Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Wind Tunnels to the Brickyard: Lauren Sullivan’s Journey from Aerospace to IndyCar

Transcript

From Wind Tunnels to the Brickyard: Lauren Sullivan’s Journey from Aerospace to IndyCar · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  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, how did
• 0:17
  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
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  North America, a community of professional women and men devoted
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  to supporting opportunities for women across all disciplines of motorsport
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  by creating an inclusive, resourceful environment to foster mentorship,
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  advocacy, education, and growth, thereby ensuring the continued strength
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  and successful future of our sport.
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  Our guest is the daughter of a super late model team owner
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  and former Boeing engineer.
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  She has worked for Roger Penske's NASCAR and NTT IndyCar
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  series programs since 2015.
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  But what Lauren Sullivan experienced with Beth Paretta's female powered 500 team at
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  Indianapolis Motor Speedway It stands as the most impactful moment of her career.
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  And she's here with us on BreakFix to share her motorsports journey with you.
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  And with that, let's welcome Lauren Sullivan to BreakFix.
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  Well, hello to you both.
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  It is great to be here.
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  And I have to introduce Lauren number two.
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  That's Lauren Goodman, supervising producer of media and exhibitions
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  for the Revs Institute.
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  So welcome back to BreakFix, Lauren.
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  Well, thank you.
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  So like all good breakfast stories, there's a super heroine origin story.
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  So Lauren, in the intro, we talked about how you came from a racing family, but
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  what was it like growing up at the track?
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  And one of the things I want to also highlight is that a lot of
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  kids phase out of that lifestyle as they get older and they don't
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  follow in their parents footsteps.
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  So what drew you in?
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  What helped you stay committed to motorsport?
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  Growing up, I was always around motorsport in some form or
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  another at a really young age.
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  We would go to the NHRA Winter Nationals in Pomona, California, which
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  wasn't too far from where I grew up.
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  When I hit about fifth grade, my family started a super late
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  model team at Irwindale Speedway.
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  As soon as I hit 16 and was old enough to be in the pits, I was right there doing
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  what I could to be involved with the car.
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  And that's kind of where the passion First ignited and to
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  me, it was always just a hobby.
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  It wasn't ever something I was going to make money at.
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  One of the things I find fascinating about your story, and it's a thread
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  that you and I have in common is right at that middle school, early
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  high school period, I too did a science fair project about automobile
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  aerodynamics in a slightly different way.
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  I had no intentions on going to work for Boeing or anything like that, but
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  I was inspired by Giorgetto Giugiaro because I wanted to design cars.
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  And so I saw that come up in another interview of yours where there's
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  pictures of you at the, you know.
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  7th, 8th grade science fair with your aerodynamics project.
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  What about aerodynamics at that age, 13, 14 years old, got you excited.
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  It was the ability to see what you can't see or to understand what you can't see.
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  Once we did flow viz in this one tunnel that my dad helped me build
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  and I could see the flow around these different objects we were testing.
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  Like, it was just like a light bulb of like, I can see what I can't see.
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  And I can make decisions with this information, you know, from there.
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  I was like, well, what else can you see the flow around?
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  I didn't know then that what I was doing was engineering.
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  And I didn't even realize the one subtle connection I had to my middle
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  school project till I think after Boeing or in the middle of Boeing, like
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  I'd forgotten about that completely.
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  And then I saw it in a scrapbook my mom had put together and I was like, Oh my
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  gosh, this path makes so much sense.
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  Now it's always been where my interest has been.
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  So.
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  Going into high school and then college, I was always geared towards science
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  and math and did the science thing in high school, but there weren't any
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  robotics clubs back then or anything like that that I could do that was
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  motorsport except my family's race team.
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  And then in college, I decided to major in engineering and the school also had a
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  formula society of automotive engineers.
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  program or FSAE.
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  And I got involved with that.
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  I got to continue motorsport in that way.
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  But at the college I went to, Parks College of St.
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  Louis University, everyone kind of ended up at Boeing because Boeing is
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  right there in our backyard in St.
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  Louis, at least Legacy McDonnell Douglas is.
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  And I was an aerospace major.
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  And so that was kind of like the conveyor belt, if you will, Boeing
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  hires, a lot of parks grads.
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  And to me, it never dawned on me that I could make my hobby, my career.
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  So even being involved in motorsport, all those years, I set my sights on what I
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  like to do within aerospace engineering, which was wind tunnel testing.
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  That's where my passion within the engineering field is upon graduation.
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  I got a job with Boeing as a wind tunnel test engineer, and
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  I did that for about five years.
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  And then kind of just got to a point of like, I don't think I
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  like airplanes after all this time.
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  Like I don't mind flying in them or anything like that, but
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  it just wasn't exciting to me as much as I thought it would.
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  So I was kind of having a moment of like, what would I do for her to change?
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  And I'm like, the only thing I'm.
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  Good at or that I know how to do is wind tunnel testing.
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  And I'm like, man, well, I wonder if they do that in racing.
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  It's just a hobby.
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  I can, you know, we'll see.
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  So I, I start Googling like wind tunnel testing and motorsport.
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  And of course the results just like lit up like, Oh, okay.
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  We might be able to do something here.
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  So started applying to jobs.
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  Really, again, just not thinking this is going to be a career path for me of
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  all the teams I applied to and all the motorsport wind tunnels I applied to.
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  I only heard back from Penske, but I heard back twice.
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  I first heard back from the aero department on the NASCAR side.
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  And then like within a week or so, I heard back from what's called Penske
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  technology group, which actually runs our scale model wind tunnel.
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  And I was confused for a second.
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  Cause I didn't know about PETG at the time.
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  And was like, why, why is Penske calling me twice?
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  And then Someone finally explained it to me.
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  So once that kind of merged into one, I was hired at Penske to be a wind tunnel
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  test engineer for their NASCAR program.
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  Actually, it started out as a, just a general aero engineer, design
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  engineer, doing some CAD for them.
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  And then once I started doing wind tunnel testing over the years, I
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  started essentially leading the full scale testing efforts we would do.
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  In 2021, Tim Sindrick, who's the president of Penske, reached out to me and asked
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  if I'd be interested in helping this female forward team that Beth Paretta
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  was putting together for the Indy 500.
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  I immediately jumped to that and said yes, not having any idea what I was
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  getting into or what was about to unfold.
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  Growing up with the super late model team and stuff like that.
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  I was always NASCAR, always NASCAR.
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  It's rather ironic because I actually met my husband at
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  parks college on that race team.
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  I was in, we were friends for about nine years before we did anything about it.
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  So we're just friends through college and all that.
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  But way back then he was like, you would like open wheel.
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  You would like open wheels.
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  Like, no, no, no, I'm NASCAR.
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  I'm NASCAR.
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  I'm not doing open wheel.
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  I'm doing stock car.
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  I came back from the Indy open test.
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  That's in April.
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  In 2021 and looked at him.
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  I was like, I really like IndyCar.
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  And I think I want to switch.
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  At that point, he was like, I've known you for 16 years, 16 years.
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  I have been telling you, you would like IndyCar.
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  So then I went to my management at the end of that year, after
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  the 500 and said, Hey, if there's.
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  A spot over there I'd like to switch and explore a management path of
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  some kind, see what we can do.
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  Nick came back and said, how about a engineering and team logistics
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  coordinator for our IndyCar team?
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  And here we are.
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  You know, as you were coming up through the ranks, evolving your career
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  from aerospace, Into motorsport, who were some of the women at the time
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  that you were looking up towards?
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  Who were the folks that inspired you or helped you
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  build your career in motorsport?
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  When I look back, first and foremost, definitely my mother.
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  She instilled the knowledge in me that I can do anything I wanted.
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  Nothing was off the table.
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  And she supported me with all the different things I tried over the years.
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  She kind of taught me never take no for an answer.
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  Just find another way.
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  But I would say in general, what was a motivating factor for me coming up through
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  the ranks was being other women be the only one in the male dominated field.
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  I was drawn to people like Amelia Earhart and stuff like that and
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  found that in motorsport engineering.
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  And what I have learned is how much I don't want that in terms of how much
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  I don't want to be the only female and how much I want other women around me.
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  So even though What I liked seeing was like the girl with all the boys
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  in terms of just being able to do what they say you can't do, if you will, I
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  realized that like that image needs to change and there are still sometimes I
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  see it where there's other women I've come in contact with in engineering,
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  motorsports, stuff like that, that.
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  Want to be the only female and feel threatened when
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  there's others around them.
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  I've just come to realize that that is not how you succeed.
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  And to the point now that, like, it's frustrating to me to see
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  any situation where there's only one token female, if you will.
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  If I really, like, dig into my spiky, I guess.
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  Probably what was driving me was that I don't want to see
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  this only female anymore.
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  Like we need to upset the status quo.
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  Cause that's all I did see back then was the one female wherever I was, if
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  it was motorsport or math or science engineering related, that was all I saw.
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  Now I don't see that and that makes me happy, but I want to see it even more.
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  I want to be seeing equal distribution.
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  We are all on the same wavelength.
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  100%.
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  My background before I came to Cars was the film industry.
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  It's the same thing.
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  Yep.
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  So I want you to tell me about the first time you met Beth Perretta.
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  I remember being nervous because it was Beth Perretta who like, I could already
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  sense this is going to be big, especially when like, Cendricks come into you and
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  like Roger wants to do this with Beth.
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  It's like, okay, this is big.
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  And I just remember the anticipation of talking to her
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  on the phone for the first time.
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  And after I got off the phone with her, I was like, that was
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  just like talking to a friend.
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  We were talking only pretty much about motorsport and a little bit about my
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  history because she's trying to get to know me and know what to expect out of
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  me at the Indy Open Test and at the 500.
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  But it was just like, man, this is someone I can relate to.
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  It really energized me because I was like, oh, this is, this is good.
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  This is not a dog and pony show.
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  This is not.
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  Someone's seeking attention.
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  She is genuine about this.
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  This is in full alignment with me.
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  And like, I have this huge passion for outreach and just taking any
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  opportunity I get to speak to the next generation, especially girls.
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  Once I realized that there wasn't any ulterior motive at play
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  after she and I talked, I was like, Oh, this, this is good.
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  Not only am I excited to do this, but I'm behind this.
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  And you said jokingly that, you know, you were kind of tired of planes.
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  You want to move on to other things.
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  As you transitioned into motorsport, how much of aerospace
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  carried with you into motorsport?
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  How much of it is relatable and how much of it did you
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  sort of just check at the door?
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  A lot of it's actually relatable.
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  IndyCars specifically, especially when they're at IMS
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  or just upside down airplanes.
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  What's holding them to the track downforce is the same thing that's
• 10:45
  pushing an airplane up, which is lift.
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  Just a sign convention change.
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  Honestly, at that point, cars have lifting services again, if we're going to just
• 10:52
  focus on an IndyCar front wing, rear wing, you have those main lifting services
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  and airplane has lifting surfaces.
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  There's things that induce drag on it.
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  Halo induces drag, the mirrors induce drag on an IndyCar, stuff like that.
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  So at a.
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  Not even too high of a level.
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  There's a lot of the same concepts at play.
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  The more you put it at a basic level, they're almost identical.
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  It's just a different shape, a different form and understanding that.
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  The only, what I would consider the biggest difference between the
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  two is the presence of the track.
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  With the car and how those two interact in aerospace and wind tunnels, we call
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  that wall effect or ground effects because when an airplane's in the sky, there is no
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  influence from anything around, or we hope not, at least there's no influence from
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  a ground, a wall or anything like that.
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  And once you start to bring something like that close to a lifting body, an
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  airplane or a race car, the math changes and how the forces generally react
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  changes and the flow structures change.
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  So that's the biggest difference, but there are parts of the car that are
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  completely out of that effect too.
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  This is fascinating to me because of course, as a F1 fan, ground
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  effect is a triggering word.
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  It sends us into spasms.
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  Don't you know, here's what I want to know about IndyCar specifically
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  as its own series, when it looks at the idea of ground effect and because
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  IndyCar is my understanding is because all of the chassis are Dallara.
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  A lot of that like balance of performance is really equalized across the teams.
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  So you as an engineer, especially having a background in aerodynamics, where is it
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  that you can find the little advantages?
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  What parts of the car represent opportunities?
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  That's the elusive question.
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  Well, like you said, Since it's single source supplier for a lot of
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  the parts on the IndyCar, it would appear that you lose a lot of the
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  ingenuity advantages that teams have with engineering testing and thought.
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  There's a lot to be said in the margins.
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  It's all the same parts, but how you fit them together, how you
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  make them together while mating two parts together seems insignificant
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  when you multiply that across the entire car, it can be significant.
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  And on top of that, you have very sensitive surfaces.
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  Some areas of the car are insensitive and others are extremely sensitive.
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  Once you can identify those areas on the car, then you kind of
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  know where those margins matter.
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  Then you can even get into like how you prep it.
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  Just again, it's in the details.
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  It's really bringing all the details together.
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  One thing I do talk about a lot is like, okay, when you're in a wind
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  tunnel, you have an error band.
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  And so it's kind of like, yeah, we said something's 10 pounds, but it's
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  probably plus or minus two pounds.
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  And so when you find something that's like a pound, it's hard to say with certainty
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  if it's worth a pound of downforce or not if your air band's two pounds.
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  But if you have five different things that are worth a pound, if you put them
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  all together, now you have five pounds.
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  Now you're outside that error band.
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  It's finding those sensitive areas and they're not always obvious.
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  And then exploiting them in the margins and the details.
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  Do you think your background in NASCAR really helped with that?
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  I do actually, because when I was in NASCAR, that's when the Hawkeye
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  system rolled out, NASCAR went from checking with just templates
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  where the name of the game was.
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  Okay, if the template fits here in X and if it's here in X, whatever
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  you do in between doesn't matter.
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  And you had, you had a lot of room to play, I guess I would say, because
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  it was like the template fit, but it had to be plus or minus 50 thou,
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  which doesn't sound like a lot.
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  But if you like move the anchor point where that template aligns by
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  50 thou, well, three feet down the road, it's way more than 50 thou.
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  But then they moved to the Hawkeye system where they were scanning the car.
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  And you're thinking like, okay, now everything's way tighter.
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  Well, there was a huge learning curve there too, just with how to use this
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  Hawkeye system and what it could see and what it couldn't see and stuff like that.
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  So, but that's where it got into again, the margins and the details.
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  And so then going over to IndyCar, where it is a single source supplier,
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  you're already in that mindset.
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  Lauren brought up Formula One and you know, you hear it all the
• 14:39
  time, especially the last couple of years, if only we had unlimited wind
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  tunnel time, like we used to have.
• 14:43
  And I sort of wonder, There's a setup for every track.
• 14:46
  Does the aero really change that much from track to track?
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  I can imagine in the IndyCar world, it probably does because the brickyard is
• 14:54
  going to be different than some of the smaller ovals versus running at, you know,
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  Watkins Glen or at the street courses.
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  St.
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  Pete.
• 15:01
  Exactly.
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  Would it really make that big of a difference if they had unlimited
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  wind tunnel time in Formula 1 again?
• 15:07
  So it's hard to say because I've seen a series go from unlimited to limited.
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  And when I started at NASCAR, it was unlimited and we were there.
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  All the time and now NASCAR is limited on wind tunnel testing and it was when I was
• 15:17
  there too before I jumped over to IndyCar.
• 15:19
  Yes, track to track is wildly different in some respects.
• 15:24
  Again, there's always parts of the car that are kind of insensitive to the
• 15:27
  track or the ground effects, if you will, especially talking about different speeds.
• 15:31
  The thing with the wind tunnel, though, is.
• 15:33
  You can't really change that.
• 15:35
  You don't have a wind tunnel for St.
• 15:37
  Pete.
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  You don't have a wind tunnel for IMS.
• 15:39
  You don't have a wind tunnel for Barber.
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  What you have to do instead is understand where the car is at in
• 15:46
  relation to ground effects, or in relation to the ground, rather.
• 15:49
  When you're at those tracks, I get some tracks, you're sitting way
• 15:52
  lower, some tracks, you're higher.
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  And therefore you put the car at those averages and then
• 15:56
  get data at these averages.
• 15:58
  And then you try to extrapolate and interpolate to where the car is actually
• 16:01
  going to be when you're at those tracks.
• 16:02
  Having more one funnel testing time helps because that database can
• 16:06
  be bigger and also more refined.
• 16:09
  You have more data to rely on and you can try more.
• 16:12
  Things where I see it start to diverge from an advantage is honestly
• 16:17
  on the business side of things.
• 16:18
  What happens is the teams with money are the ones then producing this huge
• 16:22
  advantage and it kind of allows the field to run away from itself or diverge
• 16:26
  because then the teams without a lot of resource to do all this one tunnel
• 16:29
  testing aren't having that same advantage.
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  You just get repeat winners.
• 16:32
  So in a way, it's like its own DOP.
• 16:34
  In the advent of generative AI, let's say you were to take previous data
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  sets, current data sets, put it all together and let the AI munch it through.
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  Aren't there only so many shapes of the wings and the
• 16:47
  spoilers and the body itself?
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  There's only so many permutations there.
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  Wouldn't an AI based assistant be able to help you generate those numbers and
• 16:56
  those setups that you need without having to resort to more wind tunnel time?
• 17:00
  So it would probably help where it's not going to help.
• 17:03
  And honestly, we're a one time that might not even be as helpful.
• 17:07
  It's just kind of the unpredictability of weather weather's one of them, but
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  like just on track interactions, you are talking, whether you're talking
• 17:14
  dirt, you're talking to car in front of you, a car beside you, and yeah,
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  you could probably put all of that into AI, at least putting a car in
• 17:20
  front of you and stuff like that, which you're not capturing as well is.
• 17:24
  tire rubber buildup on some of these surfaces and any damage you
• 17:28
  happen to get or anything like that.
• 17:30
  So there's still a lot that having a general database of
• 17:34
  data to rely on would help with.
• 17:37
  And I think AI would help probably create a Baseline.
• 17:40
  I'm not sure it can predict real life racing with all the different
• 17:43
  systems that are going on.
• 17:45
  Lauren pointed out, you know, obviously an open wheel car, like a formula car and
• 17:48
  Indy car is going to be more sensitive to a lot of the things you're talking about,
• 17:51
  but if you kind of look at a NASCAR and it reminds me of, you know, when we built
• 17:55
  RC cars as a kid, you know, you kind of slap a different body on the same.
• 17:58
  Yeah.
• 18:01
  It's also something that we can relate to as drivers of everyday cars.
• 18:05
  It's hard for us to relate to an open wheel car because you know,
• 18:08
  you can't drive those on the street.
• 18:09
  But if you think about a NASCAR, it's like, well, it's
• 18:11
  sort of a brick on wheels.
• 18:12
  It's not a Volvo of the eighties, but there's these arguments to be made about
• 18:16
  design language these days that there's only one design that cheats the wind.
• 18:20
  And so if you look at supercars and hypercars, they all kind of look
• 18:23
  the same, whether it's a Ferrari or the new Corvette or the NSX.
• 18:27
  Then you have Chrysler coming to the table with a challenger that looks
• 18:31
  like it's straight out of the 70s, making gobs and gobs of horsepower.
• 18:35
  And it's like, well, how aerodynamic do these cars
• 18:37
  really need to be on the street?
• 18:39
  So how do we compare and contrast what we're seeing at the racetrack
• 18:42
  to what we're getting on a Monday morning when we go buy a new car?
• 18:46
  A lot of consumer car technology starts in racing on multiple different
• 18:50
  fronts, whether it's materials or the manufacturing process or the design
• 18:55
  process, you know, racing is a great test bed because it's to an extent a controlled
• 18:59
  environment, not always, but you know, Firestone and IndyCar has been trying out
• 19:04
  renewable rubber and the sidewalls of some of our alternate tires at street courses.
• 19:08
  And before that ever makes it to consumer tires.
• 19:12
  They're running it through its paces and racing same with like oils and
• 19:16
  fuels, like shell went completely renewable with IndyCar last year, even
• 19:20
  some safety things too, with how they reinforce certain areas of the chassis.
• 19:24
  There's a lot of those fronts where you'll see aspects of racing
• 19:27
  translate over to consumer vehicles.
• 19:30
  And again, back into the design process, like some of
• 19:32
  that gets fed into it as well.
• 19:34
  From an aerodynamic perspective, there's a lot of systems that feed each other.
• 19:37
  They're like, for one, I've, you know, over the last several years,
• 19:40
  I've seen 18 wheelers evolve.
• 19:42
  aerodynamically.
• 19:43
  You see these skirts that they have underneath now, or these flaps at
• 19:46
  the back that they have, and all of those are determined in wind tunnels.
• 19:50
  And it's the same wind tunnels that we use in motorsport, but like the
• 19:54
  need for a rolling floor wind tunnel was kind of demanded by motorsport
• 19:58
  because we needed to find a way to test our cars without going to a track.
• 20:01
  There's other things too, just like the general aerodynamic structure of like,
• 20:07
  where to put the mirrors, what shape they should be, things that are big,
• 20:10
  like what we call needle movers for drag and stuff like that, that can also come
• 20:13
  into play, as well as the underbody form, because we call that the underwing in
• 20:18
  IndyCar, because it's perfectly smooth.
• 20:20
  For the most part, and now NASCAR kind of is too.
• 20:23
  And actually when NASCAR wasn't smooth under there, and it was a lot more
• 20:25
  stock in the underbody, there was a lot to be discovered with like where
• 20:29
  you are actually getting dragged because you have a gap between your
• 20:33
  exhaust pipes and stuff like that.
• 20:34
  So a lot of that does eventually translate over to consumer cars in that respect.
• 20:38
  That being said, the speed most.
• 20:40
  People typically go in a consumer car is not going to be the speeds
• 20:44
  you obviously see in an Indy car.
• 20:46
  And therefore a lot of this stuff can become irrelevant because some things only
• 20:50
  matter when you're going over 200 miles an hour, which don't try that at home.
• 20:54
  How far are we away from what I like to call Star Trek technology?
• 20:59
  And you're starting to see this on a lot of the Teslas and I'm
• 21:02
  going to single out the Cybertruck because it originally was intended.
• 21:06
  Not to have mirrors and you've brought up mirrors more than once.
• 21:08
  And the reason I'm bringing that up is because they're using combinations
• 21:12
  of LIDAR cameras and other sensors.
• 21:14
  Is that going to find its way into racing where one day you're not going
• 21:18
  to have mirrors and maybe it'll be in the helmet or on a heads up display?
• 21:22
  That's a good question because my next question is then if you can put
• 21:25
  that amount of technology in a race car, that's fast enough, because
• 21:29
  I will say with something that is.
• 21:31
  It's transmitted, which something like that is a transmittable piece of data.
• 21:35
  It has to be fast enough for the driver to receive it and process the
• 21:39
  information as things are unfolding.
• 21:41
  So while on the road, an 18 wheeler doing 65 miles an hour, if its cameras see
• 21:46
  something and then send it to its display, that has to be able to happen faster when
• 21:50
  an IndyCar is going 200 miles an hour.
• 21:52
  And so let's say, okay, we outfit IndyCars with these sensors,
• 21:56
  so you don't need mirrors.
• 21:57
  Do you need spotters then?
• 21:58
  Because at IMS.
• 21:59
  We're required to have two spotters when we're on the oval.
• 22:02
  You know, they're the eyes in the sky for these drivers, the human
• 22:05
  reaction to seeing something and even seeing something come together
• 22:08
  before it happens can be critical.
• 22:11
  So that would be my next question is if we get to that point, how would it be used?
• 22:14
  Would it eliminate spotters from the industry?
• 22:17
  It'd be interesting to see.
• 22:18
  Do you think it could also be used to determine if there's like dirty air,
• 22:22
  if somebody's running too close, where the optimal distance would be to catch
• 22:26
  the draft or something like that?
• 22:28
  Could you see it being used as an advantage that way?
• 22:30
  Press reports would see that over cameras because press reports
• 22:33
  are what are used to pick up flow and like see what you can't see.
• 22:36
  So the camera system, if we're going to talk about that, where it simulates
• 22:39
  your mirrors for you, I can see it more for behind the driver and like telling
• 22:43
  them what's coming versus what's ahead.
• 22:45
  Cause I will also say that's kind of why there was some chatter initially when
• 22:49
  the new halo at arrow screen came out.
• 22:52
  It has saved countless lives since it came out.
• 22:54
  There's a huge improvement.
• 22:55
  , but the drivers could feel the air from the car in front of them and know
• 22:59
  where to put their car based on the drag bubble as it's called, or the
• 23:02
  wake that they could physically feel.
• 23:04
  And so it's hard to replace that.
• 23:06
  No delay there.
• 23:07
  There's no transmitting of data that has to happen when you're feeling it's
• 23:10
  as fast as your brain can register it.
• 23:12
  You've mentioned spotting and how crucial that is in how it takes
• 23:15
  two spotters at the Indy 500.
• 23:17
  I heard that you've also moonlighted as a spotter, so sort of other duties
• 23:21
  as assigned, and you've done that for Joseph Newgarden and some other people.
• 23:24
  What does that responsibility entail?
• 23:26
  You know, we've never actually talked to a, an official spotter before.
• 23:29
  So what are you doing?
• 23:30
  What are you signaling to them?
• 23:32
  What are you looking for?
• 23:33
  So it depends on the track ovals are definitely an IMS in particular
• 23:38
  is a much different beef than.
• 23:41
  Road course and street course.
• 23:42
  For example, let's say Texas and St.
• 23:44
  Louis or Gateway.
• 23:45
  From one spotter stand, you can see the entire track and
• 23:47
  you can always see the car.
• 23:49
  At IMS, with how big it is, where the spotter stands are, you cannot see the
• 23:53
  car around the entire track, which is a problem because you have to be able
• 23:56
  to pick it up as it comes out from behind a tree or something like that.
• 23:59
  And then with road course and street course, it's even more complicated
• 24:01
  in terms of seeing your car because.
• 24:04
  None of those tracks, you can see everything.
• 24:06
  So typically you'll stand at one of the trickier parts of the track for them
• 24:09
  or where there's going to be a lot of passing because that's when they want
• 24:12
  to know if someone's gaining on them and if they're looking to pass them
• 24:15
  high or low or something like that.
• 24:16
  The main overarching responsibility of being a spotter is to be a second.
• 24:21
  pair of eyes for the driver on the track, but let him know what
• 24:25
  situations are unfolding around them.
• 24:27
  So you're looking both ahead and behind them, behind them for who's coming and
• 24:31
  ahead for any wrecks that are happening.
• 24:33
  Because if you can see a wreck and let them know ahead of time
• 24:35
  if they need to go high or low.
• 24:37
  is crucial because they will just trust you and put their car there to know that's
• 24:40
  how they're going to get through if they can't see it and register it in time.
• 24:43
  The drivers rely on the spotters to paint the picture of what's
• 24:46
  going on on the track around them.
• 24:49
  So you give them the information, let them make the decisions with the
• 24:51
  information of what they want to do.
• 24:53
  You know, you don't tell them, okay, pass this guy.
• 24:55
  You just say he's going high and just leave it at that.
• 24:58
  And he knows he can go low.
• 24:59
  You give them the information.
• 25:00
  You let them decide what they want to do with it.
• 25:02
  At tracks where it's extremely high speed, like IMS and the other
• 25:05
  ovals, it's even more crucial to look ahead to where they're going
• 25:10
  versus what's going on behind them or even around them at that moment.
• 25:13
  Because they'll know who's around them, especially at IMS.
• 25:16
  If they're coming out of Turn 4 and there's a wreck in Turn 1, it is so
• 25:19
  fast that they're going to be there.
• 25:20
  It's unbelievable.
• 25:21
  You honestly can't even get on the radio and tell them, go low in Turn
• 25:24
  1 before they're in Turn 1 when they were in Turn 4 when the wreck happened.
• 25:28
  Paying attention to a lot of different movements, things, information at
• 25:31
  once, deciding what's the most critical information that the driver needs to
• 25:35
  know in that moment, and communicating it in the least amount of words possible.
• 25:39
  I love American motorsport.
• 25:41
  I love European based motorsport.
• 25:43
  And in Formula One, it's all one person telling them this.
• 25:47
  And in IndyCar, you have a spotter who's live eyes.
• 25:51
  It is.
• 25:52
  Truly, I think almost an analog process.
• 25:55
  It is not based as it is in formula one, like just reading
• 25:59
  data from whatever transmitter.
• 26:01
  It's somebody with a pair of binoculars being like behind you in front of you.
• 26:05
  Do you think that's superior in a way?
• 26:07
  Because in formula one, they have problems all the time with them
• 26:10
  saying, you didn't tell me so and so was on my rear left trying to pass me.
• 26:15
  Do you feel like just having a human element there?
• 26:18
  Is better in IndyCar?
• 26:19
  I do, especially at these higher speed tracks, just cause as a human, you can
• 26:25
  multitask and like literally you can stand and be watching your car come
• 26:29
  in your peripheral and watching turn one and your other peripheral and like
• 26:33
  You'll learn when something doesn't look right, even though you're not looking
• 26:36
  right at it, and you'll know you need to jump on the radio and say something.
• 26:39
  There's also a relationship that starts to develop because some drivers want constant
• 26:42
  chatter and want to constantly hear from their spotter, and other drivers want
• 26:45
  you silent unless somebody's in the wall.
• 26:47
  You have to learn their preferences and kind of what they want to
• 26:49
  know or what they need to know.
• 26:51
  Like some drivers like, yeah, as soon as there's another car, like 10 car
• 26:54
  lengths back, I need to know he's there.
• 26:55
  And other drivers are like, just let me know when someone's going to pass me.
• 26:58
  And there's also an advantage kind of knowing if we're in
• 27:00
  our, any rivalries even exist.
• 27:03
  Sometimes you'll just let them know there's a car coming
• 27:04
  versus which car is coming.
• 27:06
  So they kind of know, okay, that's a rookie.
• 27:08
  I'm going to give them some space or I race this driver
• 27:11
  pretty well, so we can go at it.
• 27:13
  So I think there's a lot of those subconscious decisions that go on from
• 27:17
  the spot or two, like kind of just knowing everything else that's at play.
• 27:20
  The human element.
• 27:22
  Yes.
• 27:22
  The human element for sure.
• 27:23
  And it even comes into inflection in your voice.
• 27:26
  Sometimes there's one driver, I think it was Rick Mears.
• 27:29
  Who said the best spotter they ever had was someone who had a different
• 27:34
  inflection for inside or outside, even though they're still saying inside
• 27:36
  or outside, the word didn't have to register because what was registering
• 27:39
  was the inflection of their voice.
• 27:41
  It's sort of like when you're coaching at the track, you could be like, we're going
• 27:44
  into turn one, a little too hot break.
• 27:46
  Or you can be like break, break, break.
• 27:48
  They're going to instinctually press the brake pedal a little harder
• 27:51
  every time you get more excited.
• 27:53
  And it's funny because that's the one thing you don't want to
• 27:55
  do on the radio is get excited.
• 27:57
  Good or bad.
• 27:58
  I mean, you can get excited when it's good if it's after the checkered flag.
• 28:02
  Especially with something bad, you literally want to be like, there's
• 28:04
  five cars in the wall right now.
• 28:05
  They're all sliding down, just go low.
• 28:07
  And you don't even want to say right now that's too many words, but you
• 28:09
  want to be as monotone as you can.
• 28:11
  Because what's been interesting for me to learn is how you can pass
• 28:15
  on energy and emotion on the radio just by how you say something.
• 28:19
  So you don't want to make them panic any more than they already are just
• 28:22
  by hearing five cars in the wall.
• 28:24
  And actually, the more I think about it, you don't even need to say that.
• 28:26
  I'm going to say cars in the wall, again, the least amount of words possible.
• 28:30
  And that's, What I'm still learning, what my phrases are for the same
• 28:33
  things you see over and over again, that is the smallest phrase to say it.
• 28:37
  Some people say, when they're talking about the gap that a competitor has
• 28:40
  to you and there's three car lengths back, they'll either say three back or
• 28:43
  by three, which means the same thing.
• 28:45
  I just say, whatever's natural to me, because you don't want to be jumbling up
• 28:49
  on the radio and you don't want to be.
• 28:51
  Making it longer than you have to, something like that.
• 28:53
  I just now consistently say three back or five back, but there's situations I don't
• 28:57
  encounter all the time that I'm still learning of how do I want to say this?
• 29:00
  It's also thinking ahead of, okay, I got a street course.
• 29:04
  I'm in this turn.
• 29:06
  This is all I can see the tracks.
• 29:07
  I'm not gonna be able to tell them anything else.
• 29:09
  How am I going to call a wreck there or how am I going to call a wreck here?
• 29:12
  What am I going to say?
• 29:13
  And like telling myself, this is what I'm going to say.
• 29:15
  If that happens, just so I don't have to think about it.
• 29:17
  And really it all becomes like a dance.
• 29:20
  Habit forming is what you're trying to do with stuff on the radio.
• 29:23
  You know, in all this talk of IndyCar versus Formula One and talking about
• 29:27
  your career, there's a big question that we failed to ask you, Lauren, which is.
• 29:31
  It's obvious you're working in IndyCar now, but what do you prefer working on
• 29:35
  the stock cars or the open wheel cars?
• 29:36
  I prefer as an engineer, IndyCar, but I grew up with NASCAR and I
• 29:40
  think as a fan, I prefer NASCAR.
• 29:42
  Always loves the big wrecks and that hurts to say as someone who's
• 29:47
  on the other side now and has to react to that kind of stuff.
• 29:50
  Those big wrecks in IndyCar are not good.
• 29:52
  Whereas NASCAR ones are generally more show than damage or harm.
• 29:57
  I should say the reason I like IndyCar from an engineering perspective is
• 30:00
  the amount of data we have on the cars and the amount of information
• 30:03
  we have from the cars to make educated decisions with NASCAR.
• 30:06
  You don't have that kind of feedback.
• 30:08
  If the driver says the car's loose, you take his word for it, and you try to
• 30:12
  figure out what your normal knobs are, that'll tighten up the car with IndyCar.
• 30:17
  If they say it's loose, we can pull data and be like, yeah, no, you're
• 30:20
  right, and it's happening in this turn and it's happening in this turn, and
• 30:23
  it looks like this part of the car.
• 30:25
  We can make an adjustment here, and that typically makes the car go
• 30:27
  tighter for this part of the track.
• 30:29
  Just using the data and information available to make decisions is
• 30:32
  what draws me to IndyCar as an engineer, as we all know last.
• 30:35
  year at the 100th Le Mans, NASCAR kind of shook the apple cart pretty
• 30:39
  hard with the garage 56 Camaro.
• 30:43
  So that's a leap and a bound when we go from the sixth generation NASCAR to the
• 30:48
  seventh as an engineer, what do you think?
• 30:50
  I think it's great.
• 30:50
  Cause I think it's thinking outside the box and it's situations like that, where
• 30:55
  you push boundaries, you push limits and you discover something new and
• 30:59
  that's often how new techniques, new.
• 31:03
  Processes come about is from putting two things together.
• 31:06
  You didn't think we're ever going to be together.
• 31:08
  As a student of history and a lover of Lamont and working at a museum that
• 31:12
  has a lot of cars that went to Lamont, all I can say is Eagle Sound, Eagle
• 31:17
  Sound, Eagle Sound, because that is.
• 31:22
  Having been there to see it in person, you knew where it was
• 31:25
  at any given moment on the set.
• 31:28
  And that goes back to Briggs Cunningham bringing American cars and Chrysler
• 31:32
  engines to Le Mans back in the 50s.
• 31:34
  And the French loved it.
• 31:36
  They were obsessed with it because where could you get that torquey, low American
• 31:41
  engine sound, except from the Americans.
• 31:44
  Yeah.
• 31:44
  Wasn't coming from anybody else.
• 31:45
  Yeah.
• 31:46
  Let's talk about the good, the bad and the indifferent of the racing industry.
• 31:51
  You've been in motorsport now for a number of years.
• 31:53
  You've seen it from different angles.
• 31:55
  You know, a lot of people fantasize about what it's going
• 31:57
  to be like when they get there.
• 31:59
  Cause it's funny.
• 32:00
  Cause I look at my life a lot of times and I'm like, who decided
• 32:04
  to trust me with this because I don't trust myself with this.
• 32:08
  Then you look around and realize like everybody else is asking
• 32:10
  themselves the same question.
• 32:12
  Some days you're like, I don't know how I got here and I don't
• 32:16
  think I know enough for this.
• 32:17
  At the same time, then you look at it and it's like, oh my gosh, we're
• 32:20
  designing cutting edge technology.
• 32:22
  We're racing at unbelievable speeds, right on the knife edge of disaster.
• 32:26
  And so what to expect if you're looking and you're going to have probably a
• 32:30
  lot more fun than you think, and you're going to work a lot more than you think.
• 32:33
  You know, a lot of people are relatable.
• 32:35
  It becomes a very close knit tight community for sure.
• 32:38
  Cause you're on the road all the time with your teammates and
• 32:40
  with people on other teams, even.
• 32:42
  I guess one thing that probably surprised me getting into motorsport.
• 32:45
  Was how much behind the scenes there isn't the rivalry you see on the track.
• 32:49
  You mean it's not like Drive to Survive?
• 32:52
  I mean, it's, it's interesting just, you know, the drivers is one thing,
• 32:56
  but like the crews that are just cross pollinated with friends, if you will.
• 33:01
  You know, like two teams can have a standing rivalry, but I'm going
• 33:04
  out to dinner with one of their engineers because she and I are
• 33:07
  friends or something like that.
• 33:08
  Like it's, and you know, we won't even talk about work.
• 33:11
  I think that's probably what surprised me was like actually
• 33:13
  how friendly it is behind the scenes just because it has to be.
• 33:18
  It's a small community as it is.
• 33:20
  And What happens on the track days on the track a lot of the times earlier,
• 33:25
  you talked about how things have changed in motorsport where it used to be
• 33:30
  like, you know, you were the only woman and now you want to see that change.
• 33:34
  You know, there's more, there's obviously a lot more women in
• 33:36
  motorsport than there used to be.
• 33:37
  And then you talked about Peretta Autosport, which was touted as an
• 33:40
  all female team between the crew and the drivers and everything like that.
• 33:43
  That was an awesome thing for all of us to witness.
• 33:47
  There's a lot of things that have springboarded off of that.
• 33:50
  And as a result of that, because the question is still out there
• 33:53
  looming, and it's really not about gender in motorsport.
• 33:56
  It's really about making the paddock more diverse.
• 33:59
  So how do we make motorsport more inviting for everyone?
• 34:03
  You attack it from several different angles.
• 34:05
  I think there's an obligation to, for individuals that are in motorsport
• 34:08
  and in particular in the paddock to make it a welcoming environment.
• 34:12
  When I see a new female in the paddock, that's clearly on a team.
• 34:15
  I will make a point to go up and introduce myself because you definitely get
• 34:19
  these just like we pass by each other.
• 34:20
  We don't look at each other.
• 34:21
  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to like you.
• 34:22
  I'm not sure if you hate me already.
• 34:23
  Like that or not.
• 34:24
  I'll just go up and be like, hi, I just wanted to say, Hey, and if you ever
• 34:27
  need to know where the bathrooms are, the good bathrooms, just come grab me.
• 34:30
  I'll tell you where they're at.
• 34:31
  So just cause I wasn't new to professional life when I joined Penske had already
• 34:36
  been in Boeing for five years, but I just remembered what it was like to be new
• 34:40
  and just kind of figure out my own way.
• 34:42
  And it's like, for me, that's not necessary.
• 34:44
  And if, when I see someone who's learning again, I just tend to see
• 34:48
  the target, the females who's new.
• 34:50
  That I hadn't seen the years prior, you know, I'll go up to them.
• 34:53
  So they just have a friendly face that they can come
• 34:55
  reach out to if they need to.
• 34:56
  And so I think it even comes down to like, if we're going to talk
• 34:59
  about men, when they see new people, male or female, doesn't matter.
• 35:03
  And I will say, if I see new men, I need to do the same thing.
• 35:07
  Just going up and just saying hi to those people because there's
• 35:09
  a lot of self imposed fear.
• 35:11
  This is across all lines, all gender, race, everything of I can't
• 35:16
  ask questions because then it looks like I don't know what I'm doing.
• 35:18
  It's like, well, if you're new, you're expected to ask questions.
• 35:21
  But I think the barrier for a lot of people is feeling
• 35:23
  uncomfortable enough to do that.
• 35:25
  One angle is just it's on individuals to go up to it.
• 35:29
  Those who are new on their team at their work in the paddock that they see and
• 35:34
  just say hi and introduce yourself.
• 35:36
  I also think from a series perspective or a more global perspective, if you
• 35:40
  want to look at it that way, getting in classrooms sooner, I think it's huge.
• 35:44
  In fact, I was lucky enough to have that motor sport exposure when I was growing
• 35:49
  up, but nowhere in my academic career did I have it till I got to college.
• 35:54
  And so I actually made a point last year of going back to my high
• 35:57
  school in Southern California and giving a presentation on motorsport.
• 36:00
  I started at the big top level, like you've got NASCAR, IndyCar, F1, NHRA,
• 36:05
  dah, dah, dah, and then dialed it down.
• 36:06
  Sort of the different series, dialed it down into IndyCar and then dialed
• 36:10
  it into Engineering and aerospace and STEM, but then also touched on all the
• 36:14
  other careers that are in motorsport, because we have chefs that travel with us.
• 36:18
  We have doctors that travel with us.
• 36:19
  We have PTs, you have marketing, you have photographers, you
• 36:23
  have social media influencers.
• 36:25
  It's not just engineering and mechanics.
• 36:27
  There's a lot more to it than that.
• 36:28
  And so try to like make kids realize if you have an interest in motorsport,
• 36:32
  but you don't want to do the mechanical thing or the math thing,
• 36:35
  you don't have to, you can still be in motorsport and do something else.
• 36:37
  But I wanted to do that with my high school because The only
• 36:41
  reason I knew about it back then was because of my family's hobby.
• 36:44
  And I think the younger we put that in front of kids and the more it's
• 36:48
  in their thought as they're making decisions on what high school to go to,
• 36:51
  what clubs to be in, what the college and university to go to, what to major
• 36:55
  in as they're making those decisions and they know what those options are.
• 36:59
  And I think if they see that as an option for them and it's achievable and it's
• 37:03
  not out of reach, like, Oh, well, I'm not going to get an engineering degree.
• 37:07
  I'm not even going to get a college degree.
• 37:08
  You don't have to be in motor sport.
• 37:10
  You can go to a trade school.
• 37:11
  Well, what I think is interesting about this point that you're bringing up,
• 37:14
  Lauren, is Maybe sometimes motorsport has a stigma associated with it and it
• 37:19
  keeps people at arm's length and maybe we need to sort of change the narrative
• 37:23
  and say, it's not about motorsport.
• 37:24
  It's about the evolution of mobility, moving people around.
• 37:28
  And that's where you can bring in.
• 37:30
  The engineers and the physicists and the chemists and the artists, you know,
• 37:33
  we can talk a little bit more about steam rather than stem at that point.
• 37:38
  Right.
• 37:38
  People sometimes relate cars to appliances and it just gets under
• 37:42
  my skin and I start to boil and I'm like, do you understand that?
• 37:46
  It's not one person that pens a car.
• 37:48
  It's a team of people, whether.
• 37:50
  Scientists and engineers and artists and everything that goes into that.
• 37:53
  It's such a beautiful piece of the human element as Lauren likes to call it.
• 37:58
  There's something to behold and something to wonder, but they
• 38:02
  also give agency to the past.
• 38:03
  When you look at how cars have evolved, they probably evolved more than anything
• 38:07
  else in the history of the planet.
• 38:09
  So the A in STEAM or the art that is involved with science, technology,
• 38:13
  engineering, and math is critical.
• 38:15
  And it really is critical because, you know, I'm 35 years young or
• 38:20
  old, however you want to look at it, whatever side of that you're on.
• 38:22
  But I've done a lot of things from school sports and, you know,
• 38:27
  motorsport and engineering and the clubs I've been involved in.
• 38:30
  It's pretty varied and never, never had I, have I seen success in a silo.
• 38:36
  And what I mean by that is I've never seen.
• 38:40
  An engineering project succeed without creativity and some form of art involved.
• 38:45
  I have never seen a race team succeed without a marketing department.
• 38:49
  There's this codependent relationship between art and science.
• 38:53
  If you want to just put an umbrella over science, technology,
• 38:56
  engineering, there's a codependency and they each need each other.
• 39:00
  So much so that if one exists by itself in a silo, whatever is being applied is not
• 39:06
  going to succeed because it's not going to have this other element that it needs.
• 39:10
  Especially motorsport.
• 39:11
  We see a lot of the arts come in through the obvious like marketing
• 39:15
  and social media stuff and graphic design and photography and so forth.
• 39:20
  But it's even in what you're doing because aerodynamics in a way is
• 39:23
  more akin to art and engineering too.
• 39:26
  Oh yeah, especially when it's like an empty slate.
• 39:28
  It's how you're gonna create this idea from nothing, if you will, and
• 39:32
  just bring in the parts and pieces together to function at like the
• 39:35
  most efficient and optimal level.
• 39:37
  You can say you need a smooth wing surface for the best performance, but
• 39:43
  it's in how you design it, and like, also the look, because that's another
• 39:47
  thing you have to keep in mind with these cars, too, is like, if it's functional,
• 39:51
  but it doesn't look like it's going to go fast, like, there's this whole fan
• 39:54
  base anyway, like, there's a balance of where engineering still needs to go.
• 39:59
  Be functional and appealing.
• 40:01
  So to take it back to aerospace, it's sort of like the Concorde.
• 40:04
  It looks fast, even when it's not moving.
• 40:07
  And it is fast, ballistically quick.
• 40:09
  Yes, it is.
• 40:10
  Yes.
• 40:11
  Yeah, it looks and, you know, cause like you see an IndyCar and
• 40:13
  you're like, that car goes fast.
• 40:15
  You don't see an IndyCar and think, Oh man, I bet, you know,
• 40:18
  that's just someone's daily driver.
• 40:19
  Like it's how it looks.
• 40:20
  And then it's backed up with the data.
• 40:22
  No one's like, I'm going to use that to go get groceries.
• 40:25
  No, no, no, no.
• 40:27
  And it's, you know, you know, it's an art form because it's what a lot
• 40:31
  of consumer cars will kind of try to bring in elements of that to have
• 40:35
  that same draw or to have that same feeling they play on the art form of.
• 40:41
  the cars that go fast.
• 40:42
  If engineering is about thinking outside the box and approaching a
• 40:46
  problem from a new angle, is there an example, either from NASCAR or Open
• 40:50
  Wheel, where you can illustrate this?
• 40:52
  Because a lot of people don't think that engineers are creative.
• 40:55
  Yes, I see this.
• 40:58
  And actually I have two examples.
• 41:00
  I have one from motorsport and one from my aerospace days to
• 41:03
  show the thinking out of the box.
• 41:04
  So from motorsport, I have to be careful cause I can't reveal too much, even though
• 41:08
  this is like eight years ago now, but one of my first one tunnel tests with Penske,
• 41:12
  we were testing something on the car that I'm just going to call access doors
• 41:16
  as just an access door for right now.
• 41:19
  And we were doing what's called flow biz, where you put a colored liquid,
• 41:22
  usually it's an oil all over the car.
• 41:24
  Then you turn on the wind tunnel, let it do its thing, and you'll
• 41:27
  see the flow structure on the car.
• 41:29
  And so we did that with these access doors.
• 41:32
  I asked the question of like, okay, so now that I understand the flow
• 41:34
  structure, like what does the rule book say on these, on these access doors?
• 41:37
  And they're like, they just have to be there because when you
• 41:40
  have to access this point on the car, sometimes I'm like, okay.
• 41:44
  So they just have to be in these certain panels.
• 41:46
  Yeah, they just have to be in these certain panels.
• 41:47
  So I go, what if we move these doors and we could still access what we
• 41:50
  need to, but they aren't in this spot, but they're in a different spot.
• 41:52
  They're like, there's no rule against it.
• 41:53
  I'm like, well, let's move them.
• 41:55
  And we move them and it produced a generous amount of downforce.
• 41:58
  Fast forward about three years.
• 41:59
  Now there's a rule against it.
• 42:00
  They have to be at exactly this location.
• 42:02
  They have to be exactly this size.
• 42:05
  You have this rule book in motorsport.
• 42:08
  I kind of liken it to a toddler who's always like, but why?
• 42:11
  But why?
• 42:11
  But why?
• 42:12
  They go down that like list of questions.
• 42:13
  And so like as an engineer, sometimes you're like, yeah,
• 42:15
  but, but does it say this?
• 42:17
  But what about this?
• 42:17
  But what about this?
• 42:18
  Like, it says this, but doesn't say this.
• 42:20
  And back to even my mom instilling in me, never take no for an answer.
• 42:23
  Like, okay, you said we have to have these, but you didn't
• 42:25
  say they had to be here.
• 42:27
  Like that happens all the time.
• 42:28
  If you have a rule book, out of the box thinking is what's winning races because
• 42:32
  everyone has to abide by the same rules.
• 42:34
  It's just playing in the margins.
• 42:36
  How you interpret them.
• 42:37
  I'm from a family of attorneys.
• 42:39
  I fully respect this.
• 42:41
  It is looking for, where is the margin?
• 42:43
  I'm not breaking the rule.
• 42:45
  I'm not breaking the rule.
• 42:46
  I'm just bending the definition.
• 42:48
  And if the scrutineer can't nail me for it, then it's legal.
• 42:52
  And I can use it.
• 42:53
  That kind of stuff is going on all the time.
• 42:56
  My other example that comes from aerospace and this I see in
• 42:59
  motorsport a lot as well, but this is a very applicable one to share.
• 43:03
  I guess it paints the picture perfectly of what I see all the time in motorsport
• 43:06
  and engineering in general is really where something that was designed for
• 43:09
  a different purpose ends up having a purpose within engineering and motorsport
• 43:14
  purely because of a conversation somebody had or somebody's hobby or something.
• 43:17
  I was like, Hey, I use this.
• 43:19
  And this, and it could probably fix this problem over here.
• 43:22
  My example from aerospace is in wind tunnel testing, specifically
• 43:26
  in high speed, I'm talking like above the speed of sound, high
• 43:29
  mox, almost hypersonic testing.
• 43:31
  There's a problem where you have your model outfitted with pressure tubes
• 43:36
  that's running down the mounting hardware that's in the tunnel.
• 43:39
  And so it's exposed to the flow and you need to protect it.
• 43:42
  Otherwise, like as soon as you turn the tunnel on, it's just going to
• 43:44
  rip those pressure tubes apart.
• 43:46
  Cause they're.
• 43:46
  Very fragile.
• 43:47
  But those tubes have to go somewhere and go down the mountain hardware
• 43:50
  because that's how you get your data.
• 43:51
  We actually used to protect those when we were doing Mach speeds with the
• 43:55
  casting material they put on your arm if you break your bone is how we would
• 43:59
  protect it because there's no tape that can withstand Mach 5 without peeling up.
• 44:05
  But what they cast your arm with can withstand it.
• 44:08
  And so we would wrap the mounting hardware with the cast, rub
• 44:12
  it with water and let it set.
• 44:14
  And again, that was designed for the medical field, but somebody somewhere,
• 44:17
  I wasn't part of that conversation.
• 44:19
  That was well before my time was like, Hey, we could use
• 44:21
  this in lint tunnel testing.
• 44:22
  Cause it's easy enough to apply easy enough to remove
• 44:25
  and can withstand mock speeds.
• 44:27
  Isn't that what's great about racing?
• 44:29
  Yep.
• 44:29
  Like that kind of stuff happens all the time.
• 44:31
  And there's a lot of stuff we use.
• 44:33
  Like we use a lot of dental tools sometimes for kicks.
• 44:36
  Especially when it's all testing, those are pretty handy to have, if I
• 44:40
  thought about it longer, there's many more examples in motorsport, but a
• 44:43
  lot of that stuff comes to the surface or comes into use because it's like,
• 44:47
  Hey, my wife is, you know, a dentist.
• 44:50
  And she showed me this the other day.
• 44:51
  And I was like, Ooh, I can use that at work for this.
• 44:53
  And that just speaks to collaboration.
• 44:56
  And again, even if you want to take it back to steam, when engineers are
• 44:59
  talking with artists and all that, that's where these ideas come to life.
• 45:02
  And these problems get solved by things that already exist.
• 45:05
  A couple of seasons ago, we had Lynn St.
• 45:07
  James on the show, and she's at the head of the Women in Motorsports
• 45:11
  North America, which is an organization that you participate in.
• 45:13
  So I wanted to get your take on how you've seen it grow, its involvement
• 45:18
  in the motorsports community, the good that it's doing for ladies in the sport.
• 45:22
  And what's your role in the organization?
• 45:24
  So my role is I am a working group member, which means I'm available for mentorship,
• 45:30
  um, and outreach and stuff like that.
• 45:32
  And I do a lot of that through people that reach out to me on LinkedIn and
• 45:36
  so forth, just looking to connect.
• 45:37
  One of my priorities with my career is to leave the door open
• 45:41
  for the generation behind me.
• 45:42
  Kind of a cool moment with winning the Indy 500 last year.
• 45:45
  So as you guys probably know, Caitlin Brown was the over the wall inside
• 45:49
  front tire changer on Joseph Carr.
• 45:51
  She is Penske's first female that to go over the wall.
• 45:54
  And she is the first female in the history of IndyCar to go over
• 45:57
  the wall and win the Indy 500.
• 45:59
  Huge, huge moment.
• 46:00
  While I wasn't on the two carves specifically for that race, I have
• 46:04
  a connection with the first female to ever go over the wall in IndyCar.
• 46:08
  And I was able to call her after the race and just be like, Hey, what you started
• 46:14
  years ago, I finally just had a female over the wall when the five hundreds.
• 46:18
  And her name is Anita Millican.
• 46:20
  I have a connection to her actually through my husband.
• 46:22
  He was her tenant when he lived in Indy and worked in
• 46:25
  IndyCar her phone number still.
• 46:27
  And she and I connected a couple of times in the past, but for me to be able
• 46:31
  to be like, knowing Anita's story and watch Caitlin live out her story was.
• 46:37
  Again, a full circle moment where like, Oh my gosh, we're doing
• 46:40
  what we said we wanted to do.
• 46:42
  And this is the progress we want to see.
• 46:45
  And it's honestly a short timeline.
• 46:46
  The fact that, you know, Lynn St.
• 46:48
  James and Anita are still around to be there as these
• 46:50
  big milestones are happening.
• 46:52
  It's huge.
• 46:53
  With that role with WMNA, I've seen it grow really fast
• 46:56
  over the last couple of years.
• 46:58
  I was able to attend the summit that was here in Charlotte in 2022.
• 47:03
  And the summit that was in Phoenix in 2023 was even bigger.
• 47:07
  And it's reach is growing even more.
• 47:09
  The group photos is one thing that's fun to look at.
• 47:10
  Cause you can see the group size just grow and grow and grow and grow as more
• 47:14
  people are being brought into it's reach.
• 47:18
  When it has a presence at a lot of the IndyCar races and then my teammates on
• 47:23
  our sports car side, they are seeing it a lot at a lot of the sports car races.
• 47:27
  There's actually a group of us here in the Charlotte area, a group of
• 47:29
  us women who get together quarterly.
• 47:31
  To just hang out, connect, network, and so forth.
• 47:34
  It's kind of like its own Charlotte chapter of WMNA, if you will.
• 47:37
  And even that with every event we're adding, Oh man, I want to say like
• 47:41
  three to five people every quarter.
• 47:43
  And like now the distros in the fifties or sixties, just for the Charlotte area.
• 47:47
  And we've only done like five or six events.
• 47:48
  And so to see the momentum this has, as well as it has the support and
• 47:54
  attention of some big corporations and some big sponsors in the
• 47:57
  industry that have great initiatives.
• 48:00
  It's becoming a really good access point for women who want to get into motorsport.
• 48:06
  When I went to the summit in 2022, one of the things I took away from
• 48:09
  that was how accessible everybody was.
• 48:11
  Like I was there in a room and at tables with the CEOs of some
• 48:16
  companies and stuff like that.
• 48:17
  And they were just like, yeah, super friendly.
• 48:19
  And we got to know each other.
• 48:21
  And now you have this connection going forward.
• 48:24
  And there's even some college girls that came up to me.
• 48:26
  And a year later, they were emailing me asking me.
• 48:29
  For some advice and stuff like that.
• 48:30
  And that's what it's all about is creating these pathways for women
• 48:34
  to find their way into motorsport.
• 48:35
  Some of those CEOs were probably in as much awe of you as you were of them.
• 48:40
  And it sort of makes me wonder who is like one of the coolest people you talk to at
• 48:45
  one of the conventions or heard present, who are some of these folks that you're
• 48:49
  like, wow, I got to meet that person.
• 48:51
  One of them, and I met her before WMNA, but I've gotten to know
• 48:56
  her more and interact with her more through WMNA is Lynn St.
• 48:59
  James.
• 48:59
  I met her through Prada Autosport because she was there supporting
• 49:03
  us and there at the Indy 500.
• 49:05
  And I remember when I saw her and I was like, Oh my gosh, you know, she was one
• 49:09
  of the trailblazers for this to happen.
• 49:11
  This is like seeing it come full circle.
• 49:13
  This is incredible.
• 49:15
  She's probably one of the main ones that has stuck out to me, like
• 49:18
  getting to interact with routinely through events that WMNA hosts.
• 49:22
  Say you're at the 2024 WMNA convention or you're at the next Indianapolis
• 49:27
  500 and a little girl walks up to you and says, Lauren, why motorsports?
• 49:32
  What would you say?
• 49:33
  Motorsport.
• 49:34
  Because there's still so much to do.
• 49:37
  The frontier of it is undefined.
• 49:39
  There is no limit.
• 49:40
  I felt like in aerospace, we kind of found the limit to a certain
• 49:45
  degree in terms of commercial aircraft isn't evolving very much.
• 49:49
  It's refining itself, but it's not necessarily evolving and advancing.
• 49:53
  And same with defense, like the birds, as we call them.
• 49:57
  Fighter jets I was testing were designed in the sixties and there
• 50:00
  aren't new ones yet because we don't need to, but it's just one of those
• 50:03
  things that you, you kind of found a limit and I feel like in motorsport,
• 50:07
  we haven't found these limits yet.
• 50:08
  Things just keep evolving on many different fronts,
• 50:11
  whether it's the car itself.
• 50:12
  I mean, even just look at IndyCar rolling out hybrid later this year, things you
• 50:16
  didn't think you would see are coming together faster than you were expecting.
• 50:19
  But there's still a lot of work to do in motorsport in terms of
• 50:22
  inclusion and equality and equity.
• 50:24
  That limit's not there.
• 50:25
  That's why I choose motorsport.
• 50:27
  Cause there's always something new.
• 50:29
  And like, once you cross one milestone, there's another one right in front of you.
• 50:32
  Ironically, there is never a checkered flag.
• 50:34
  You're speaking my language because working at a museum where we have
• 50:38
  race cars going back to 1903.
• 50:40
  That's been the party line.
• 50:41
  Racing improves the breed because the finish line is
• 50:43
  always just over the horizon.
• 50:45
  Yeah.
• 50:45
  Yeah.
• 50:46
  Like it just, as soon as you cross it, it just moves again.
• 50:48
  It's always something new and it's the cutting edge.
• 50:50
  Cause again, like back to consumer cars, it's influencing other industries.
• 50:53
  It's finding the new technologies and the new processes and the new ways.
• 50:58
  I know we already mentioned this earlier, but back to like the renewable
• 51:00
  rubber that Firestone's bringing out, we're going to see that eventually.
• 51:04
  On consumer cars, this hybrid system that IndyCar is rolling out.
• 51:07
  We're going to see that eventually in consumer cars.
• 51:09
  Just being part of that is exciting.
• 51:11
  And you're just always chasing the next finish line.
• 51:14
  I want any young girl out there, any young guy out there who's hearing,
• 51:19
  who's listening to this thinking like I want to get into motorsport
• 51:22
  and this is something I want to do.
• 51:23
  We're knocking down these barriers as fast as we can.
• 51:26
  There's a lot of us holding open the doors as wide as we can for you to come through.
• 51:30
  And I think you would be surprised if you go to the races and you reach out to
• 51:34
  any of us of how many of us will stop and chat and make ourselves available because
• 51:38
  we didn't have that person growing up.
• 51:39
  And a lot of the people I work with in Penske and on other teams
• 51:43
  are willing to share their journey and their path and their network.
• 51:47
  So it's easier for the next generation.
• 51:49
  And Sebastian Vettel, he's taking care of the, um, artificial fuels.
• 51:52
  Yep.
• 51:53
  Porsche too.
• 51:53
  Right, exactly.
• 51:54
  He's taking care of that.
• 51:55
  What's next for Lauren Sullivan?
• 51:58
  Oh boy.
• 51:59
  She's a Penske.
• 52:00
  Are we going to see you working on the Porsche 963 anytime soon?
• 52:04
  I don't know.
• 52:04
  If I'm going to be honest about that one, I'm going to say I like garage hours.
• 52:10
  Uh, what's next for me?
• 52:11
  I don't know.
• 52:12
  And I, I don't need to know because I never set out when I was young to
• 52:16
  be in motorsport and I ended up here.
• 52:18
  I just take opportunities as they come.
• 52:20
  When I got into motorsport, IndyCar was never even on my list.
• 52:24
  And I just took the opportunity as it came.
• 52:26
  Instead of confining myself to a box, a dream, a goal, I'm
• 52:30
  just ready for whatever is next.
• 52:32
  Lauren, it's that part of the episode where I like to invite our guests.
• 52:36
  to share any shout outs, promotions, or anything else that
• 52:39
  we haven't talked about thus far.
• 52:41
  So also talking about the A in steam, there is a balance and they can't
• 52:45
  exist independent of each other.
• 52:47
  And I even find that in myself at work, I'm always doing these
• 52:51
  highly technical things, but one of my hobbies is big gourmet cakes.
• 52:55
  Actually, I don't do it for money or anything.
• 52:57
  I just do it for friends, family parties, I go to, and you can
• 53:00
  actually follow that on Facebook that has a page that suits my sassy.
• 53:03
  That's my creative outlet that I have found that when I look at my life, I
• 53:07
  don't know where that skill came from or how it got developed, but it's the yin
• 53:11
  and yang I have in a motorsport career.
• 53:14
  But are they motorsport inspired cakes?
• 53:16
  Do they look like formula one wheels or IndyCar wheels, you know, Firestone tire?
• 53:20
  No, and the reason is because I'm not good at shapes, but I can do abstract art.
• 53:29
  It'll be like a blend of black and red, the Penske colors,
• 53:32
  but it's just a round cake.
• 53:34
  Again, the Porsche 963 cake.
• 53:36
  Okay.
• 53:36
  I mean, yes, this is true.
• 53:37
  This is true.
• 53:38
  Aerodynamic, right?
• 53:39
  Put your cake in a wind tunnel.
• 53:41
  Yeah, they are aerodynamic, perfectly smooth and delicious.
• 53:44
  Lauren holds the honor of supporting the first female Ford IndyCar team.
• 53:48
  Peretta Autosport at the Indianapolis 500 as an engineer, and to quote
• 53:52
  her directly, quote, everyone is taught the same thing in school.
• 53:56
  Therefore, on paper, everyone looks the same.
• 54:00
  What you learn outside the classroom is your leverage.
• 54:04
  And she's living proof of that.
• 54:06
  To learn more about Lauren, be sure to log on to womeninmotorsportna.
• 54:10
  com or connect with her via LinkedIn.
• 54:12
  With that, Lauren, I can't thank you enough for coming on Brake Fix and sharing
• 54:16
  your story with us and all the young, inspiring petrolheads that are out there.
• 54:21
  And I have to say, that whole expression of no limits.
• 54:24
  I think summarizes you.
• 54:25
  You have one of the coolest jobs in motorsport.
• 54:28
  And what dawned on me is people need to spend more time interacting with the
• 54:33
  people at the track because you never know who's walking down the paddock and what
• 54:37
  job they hold and what their history is.
• 54:39
  And we can all learn from each other.
• 54:40
  And I have to applaud you for what you're doing and how you're reaching
• 54:43
  back to young ladies and young petrol heads that want to get involved.
• 54:46
  So keep spreading motorsports enthusiasm.
• 54:49
  Well, I will.
• 54:50
  This has been a great time and thank you very much for the opportunity.
• 54:57
  Officially founded in April of 2022, Women in Motorsports North
• 55:01
  America is an official 501c3 not for profit organization.
• 55:05
  Because of its partners, WMNA is proud of what it's been able to accomplish.
• 55:08
  And don't forget that each year, over 450 women and men from all disciplines of
• 55:13
  motorsports attend their annual summit.
• 55:15
  Attendees are open to industry executives, drivers, team members, OEM sponsors,
• 55:20
  racetrack representatives, and anyone working in the sport or wanting to learn
• 55:24
  more about opportunities in motorsport.
• 55:26
  If you'd like to learn more about women in Motorsports North America, be sure to
• 55:30
  log on to www.womeninmotorsportsna.com or follow them on social media
• 55:37
  at Women in Motorsports, NA, on Instagram and Facebook, or
• 55:42
  at underscore wm NA on Twitter.
• 55:47
  We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcast brought
• 55:52
  to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
• 55:54
  If you'd like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure
• 55:57
  to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports.
• 56:01
  And if you'd like to learn more about the content of this episode,
• 56:04
  be sure to check out the follow on article at GTMotorsports.
• 56:07
  org.
• 56:09
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