:41
here turning 70 years old.
33:43
He'd lost his vision about 20 years prior.
33:45
He was kind of a gear head himself and kind of a.
33:47
Hot rod guy, but the family wants to know if there's any way that he can at least
33:52
in a straight line, like on a drag strip type of environment, can he drive his car?
33:56
I want to say it's one of those police interceptors.
33:58
Those things, you know, had a fair amount of scoot.
34:00
So long story short, while I was testing out here in Portland, Oregon
34:03
on test day, I made the arrangements.
34:04
Okay.
34:05
At lunchtime, I went to the organizers.
34:07
I'm like, Hey, can I have the racetrack by myself, but leave medical here.
34:10
Don't pull medical, have medical there.
34:12
I've got kind of a private thing I want to do.
34:14
And, and okay.
34:15
So then.
34:16
I spent about I'd say 15 minutes with him in the parking lot and
34:19
just kind of taught him the basics, you know, of just communication.
34:22
He was a driver before he went blind, so that was a good thing.
34:25
We just set up certain cues and certain commands on how to use the wheel
34:29
and just a rating system, one being light, ten being extreme or whatever.
34:33
And we kind of played around in the parking lot a little bit and he was
34:36
very intuitive, I mean super intuitive.
34:38
And I'm like, I got no problem.
34:40
So let's go.
34:41
And so they open up the racetrack to us.
34:43
And I think we did like maybe two or three laps on the racetrack.
34:45
I was never physically scared.
34:47
And I want to say in the backstretch, we were doing about 95 miles an hour.
34:50
I was not touching the wheel.
34:51
I mean, he was driving the car.
34:53
I just kind of kept him giving him cues, as you know, from
34:55
your teaching experience.
34:57
It takes by the time you say something to where that student sitting behind
35:00
the wheel processes that thought by the time it goes in Their brain
35:03
by the time their brain says, okay.
35:04
I need to lift off the gas the brake They say right now about 1.
35:07
6 seconds So you really have to be a lot more in front of the car with
35:11
this gentleman than I normally am So once I change my teaching style
35:15
a little bit It helped him out.
35:16
So no, we just went around and, you know, it was a real special experience for him.
35:20
And I just love doing stuff like that.
35:22
I really, really do.
35:23
He just had a great time.
35:25
And it was neat because the people in the paddock, the other
35:28
race teams that were broke for lunch, the word must have spread.
35:30
And.
35:31
When we came off in the paddock area, it was kind of like not the extreme,
35:35
but you know, that scene when Dale Earnhardt finally won Daytona 500,
35:38
you know, not that much, but there were people clapping for this guy
35:42
and it was just really a cool thing.
35:44
Yeah, I do crazy stuff like that.
35:45
I never feel scared or whatnot.
35:47
I deal a lot with people that get in serious crashes that have gone
35:51
through windshields that have been brain trauma type of thing.
35:54
Then people that.
35:55
Physically can't sit in a race car due to PSTD or whatever it may be and I
35:58
work a lot with those people as well.
36:00
You just talk to them, read their body language like everything
36:02
else and you just kind of work.
36:04
But you know, that's the thing about the automotive world is
36:07
it's not just building cars.
36:08
It's not just racing.
36:09
It's not just drawing cars.
36:11
It's not just writing about them.
36:12
It's just Everybody has a story of some way about the four wheels or two
36:15
wheels that they drive on the street.
36:17
It's fun.
36:17
It is a testament to your ability to teach and the types
36:21
of programs that are out there.
36:23
And, you know, we kind of fringe sometimes was like, Oh man, I've heard the same
36:26
spiel at every instructor's meeting, apex, turn in, track out, blah, blah, blah.
36:31
But those simple commands helped you drive the car from the passenger seat.
36:35
And I've joked before a good coach can drive a car.
36:39
From the passenger seat, not touching that person's wheel, giving them
36:42
the commands at the right time.
36:44
And this just goes to show, I mean, with a visually impaired
36:46
driver, it can be done and you did it and that should be celebrated.
36:50
That's really, really cool.
36:51
You'd have no problem doing it.
36:52
You really, really would.
36:53
I mean, I've even taught paraplegics on how to drive and stuff like that.
36:57
Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
36:58
One of the things I wanted to talk about was the Women in Motorsports North America
37:02
organization, which you're a part of.
37:04
And we were fortunate to have Lynn St.
37:05
James on the show in season three.
37:07
And she came and told her story and about the organization and things like that.
37:11
So I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about your role in the
37:14
organization, how you've seen it grow its involvement deeper in the
37:17
motorsports community and the good that it's doing for ladies in the sports.
37:21
It's a great organization, the Women in Motorsports North America, and
37:25
it's a wonderful group of people that has now expanded to the corporate
37:28
level as well, is to really bring limelight but also funding or just
37:33
the experience and just the avenues to teach people that there are professions
37:37
for females in the automotive world.
37:39
It's not just the driving aspect, it's the engineering, it's the race team type of a
37:44
thing, it's the track promoters, it's the announcers, it's doing podcasts, anything
37:48
that has to do with the automotive world.
37:50
It's growing leaps and bounds.
37:52
And when the whole thing came to the inception, I think it was like three
37:54
years ago at this point, when I got a call from Lynn saying, Hey, Cindy would
37:57
like to have you on the original board of directors for this organization.
38:00
I'm like, Oh, really?
38:02
What do we, why?
38:03
I mean, she had to kind of sell it to me because again, I'm like,
38:06
Lynn, you know, I don't want to start opening up doors for females.
38:09
That's not fair to the men out there trying to make a career.
38:12
I want to make sure that.
38:13
This is done properly.
38:14
You know, we talked about it.
38:15
We had many, many, many conversations and it's been an eyeopening ordeal.
38:20
And so I just actually signed on for another three years as
38:22
one of the board of directors.
38:23
It's a who's who, you know, in the world.
38:25
And the neat thing about it is I sit on this board and I'm in awe.
38:28
What am I doing on this board?
38:30
I'm so humbled.
38:31
And I learned so much from the people that are on this board.
38:34
I think it's really a great organization because it's just opening
38:38
up communication, allowing people to talk more about what's out there.
38:41
It's really gotten very strong about the last 18 months, and I think
38:44
it's going to ramp up even more so.
38:46
But as I tell them, and I'm probably a little bit more old school, I
38:49
think Lynn, God bless her, you know, she probably has to Pull me off to
38:52
the side and tell me to be careful.
38:54
I'm like, Lynn, again, I'm just saying, male or female, we as a female, we have
38:58
to do the same job as good as the men.
39:00
Just because we're female does not allow us to get any more opportunities.
39:04
But we gotta learn how to keep our jaws.
39:05
We gotta learn to be the best we can be.
39:07
But it's the same for the men.
39:08
So I think my role, to be honest with you, Eric, on anything else on this
39:11
organization is kind of a little bit more of a check and balance is to
39:14
really make sure that we are providing people educational opportunities.
39:19
Whether they tell us at the racetrack or they talk to high schools, or
39:22
I go talk to Girl Scouts, whatever it may be, if they have a passion
39:25
towards anything, they can just do it.
39:27
It's cool.
39:27
It really, really is cool, and I think you're going to see some
39:29
huge analysis coming up for 2024 on the things that we're doing.
39:33
You're talking about equality in racing, and that is really important
39:37
these days, and obviously there's the idea of, if I can see myself in
39:41
the paddock, then I can see myself there, you know, that whole mantra.
39:44
Going back to your origin story, when you mentioned yourself, I was the only woman.
39:48
A lot of guys supported me, not monetarily, but they were
39:50
helping me, those kinds of things.
39:51
Now that you're sitting on the board of WMNA and you're looking back over
39:55
your 40 years in racing, how have you seen motorsport change for the better?
40:00
Maybe it hasn't stayed the same, but how have you seen it
40:03
evolve as a woman in motorsport?
40:04
Yeah, I think it's evolved 10 times.
40:06
I think it really has.
40:07
I think a lot of the females getting jobs now are being more accepted.
40:11
They're not as kind of like a novelty.
40:13
We had a young lady that was interning with our team out
40:15
here in Portland, Oregon.
40:16
She was out with us for two years.
40:18
Long story short, we got her a job with McLaren with the IndyCar team and
40:22
she was the left front tire changer for the last two years for Pato
40:27
for the Indy 500 and all the other races and stuff and kept in contact
40:30
with her and just chatted and stuff.
40:31
And she says, Penny, it's, I want to say the higher you get in the pro level,
40:34
the easier it gets just in terms of acceptance, she says, but I've had to work
40:38
very, very hard because now she's oversees the dampener program for the IndyCars.
40:42
And I'm like.
40:43
Girl, four years ago you were pushing a broom in our shop and she says
40:47
you get the opportunity and people believe in you, you go for it.
40:50
You know, and I do get a lot of young ladies and moms and dads from
40:54
that matter come up and say, Hey, would you mind, you know, talking
40:56
to my little girl about this?
40:57
I love it, but I'll do the same for a guy too.
40:59
You know, a little 10 year old boy that wants to get in the race.
41:01
Come on, jump on the race car, you know, or let's go jump on the mini
41:03
bikes and let's go out to the turn one.
41:05
I'll kind of explain kind of what's going on here a little bit.
41:08
It's becoming more accepting, which is great.
41:10
You look at the race organizers, you look at the promoters, you
41:13
look at the track managers.
41:14
There's no boundaries anymore.
41:16
And I think that, you know, it's not a them versus us type of a thing,
41:19
but I think that women are just finally feeling more confident to
41:22
say, no, I'd like to give this a shot, just tell me what I need to do.
41:25
But that also means that the job of evolving motorsport is far from over.
41:29
And so I wonder, how do we make the paddock not just
41:31
more diverse in this case?
41:33
Which spans a multitude of different things, but more inviting for
41:37
people to come to the track.
41:39
And so that motorsport continues to thrive because we have seen
41:41
it on the decline over the years.
41:43
So how do we fix that?
41:44
That's the magical question that I think a lot of people are scratching their heads.
41:48
I don't know if it's just the world changing right now.
41:50
I don't know if it's the whole evolution, but yeah, I mean, it might be, you know,
41:54
in some cases, some of this stuff is, I don't want to say it's run its course,
41:57
but life changes, the world changes and.
42:00
We'd have to be smart enough and flexible enough and we need to adapt to the future.
42:04
I don't really have it.
42:05
I wish I knew the most inviting way.
42:07
I just know that I'm doing more talks.
42:09
I'm doing more chats.
42:11
I'm doing more presentations.
42:12
I'm doing more just explaining how to get into the industry and explaining
42:17
more that a car, you know, it doesn't.
42:19
You have to be male dominated in terms of, don't feel bad if you really like a car.
42:23
You don't need to go in the corner and play with dolls.
42:25
If your brother's over here playing with race cars, go join him.
42:28
Go do whatever.
42:29
It's kind of an interesting question you pose because from a spectator
42:31
standpoint or an interest, I mean, look what happened in the trade industry.
42:34
We can't get people to work with their hands.
42:36
Mechanics.
42:37
We can't get all this stuff.
42:38
And so.
42:39
I think it's just really the change that we're going to
42:41
have to address at some point.
42:42
You mentioned before about, you know, taking kids around the
42:44
track and showing them things and talking them through stuff.
42:46
That initial conversation, a young girl, maybe 10 years old, walks up to
42:50
you and says, Cindy, why do you race?
42:52
What would you say?
42:53
To me, it's just a sport.
42:54
It's no different than playing tennis.
42:55
It's no different than playing basketball.
42:57
It's no place different than downhill skiing a little bit.
42:59
It's a sport that I love kind of looking at it.
43:01
Well, is it that simple?
43:03
I said it kind of is when you go play tennis.
43:05
It's probably more accessible You grab a tennis racket and you go to the
43:08
local thing and you can start playing This one takes a little bit more so
43:11
maybe to go to a go kart track but it's just a sport and I think when
43:15
you kind of put it very simplistic kind of look at you like Oh, okay.
43:19
I try not to overstate how difficult it is and the dedication that it takes.
43:23
What I don't want to do is scare people away.
43:25
You want to make it achievable.
43:26
It's like this big event out at our race shop.
43:28
And it truly is just people that they came to, because Portland had a big,
43:32
one of the, the E race, not Formula E, but whatever the electrical Formula
43:35
cars that came last year to the United States and they ran here at Portland.
43:38
That event absolutely drew people.
43:40
Out of the woodwork motorsports wise and I probably have gotten 20 or 30 people
43:45
that found out because I did deal with bosch For that event inviting out a bunch
43:48
of people that are in the trade industry Then I went out there a day prior spoke
43:51
to them and stuff We're having kind of round two at our shop in a couple weeks
43:54
And these are people that didn't know anything about motorsports at all zero
43:58
And to do a big event, we're just going to talk to them because we do a lot of EV
44:01
stuff ourselves on some other stuff, but we're having to change a little bit of our
44:05
ways of doing business and our race team.
44:07
As long as everybody's flexible and kind of addressing the
44:09
fact, which is fantastic.
44:10
It's a moving target, kind of like that little book, Who Moved My Cheese?
44:14
Kind of like that, we have to be very adjustable.
44:16
And it's a bit of a curiosity still, right?
44:18
It sort of feels like old days of going to Ripley's, believe it or not.
44:21
You're like, are they really going to run around a track
44:23
with a battery operated car?
44:24
You know, things like that, not to divulge into a whole
44:26
conversation about the evolution.
44:28
We can put a pin in that and talk about it another time when we get together,
44:31
but you're a hundred percent right.
44:32
And I think it does draw a different crowd.
44:34
People want to see what an electric race car is all about.
44:36
Is it, you know, is it.
44:37
Sci fi or is this reality?
44:39
But it does lead into an interesting way to look at what's next for you.
44:43
So what is coming next?
44:45
What other big events?
44:46
Any spoilers?
44:47
What's next for Cindy Lux?
44:50
Yeah, that's the million dollar question right now.
44:52
We're going to get back into the Trans Am stuff this year.
44:54
We don't know when just yet.
44:56
I've got to go in and get a little bionic improvement here in the
44:58
next couple of weeks on my knee.
45:00
You'll love this.
45:00
I was running to a plane, heading off to Road America for a race last fall.
45:05
I swear someone took a shotgun and just blew out my knee.
45:07
It was just kind of one of those weird things.
45:09
Anyway, long story short, I'm having to get my knee kind of
45:11
fixed up and stuff like that.
45:12
So that's going to put me out of commission for about three or four months.
45:14
I'm going to take care of that.
45:15
But anyway, no, we're definitely building new cars.
45:17
We're going to get back into the Trans Am stuff.
45:19
It'll probably be a little bit of West Coast based a little bit, but
45:22
you know, we're going to get back into the scheme of things and hopefully the
45:24
world will settle down a little bit.
45:25
Prices of fuel will kind of normalize.
45:28
Stuff like that and I get back on the bandwagon.
45:30
So we're looking forward to that.
45:31
I really adore the Trans Am series.
45:33
I really, really do.
45:34
I think it's the best for our markets per se and our team.
45:37
And I think from a cost standpoint too, you're not having to stroke huge
45:41
checks with several six, seven zeros, you know, on the backside, I call
45:44
it blue collar professional series.
45:47
We really love it.
45:47
So we look forward to getting back into the Trans Am portion of this summer.
45:50
All right, Cindy.
45:51
Well, we've reached that point of the episode where I like to invite my
45:54
guests to tell us about any shout outs, promotions or anything else they'd like
45:58
to share that we haven't covered thus far.
45:59
Talking motorsports or automotive or anything that has to do with
46:03
cars, bikes, and I just love it.
46:04
And I'm getting to the point in my career where I love to give back.
46:08
I like to get people inspired.
46:09
But then again, you know, it is pretty funny.
46:11
The day someone started talking, use the retirement word.
46:13
And I looked at him, I'm like, Are you serious the day I can't drive?
46:17
I will certainly, you know, hang up my helmet But you guys got to
46:19
remember paul newman drove until he's what 80 years old and i'm like,
46:22
yeah, I got several years left guys You know, probably 25 years left.
46:26
So give me a break.
46:27
But no, I just love the art of racing.
46:29
I love the sport I love the team aspect.
46:31
I tell us to everybody So the happiest person that I am is when I put the
46:34
helmet on and it has nothing to do with oh I get to go race to me.
46:37
It's just As I've always said, it's just me, the race car, and the track.
46:41
And we just learn to dance together, and that's all we do.
46:43
And if I happen to be out there with 60 other cars doing the same thing at
46:46
that particular moment, then so be it.
46:48
City Lux has to balance her busy race schedule with a
46:51
demanding business schedule.
46:52
As one of the leading program managers in the world heading up Luxe
46:56
Performance Group with her husband Fred.
46:58
She gets to premiere new product lines through the automotive media
47:01
dozens of times a year, and if that wasn't enough, she's involved in
47:04
overseeing a multitude of racing school programs and a family of dealerships.
47:08
To learn more about Cindy, be sure to log on to www.cindycdiluxelux.com, or follow
47:17
her on social media at Cindy Luxe on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and you
47:21
can always connect with her on LinkedIn.
47:24
And with that, Cindy, I can't thank you enough for coming on break, fix
47:26
podcasts and sharing your story.
47:28
And I have to say, you know, we talked about your origin
47:32
and women that inspired you.
47:33
And you were sort of that lone wolf out there trying to make
47:36
your way and find your way through this career in motor sport.
47:39
But whether you realize it or not, you've become one of the women
47:42
that other women look up to in this industry and in this sport.
47:47
So I can't thank you enough for what you're doing, being involved with
47:49
WMNA and continuing to perpetuate and spread motor sports enthusiasm.
47:53
You're very kind for saying that I'm no different than anybody else out there,
47:56
but there's just a lot of passion and I just look forward to tomorrow and
47:59
every day it's just keep swinging the bat and see what fun we can get into.
48:07
Officially founded in April of 2022, Women in Motorsports North
48:11
of America is an official 501c3 not for profit organization.
48:15
Because of its partners, WMNA is proud of what it's been able to accomplish.
48:18
And don't forget that each year, over 450 women and men from all disciplines of
48:23
motorsports attend their annual summit.
48:25
Attendees are open to industry executives, drivers, team members, OEM sponsors.
48:30
Racetrack representatives and anyone working in the sport or wanting to learn
48:34
more about opportunities in Motorsport.
48:36
If you'd like to learn more about women in Motorsports North America, be sure to
48:40
log on to www.womeninmotorsportsna.com or follow them on social
48:46
media at Women in Motorsports.
48:49
Na, on Instagram and Facebook or at w Im Na on Twitter.
48:57
We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of break fix podcasts brought
49:02
to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
49:04
If you'd like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure
49:06
to follow us on all social media platforms at Grand Touring Motorsports.
49:11
And if you'd like to learn more about the content of this episode,
49:14
be sure to check out the follow on article at gtmotorsports.
49:17
org.
49:19
We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through
49:23
our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans,
49:27
families, and friends through Patreon.
49:30
For as little as 2.
49:31
50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional
49:36
Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team
49:40
of creators Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster.
49:45
So consider signing up for Patreon today at www.
49:49
patreon.
49:49
com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without you, none
49:54
of this would be possible.