Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Lyn St. James: A Trailblazer’s Journey Through Motorsports

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Lyn St. James: A Trailblazer’s Journey Through Motorsports · 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,
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  designers, and everything in between.
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  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
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  How did they get that job or become that person?
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  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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  For many of us, our stories begin with amateur racing in SCCA.
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  And our guest is no exception.
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  Full time secretary and piano teacher by day.
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  By the age of 26, she moonlighted in racing behind the wheel of a Ford
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  Pinto, which doubled as her daily driver quickly moving up the ranks.
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  She fought alongside names like Haywood, Schook, and Ribs in
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  the TransAm and IMSA series.
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  She would take home titles and races like the 24 hours of Sebring,
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  24 hours of Rolex, and the 24 hours of the Nuber ring in 1992.
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  The mold wasn't just broken.
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  It was shattered, and at the age of 45, proving that neither gender
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  nor age matter in motorsports, she entered the Indianapolis 500, earning
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  the title of Rookie of the Year.
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  And tonight, we are proud to welcome the one and only Lynn St.
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  James to Break Fix.
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  Well, thank you very much.
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  Nice intro.
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  Nice intro.
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  I was like, my, I wonder who that is.
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  Well, thank you.
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  And co hosting with me tonight is Tanya from our drive thru series.
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  So we're going to be getting down to some really interesting questions
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  and diving into your background.
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  So like all good Break Fix episodes, let's start with an origin story.
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  How did you go from being a secretary and a piano teacher to racing?
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  What drew you to that?
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  Did you come from a racing family?
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  What was your motivation?
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  I mean, no, I was just a race fan.
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  I mean, I grew up in the sixties and the muscle car era.
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  And so everybody around my age, we're all are into cars, you know, I mean,
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  that was kind of the GTOs and the Mustangs and the Chargers and Cougars.
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  I mean, it was just the muscle cars.
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  That was the big deal.
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  And so, and I went to the Indy 500 as a spectator.
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  With the guys from the gas station, but I kind of lived, I don't want
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  to call it a double life, but I mean, I went to a girl's school.
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  I got sports because of that.
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  This was pre title 9 and just for educational purposes.
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  So you all know that this year is the 50th anniversary of the passing of title
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  9, which was actual law went into place that if you receive any federal funding.
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  which all schools received some type of federal funding that
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  you could not discriminate.
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  And then it was added that you couldn't discriminate for sports.
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  And so that enabled girls to be able to have sports.
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  And again, this is the 50th anniversary.
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  So I went to high school prior to that, but because I went to a girl's
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  school, I got sports and I'm absolutely convinced not just because I got
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  sports, but because the most fearful moment of my life was when I was the
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  first time on a field hockey team.
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  And I didn't even know what field hockey was.
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  And I'm like standing there holding the stick and trying to figure out
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  what the heck I'm supposed to do.
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  And then all of a sudden, you know, I see these kids running after me or towards me.
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  And I realized, you know, I got to stand my ground and I got to work.
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  And this was what sports was all about.
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  And I think that served me very well throughout my entire development,
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  you know, seventh or 12th grade that then enabled me many years later to
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  get behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto.
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  But anyway, muscle car era went to Indy, did some drag racing with my buddies.
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  It wasn't the right thing to do, particularly for a young female.
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  I mean, My mom sent me to girl's school to become educated and
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  self sufficient and independent, not to be out driving race cars.
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  But I got married.
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  I helped my husband build a business.
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  We went to the 24 hours of Daytona together.
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  I was, yes, the secretary and the bookkeeper.
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  And you know, when you're the co owner of a business, you do whatever it takes.
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  She's a bottle washer
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  too, right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, whatever.
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  I mean, you sweep the floors, you, you know, do whatever, wash the windows.
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  And so that's what we were doing is we built the business.
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  We went to the races in Florida, cause that's where I was living then.
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  And I saw Daytona, the 24 hours of Daytona.
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  I saw the 12 hours of Sebring.
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  To me, it was like all of a sudden I saw real people drive race cars and not super
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  humans like at the Indianapolis 500.
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  And so we became a members of sports car club of America.
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  And found out that you had to go to driver's school to
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  get your competition license.
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  Went out and bought a Ford Pinto, put a roll bar in it, a five
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  point seat belt, a five pound fire extinguisher, which was required for
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  all race cars and not just Pintos, if you know the story of the Pinto.
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  And it was my street car that I drove back and forth to work and then I
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  went to driver's school and it was my competition car in the beginning.
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  The piano teacher thing, people pick up on that sometimes.
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  That only lasted for six weeks and I got fired.
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  And it's a good thing to learn what you're not good at.
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  That was what I was not good at was teaching piano.
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  So I'm not a good teacher actually at anything because I'm very intense.
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  You have to have a lot of patience as a teacher and I'm not that type of person,
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  but anyway, kind of evolved over time.
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  You know, I didn't come from the kind of family, but I came from a culture.
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  That made it acceptable and made it popular at the time that it was popular.
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  So even though there weren't a lot of females doing it, I was hanging out
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  with the guys and it just, it was okay.
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  You know, it was just okay to do it.
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  And they let me behind the wheel and I was good.
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  I was a good driver.
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  I like to go fast.
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  If you read all the trade magazines and interviews you've done over
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  the years, and you mentioned it yourself, the Pinto, right?
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  It's always listed there, but a little birdie told me that you
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  actually drove that Pinto into a lake.
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  Yes, that's true.
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  My very first race after driver's school, you know, they, they had
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  good driver's school and then usually the second school, there's actually
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  a regional race that same weekend.
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  So I got to enter that race.
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  And of course I had a big X on my car.
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  Cause as a rookie, you have to put an X next to your car number so that
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  everybody knows to stay away from you.
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  I lost control of the car as the car was passing me.
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  You know, this was in South Florida.
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  It was at.
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  Palm beach international raceway, which just closed literally.
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  They finally officially announced that the track is closed and they're
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  going to turn it into, I guess, to some housing development or something.
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  But that was where I first started racing.
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  And there was a lot of water down there.
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  Turn two, three, and four went around what we thought was a pond.
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  And I found out actually it's pretty deep.
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  And so the car totally submerged.
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  And it was my street car.
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  So I had to flat tow at home, dry it out and, you know, drive it to work.
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  Ran just
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  fine.
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  Well, it was not that easy.
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  We had to really clean it out.
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  I remember putting the motor for the windshield washers and the
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  windshield wipers in the oven, and I think 150 degrees to get it to dry
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  out and, you know, but it, yeah, it, it ran, I mean, uh, you know, we.
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  took spark plugs out and water came out, but you know, it was nasty.
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  It was nasty though, because I ordered the car without air conditioning
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  and I lived in South Florida.
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  And so I would turn the fan on, try to get a little bit of air movement when
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  I would be driving this thing to work and seaweed would come out of the vents,
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  you know, to remind me of failure.
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  And you learn a lot more from failure than you do from success.
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  And in racing.
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  You will have a lot more failure than you will have success.
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  And it tests your dictativeness.
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  It tests your fortitude of how bad do you really want to do this?
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  And that was, to be honest, I could have easily given up after that first
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  race because I was so embarrassed.
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  And I realized maybe this isn't what I was meant to do.
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  Maybe I'm not as good at this as.
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  I think I am, you know, my husband at the time and is a really good guy.
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  And he said, Lenny said, race car drivers aren't born.
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  It's a trained skill.
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  And he said, it's just how hard are you willing to work?
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  So that kind of was a good way for me to start to realize that I better
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  know how badly I really want to do this because it's going to be a
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  lot of work, not all fun and games.
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  It's not just, Oh, get a race suit and get a helmet, get all your
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  gear and then get your car ready.
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  And you get on the track.
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  I mean, that's just.
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  There's so much more to it.
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  Some of our previous guests, who you're also friends with, happen to mention some
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  other little tidbits about your past.
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  So, you know, you've always really been associated with Ford in a lot of ways.
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  When you look over your history and your driver's resume, from the Pinto to
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  the Mustang, to other cars and whatnot.
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  And Dean Case mentioned making you part of the Ford Motorsports Enthusiast
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  Group that he was a part of and helped start at Ford Motor Company.
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  Dean Case has a better memory than most of us.
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  You know, he remembers stuff that I look at.
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  Look at him sometimes.
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  I'm like, what?
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  And he's usually right.
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  So unfortunately you don't debate with Dean.
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  You just sort of, sometimes you have to remember that he
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  remembers stuff you don't remember.
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  When I got Ford as a sponsor, and I mean, I'm going to just fast forward a bit.
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  That was not Ford's idea.
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  I worked hard for three years, bugging the hell out of them.
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  I'm absolutely convinced they hired me because they said that's the
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  only way we're going to get control of this gal is because she's going
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  to keep bugging us unless we do.
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  And then I told them the Pinto story.
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  And to be honest, you know, they were not proud of that car.
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  They were like, could you leave that out of your story?
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  I said, Hey, I'm telling you it's there, you know, and it's documented.
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  And then not only that, it gets a lot of laughs.
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  So, you know, it's kind of like, it's a great conversation piece.
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  So there was no connection, the Pinto to Ford, other than it's the truth,
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  you know, and that's it, but they were not happy about that when I got forward
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  as a sponsor in 1981, after literally three years of bugging him and they had
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  announced special vehicle operations.
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  So they were really just getting back into racing after being
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  out of it for the seventies.
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  They were still formulating how they were going to do this.
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  And so somewhere along the way, with the help of Dean created some Ford
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  enthusiast program that they would ask me to make appearances and go to
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  things, which at the time I'm like.
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  What?
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  I gotta do what?
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  All I wanted to do is drive the race car.
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  I learned that they had other objectives that I needed to learn
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  about and I needed to support.
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  And I use that a lot with my training with young drivers or
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  any driver trying to get sponsors.
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  I say it's not about what you want.
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  It's not about what you need.
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  You have to figure out how to satisfy them.
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  What do they need that you can do while, by the way, you need their
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  sponsorship so you can go racing.
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  So it was a really great learning experience for me to fulfill what Ford's.
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  You know, objectives were with why they were sponsoring me.
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  And also along the way, I learned so much about how cars get built
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  and used to go to the test track.
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  And I got to test drive a lot of cars.
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  I used to, I worked with their engineers.
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  I went to the design center.
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  I went to factories.
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  I got to see how car, you know, I mean, the whole thing was amazing
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  and a huge learning experience about how the industry really works.
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  So we're going to close the loop on this Pinto story because it does bring
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  us into the modern times as well.
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  And Jim Jordan, who was also on the show, mentioned that he shared
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  a Pinto with you in a 24 hour race where there were 25 different drivers.
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  He says, we raced together, but not together, but using the same car.
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  Well, it wasn't at a Pinto, it was at a Mazda.
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  It was with Mazda.
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  Yes.
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  And so it was the 25 hours of Thunder Hill and it was so much fun.
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  I mean, I was all excited.
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  I'm doing another endurance race.
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  And then I, I show up and, and I'm like, so when's my stint?
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  And they're like, well, that's not until tomorrow.
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  Like what?
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  And then I put my suit on and I did my stint.
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  And then I'm like, what's my next shift?
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  No, you only get one.
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  Like you're kidding.
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  So it was a fun, but weird experience to have 25 drivers.
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  And one race car in one race, you know, everybody only gets one stint.
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  It's like you just get warmed up, you know,
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  Lynn, let's go back to the timeline here a little bit.
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  You moved away from, let's say, amateur racing SCCA up into trans and more
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  into the program side of the world.
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  How did that transition occur?
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  And just to remind our listeners, this was the.
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  Era in racing where there was some of the best there was, you know, some of those
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  names that we listed in the intro is just a very, very short list of very famous
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  people in that list to include yourself.
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  Let me just add some stats to this to level set.
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  Everybody does this and you had 53 SCCA Trans Am races, 6 wins, 62
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  IMSA GT races in this time period, 17 top 5 and 37 top 10 finishes.
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  Just to kind of round out that era.
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  How did you get there and what was it like?
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  I had been racing SCCA, my husband had a Corvette, so I got
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  to run a Corvette a couple times in IMSA in the Camel GT series.
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  So I got to drive a high horsepower big car.
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  In 1981, actually before that, the Kelly company, Kelly Services,
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  which used to be called Kelly Girl, they sponsored a series in IMSA.
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  called the Kelly American Challenge.
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  That's when I showed up on the scene in the IMSA series.
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  I was actually quite successful that first season.
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  Then I kind of scrounged around getting rides in various endurance races.
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  Then I got Ford as a sponsor in 1981 in the Kelly American Challenge series.
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  And Ford chose to start out with a Mercury Capri.
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  That first year that that was the first one, which is essentially a
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  Mustang, but with a Capri body on it, I did that for two seasons.
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  This is when I learned that Ford was going to decide where I was going to race.
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  Not me.
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  And then that's when they said, okay, we're going to put you with Tom Gloy
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  and you're going to run in the, which was at the time SCCA Trans Am series.
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  That was my first season in Trans Am.
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  A completely different experience, completely competitive, meaning the top
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  drivers, one hour races, no pit stops.
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  It's not like endurance racing.
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  I mean, an SCCA, they were all 30 minute races, very short, no refueling.
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  I mean, no pit stops.
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  You just, you know, go to your thing.
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  Then you get into IMSA and now you're running these endurance races where
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  there's multiple drivers, longer stints.
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  You had to learn how to make pit stops, refuel.
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  I mean, the whole thing, which was great experience.
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  And the other thing is that I really learned how to qualify because there
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  they had very short qualifying sessions where in endurance racing they have, you
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  have to have a long enough session that all three drivers or all four drivers
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  get to actually get a qualifying time.
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  There was just a lot of learning to do.
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  And that's essentially every season after that, whether it was Trans Am
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  or in the IMSA Camel GT series, Ford decided what team I was going to be
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  on, what series I was going to race.
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  I was blessed.
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  These were all one year contracts.
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  I was never on a long term contract.
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  So I was always fearful in negotiating that next contract and
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  then trying to figure out where the heck I was going to race.
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  But loving the 24 hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Seabrook, I was
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  always hoping that I would get to at least be in those two races because
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  I really do love endurance racing.
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  And of course, because I lived in Florida and I went to the IMSA races,
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  I saw drivers like Hurley Haywood and Peter Gregg and Hans Stuck and
• 14:29
  Jim Busby, Al Holbert, and you know, all of these world class drivers.
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  And I mean, the dream was one day to be on the racetrack at
• 14:37
  the same time with those drivers.
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  But when I wasn't on the racetrack, I was watching them
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  because that's how I would learn.
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  I would watch their lap times.
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  I would go and observe in their paddock area, how they handled and managed their
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  team and how they set their garage up.
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  How do you learn all this stuff?
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  I even read a lot of books about it.
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  But you will learn most by watching and observing.
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  It's like going to class, you know, you, you get to go to the paddock
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  and watch how the pros do it.
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  And not just any pro, but how the best, you know, I always watch to see who
• 15:07
  was the best and that's who I would pay attention to that way they do things.
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  Peter Gregg, invariably, every time there was a practice session
• 15:16
  or a qualifying session, his car was the first in line to go out.
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  I mean, he was ready.
• 15:21
  That makes a statement.
• 15:22
  If you're still trying to get your car together when qualifying starts, which
• 15:26
  you see a lot of people that way, I mean, they're still thrashing, trying
• 15:30
  to get their car on the pit lane to even go out or get them in their own pit.
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  Peter was always First car in line, it's just something that I remembered,
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  you know, so you always got to be ready
• 15:40
  amongst all the drivers in the paddock, who would you say were
• 15:43
  your closest friends at that time?
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  And maybe who are your biggest rivals?
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  Well, they were all rivals.
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  One of the ones that was, I felt like we were buddies with Doc Bundy,
• 15:53
  which of course, then a few years later, he did a very bad thing at
• 15:56
  Riverside and caused a horrible crash.
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  I got along with everybody.
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  I got along with just about everybody.
• 16:02
  Wally Dullenbeck Jr.
• 16:03
  We had a good time together.
• 16:05
  You know, I mean, he was a kid.
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  I was old enough to be their mothers in some cases.
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  I mean, seriously, I was definitely a little aged out compared to them,
• 16:14
  but I got along with most of them.
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  I mean, seriously, Scott Pruitt was great.
• 16:17
  Tom Gloy and I, you know, but we became much more friendly when we were
• 16:20
  no longer teammates, or we were no longer competitors at the same time.
• 16:24
  When you were going through this, were you being coached or were you
• 16:28
  learning by the seat of your pants, by lead follow or driving by feel?
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  This is still the era where data wasn't nearly as prevalent
• 16:35
  as it is today for drivers.
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  We had no data except for our butts and our fingers, you know, on the
• 16:41
  steering wheel and our brains.
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  We didn't have coaches back then.
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  We didn't have driver coaches like they do now.
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  So, and we didn't have spotters.
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  You were on your own out there.
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  I literally would pick the brains of drivers as much as I could,
• 16:54
  my competitors and my teammates.
• 16:56
  And I can tell you one person that was hugely, hugely
• 16:59
  impactful on me was Bob Riley.
• 17:01
  Bob was a car builder, an engineer, he's a chassis expert, he was hired by
• 17:07
  Ford on occasion, you know, sometimes he was working for Chevy and sometimes
• 17:11
  he was working for Ford, but if he was at the track, I would find him and
• 17:15
  pick his brain and start talking about.
• 17:16
  The, what the car was doing and what I was feeling.
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  And then sure enough, I'd find out that he was out on the track, watching corners.
• 17:23
  He wouldn't tell me that automatically.
• 17:24
  I would eventually, you know, we'd come out in our conversation, but
• 17:27
  he taught me a lot by asking me the right kind of questions about
• 17:31
  what I was feeling in the car, and I have to learn how to communicate.
• 17:35
  So that an engineer in this case, Bob Riley and any engineer could
• 17:39
  understand what I was talking about, but it was learn as you go.
• 17:42
  You know, I was like a sponge.
• 17:44
  I was absorbing information like crazy.
• 17:46
  I mean, I remember one time I saw a picture.
• 17:48
  Actually, I came across just a little snapshot.
• 17:51
  Jim Busby was somebody that I just, I was like, Oh my God, the guy is so good.
• 17:54
  And I was on pit lane in Pocono and I was really frustrated.
• 17:58
  The car is a piece of junk and I was trying to figure out what was
• 18:00
  wrong and you know, yada, yada.
• 18:02
  And so I saw Jim and I walked up to him and I said, Jim, hi, I'm Lynn St.
• 18:06
  James, which means nothing to him.
• 18:08
  But anyway, I said, if you've got a couple of minutes, he
• 18:10
  goes, yeah, what do you need?
• 18:11
  And I said, can we just walk on pit lane, walk down pit lane?
• 18:15
  And will you point out features?
• 18:18
  Of every race car that we're going to walk past and tell me why that car is good or
• 18:22
  why it's not good just by visually looking at it and I learned more in that 10 minute
• 18:26
  walk that I learned in the whole season because of learning about where the center
• 18:30
  of gravity was, where the driver's seat was, where the wheelbase was, look at the
• 18:34
  aerodynamics, look at the ride heights.
• 18:36
  It was like a walking encyclopedia experience.
• 18:39
  You were doing competition, so it's race day.
• 18:41
  What are you doing in between race day to practice?
• 18:44
  Were you doing any and every track event that you could possibly find?
• 18:48
  Or were you the seat of your pants every time and you're
• 18:51
  absorbing and you're learning, you're trying new things race day?
• 18:54
  We had no simulators back then either, dear.
• 18:56
  So we'd get track maps, wonderful track maps.
• 19:00
  I would always try to get in a day early.
• 19:03
  You know, usually it was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday schedule.
• 19:05
  I would make sure that I got there on Thursday and I would walk the
• 19:08
  track or I would beg whoever was the track owner or the track promoter
• 19:13
  or the track maintenance person, can I take my rental car around?
• 19:17
  I promise I'll go really slow.
• 19:19
  I tried to at least do that on the new tracks that I'd never been to.
• 19:22
  And that was in the beginning in those early eighties, you know,
• 19:25
  I hadn't been to any of them.
• 19:26
  I get previous years programs because a lot of times you would have a
• 19:30
  race program and there would be a driver like, you know, Jim Busby or
• 19:34
  Derrick Bell, who would describe the track and so I'd read their track
• 19:38
  descriptions to try to learn the track.
• 19:40
  It was definitely I mean, you had practice qualifying.
• 19:42
  I mean, you had sessions, right?
• 19:44
  But hopefully by race day, you had it pretty well figured out.
• 19:47
  You were on your own.
• 19:48
  You were on your own.
• 19:50
  All of the infrastructure, which I, I admire.
• 19:53
  I mean, I used to get frustrated because I'm like, as I got to know other
• 19:56
  athletes, you know, I, I'd meet other tennis players and swimmers and golfers.
• 20:01
  They all had coaches.
• 20:02
  They all had trainers.
• 20:04
  We didn't have any of that stuff.
• 20:05
  I'm like, that's one of the reasons why I started my driver development
• 20:08
  program in 1994, is it's like every race car drivers on their own.
• 20:12
  Today the world is different, but back then, even in the nineties, it wasn't.
• 20:15
  And so I said, well, you know, you have to get better.
• 20:18
  You have to learn new things.
• 20:20
  You have to get new information,
• 20:22
  and you need that seat time.
• 20:23
  And using your example, if you got access to a swimming pool, you can
• 20:26
  go every day and practice for hours.
• 20:28
  But it's really hard to have a racetrack in your backyard.
• 20:31
  You used to drive me crazy because of that.
• 20:33
  You know, I mean, I played tennis, you know, locally just for fun,
• 20:37
  but it was still competitively and, you know, you go out and drill and
• 20:40
  practice and get ready for a tournament and in racing, I mean, it was just.
• 20:44
  You know, you prayed that you might get a test day the day before the race
• 20:47
  weekend, you know, because obviously track conditions change, weather changes,
• 20:51
  you know, so if you go at the different time of the year, it doesn't help you
• 20:54
  much usually, but it's a very frustrating sport even today because the cost, I mean,
• 20:59
  even though simulators help tremendously, if you could get into them and.
• 21:03
  Know how to work them, but no, that's true.
• 21:07
  Yeah.
• 21:07
  I mean, seriously, you're right, Tanya.
• 21:09
  I mean, it's a very difficult sport, which is what I also tell up and coming
• 21:14
  racers that maybe race go karts or quarter midgets or legends cars or
• 21:20
  mini sprints or all the different.
• 21:22
  And now they have these great ideas about what they want to do.
• 21:25
  It's tough.
• 21:26
  It's really, really tough.
• 21:28
  You know, the, the gender thing is.
• 21:30
  First of all, it's the one thing you aren't going to, I shouldn't say that,
• 21:32
  but that you aren't going to change.
• 21:34
  And so you have to focus on the things you can change.
• 21:37
  And if you don't have the funding or you don't have the capability, if you
• 21:41
  have a full time job and you don't have the chance to go, even if you
• 21:44
  had the money, you can't go test, you know, you can't go do a test day.
• 21:47
  And these track days and all those wonderful things that are available now,
• 21:50
  they just, they're just, it's just hard.
• 21:52
  It's just a hard sport, but it's so rewarding.
• 21:55
  That's why when you get a good lap, Just a good fricking lap.
• 21:58
  You are like elated, you know, and you know, you put a bunch of laps
• 22:03
  together or you get a good qualifying and then you actually get it about the
• 22:06
  time you're about ready to give up.
• 22:08
  You get a good race result and you're back in again.
• 22:11
  You got hooked again.
• 22:14
  They
• 22:14
  often draw that parallel with.
• 22:15
  Playing golf, you know, 17 terrible holes.
• 22:18
  And then you have that one good one.
• 22:19
  That's what keeps you coming back.
• 22:21
  Yeah.
• 22:22
  We're going to circle back on a couple of things you just hit
• 22:24
  on there, but obviously you've hit lots of different tracks.
• 22:27
  What is your favorite or least favorite, or is there a track you haven't been able
• 22:31
  to go to that you wish you will one day?
• 22:34
  Hmm.
• 22:35
  That's an interesting question, actually.
• 22:36
  The last part there, because I don't, I mean, I've been to Austin, but I
• 22:39
  haven't been on the track to race it, even though I got a hot lap around it
• 22:43
  with in one of the Skip Barber cars.
• 22:44
  And I'm like, where the hell am I?
• 22:45
  I mean, it was like, the corners are also similar, you know, visually.
• 22:49
  Been on that track.
• 22:50
  Have you?
• 22:51
  Yeah.
• 22:51
  And I mean, I was like, God, I think I'd have a hard time just
• 22:54
  figuring out where I am, you know?
• 22:55
  Well, my favorite road course is Watkins Glen.
• 22:57
  I mean, that is completely, and they're running it.
• 23:00
  You know, and I'm so soon, I just love that track, the flow.
• 23:03
  And of course this was before they put the chicane in and it's still the flow
• 23:06
  of that track, the rhythm, just love it.
• 23:08
  I absolutely love it.
• 23:09
  The hardest track that I never felt, right.
• 23:12
  I never, ever felt like I got the right lap.
• 23:14
  Not one damn good lap was a serious point.
• 23:17
  You know, Sonoma.
• 23:18
  It's just so hard.
• 23:19
  The off camera, the elevations of blind corners that, you know, it just about
• 23:23
  the time you think you got one corner, right, you're into that next corner.
• 23:26
  And then you're like.
• 23:27
  Screwed up.
• 23:28
  I never felt right there.
• 23:29
  Other than that, I mean, I got to run Nürburgring.
• 23:32
  I got to run, you know, Le Mans.
• 23:35
  Yeah, I have gotten some really, really great, you know, great racetracks that
• 23:38
  I've been able to be at and Daytona.
• 23:40
  So anyway, I don't really have one out there that I've got.
• 23:43
  Oh God, I wish.
• 23:44
  I could still do that.
• 23:45
  I mean, the only thing I have left that I, that I really want to do, but
• 23:48
  I don't know if it's going to be in the cards is to set a record of Bonneville.
• 23:51
  I got to run Bonneville once in 2017 and it is, it is not easy.
• 23:56
  It's like, Oh, what's the big deal?
• 23:57
  It's just going straight now.
• 23:58
  It's rougher than, I mean, it's like really, really rough and rugged.
• 24:01
  I mean, you're bouncing around.
• 24:03
  And so the car is bouncing around and your eyes are very hard to visually
• 24:07
  have a perspective of where you are.
• 24:08
  And the bouncing is it's brutal.
• 24:11
  It's actually brutal.
• 24:12
  So I want to stitch together a couple of things before we transition
• 24:15
  again through the chronology here.
• 24:17
  And it has to do with, it has to do with Watkins Glen as a matter of fact.
• 24:21
  And as I look back on this time with very fondly, because it was in my
• 24:25
  formative years between IMSA Trans Am and Group B, that's where I fell
• 24:30
  in love with motor racing, right?
• 24:31
  And they're still my top two things.
• 24:32
  And some of those drivers transitioned between the two in that era.
• 24:36
  So my question is this.
• 24:37
  I remember Hans Stuck in the rain in the Audi's at Watkins Glen.
• 24:42
  We look back on that and you see the old videos and this and that, and
• 24:46
  you know, they talk about the unfair advantage and you put it in today's
• 24:49
  perspective, it's probably on par with the drama drive to survive and all
• 24:53
  these wonderful shows that people watch.
• 24:56
  Was it really like that when you guys were competing against the Audi's?
• 24:59
  Was everybody so upset about it?
• 25:01
  Was it really that earth shattering?
• 25:03
  It's awful.
• 25:04
  You would be hanging under your car in a corner.
• 25:06
  And then they just go driving by, you know, cause you got that all wheel
• 25:10
  drive and it would be like, you would just cuss the hell out of everything.
• 25:14
  I mean, I could have killed Hurley and stuck, you know, because it was
• 25:17
  like, Oh, I can remember metal lands particularly because you know, when you
• 25:20
  get in these temporary circuits and, and so it was maddening, it was totally,
• 25:25
  it was, it was brutal and maddening because it was an unfair advantage.
• 25:29
  I mean, it completely, I mean, there's turbos and there's normally aspirated
• 25:33
  that are racing against each other.
• 25:34
  They have different power bands.
• 25:36
  But you know that all eventually it evens out and there are certain tracks
• 25:40
  that are handling tracks, certain tracks that are more high speed tracks
• 25:43
  if you have a handling car versus, you know, one versus the other.
• 25:46
  But it eventually evens out when they had that all-wheel drive bullshit.
• 25:50
  I mean, that was like, that was never gonna even out.
• 25:52
  There's no balance
• 25:53
  of performance there, right?
• 25:54
  No.
• 25:54
  Oh, of course now, yeah.
• 25:56
  I mean there's the, that, that's a whole different thing the way the rules are.
• 25:59
  I mean, God, I'd hate to have to run a team right now because every week
• 26:02
  they change the b o P, you know, Yeah, back then you were stuck,
• 26:05
  you know, you were stuck with what you got, the way the roles were.
• 26:08
  They didn't change the roles that much throughout the year.
• 26:10
  And if they did, it was usually to your disadvantage.
• 26:12
  But that whole Audi all wheel drive thing was, it makes me just live in
• 26:17
  thinking about it again, because.
• 26:19
  We struggled so hard.
• 26:21
  God, it was awful
• 26:22
  to add a little levity to that.
• 26:24
  I will never forget the summit point race.
• 26:27
  It was just before they got banned.
• 26:29
  And I believe Hans was pretty upset because people started blocking.
• 26:32
  They put their elbows out.
• 26:33
  They're like, we're tired of this.
• 26:34
  So he starts passing people in the grass.
• 26:37
  Yeah,
• 26:38
  come on, man.
• 26:41
  Well, you know, it's like I got to race.
• 26:43
  This is not maybe a good analogy, but it makes me think of it.
• 26:45
  We just said that because I got to drive for the first time and race a prewar.
• 26:50
  You know, what is this like 1912 national?
• 26:53
  And I remember learning.
• 26:55
  You know, how to do the clutch.
• 26:56
  And I mean, we were driving and it was at Sears point or, you know, Sonoma.
• 26:59
  So we're driving on the hill there.
• 27:00
  Try it.
• 27:01
  I'm trying to learn to drive this thing, you know, and I just remember
• 27:04
  the guy that owns it, Brian Blaine said, he said, don't worry about it.
• 27:07
  If you go off course though, he said, don't try to correct and come back on.
• 27:12
  He said, just ride it out.
• 27:13
  It's nothing more than a tractor.
• 27:16
  So, you know, It's like if you go off course and one of those all wheel
• 27:20
  drive, that's, you know, it doesn't really matter because it's really
• 27:22
  just, it'll drive on, it'll, those wheels will get traction anywhere, you
• 27:27
  know, even if it's off of the grass,
• 27:28
  just stay out a little longer, do some landscaping for us.
• 27:31
  Yeah.
• 27:31
  Yeah.
• 27:32
  But, uh, jumping back into the chronology.
• 27:34
  Uh, so in 1991, fast forward a little bit.
• 27:37
  So you went to the mall,
• 27:39
  but see, I went to Lamont 89 and that was.
• 27:42
  At that time of my career, that was the highlight of my career.
• 27:45
  I mean, to get to go to Le Mans and it was, I didn't know that they were going
• 27:49
  to completely rebuild it right after that.
• 27:51
  So in other words, where they put a chicane on the Mulsanne straight
• 27:54
  and they built these new garages and they built this new structure and,
• 27:57
  you know, everything changed in 91.
• 27:59
  But at 89, I got to run with Gordon Spice and Ray Bellum
• 28:03
  in a Cosworth Spice chassis.
• 28:05
  And it was the old track and the old pits.
• 28:07
  And, you know, I felt like I was in the movie, you know, Le Mans, because it
• 28:10
  was just the way it was in the movie.
• 28:12
  We ran 16 hours.
• 28:13
  I got to get a lot of seat time.
• 28:15
  It was perfection other than we didn't finish.
• 28:18
  And I loved it.
• 28:19
  I mean, I loved it.
• 28:20
  The 91 was pretty awful to be honest.
• 28:24
  It's not one that I, I, I don't like to even talk about it because it was just
• 28:27
  this time it was an all female team.
• 28:29
  Yeah.
• 28:29
  And I mean, there was nothing wrong with the all field.
• 28:31
  Desiree was fabulous by the way.
• 28:34
  I think she's one of the most talented male or female race car
• 28:36
  drivers that I've ever met, but that was what Desiree and Kathy Mueller.
• 28:40
  But it was the, the car was a piece of shit, clearly.
• 28:43
  I mean, and the team was lost.
• 28:44
  It was a Japanese team.
• 28:46
  They were clueless.
• 28:46
  The car was not set up at all.
• 28:48
  It was not prepared to run a race period, yet alone the 24 hours of Le Mans.
• 28:52
  You know, the two gals, I mean, we were, we were great, but the car was just.
• 28:56
  Yeah, because I saw that ended in a very short number of laps.
• 29:00
  Yeah.
• 29:01
  Yeah.
• 29:01
  I mean, I didn't even get suited up.
• 29:03
  I wasn't gonna, I mean, it was not worth it.
• 29:05
  But Des was absolutely relentless.
• 29:07
  She was convinced she was going to get that car to work.
• 29:11
  I mean, the brake pedal fell off.
• 29:13
  I didn't lose the brakes.
• 29:14
  The brake pedal fell off going down after the at the, at the
• 29:20
  end of the Mulsanne straight.
• 29:22
  Oh, God, it's just makes me
• 29:23
  so they wouldn't have been, you know, the first ones out on a qualifying
• 29:28
  session in a different race.
• 29:30
  I mean, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it,
• 29:33
  you know, it really does.
• 29:34
  So anyway, but I was glad to go back because it made me appreciate 89
• 29:38
  even more, you know, but it was very pristine and clinical and kind of, I
• 29:42
  don't know, it was very much different.
• 29:44
  Do you look forward to next year's 100th anniversary of Le Mans?
• 29:47
  Well, I do.
• 29:48
  I look forward to celebrating it this year because we're going to
• 29:50
  celebrate it at Monterey Historics and we're going to celebrate it
• 29:53
  at the Pebble Beach Concourse.
• 29:55
  I'm excited to be.
• 29:56
  There to help celebrate, you know, to be part of the celebration in any way,
• 29:59
  shape or form, and to see all the cars.
• 30:00
  I wish my spice could be there, but it's not.
• 30:02
  Yeah.
• 30:03
  The next year being the hundredth anniversary is very, very exciting.
• 30:07
  I remember the hundredth anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, and that
• 30:10
  was a huge deal, you know, and they actually had, I think three or four.
• 30:14
  They had the hundredth anniversary of the building of the track in 2019.
• 30:18
  Then they had the hundredth anniversary of the first running of the 500.
• 30:22
  And then they had the hundredth running because of obviously those years
• 30:25
  that we had a number of different hundredth anniversaries and Indies.
• 30:28
  And I think Lamar will have another one too, because this was
• 30:31
  their 90th running, I believe.
• 30:34
  So another 10 years, there'll be another hundredth.
• 30:36
  So it's kind of cool to be a part of something or to be around when
• 30:39
  something is being celebrated.
• 30:42
  I think that's a perfect segue into our next set of questions because
• 30:45
  you are part of the Indy 500 history.
• 30:48
  You're part of those hundred years.
• 30:50
  So how do you go from Trans Am and IMSA into Indy?
• 30:55
  What inspired you to go there?
• 30:57
  There's a lot of congratulations around what happened, but I haven't seen too
• 31:01
  much of What was the road to get there?
• 31:02
  What got you there?
• 31:03
  Did you look to somebody like Janet Guthrie, who was the previous woman to
• 31:07
  run the 500 as your inspiration, or was it something else that drove you to Indy?
• 31:11
  No, I mean, I, I remember watching Janet, but you know, I was
• 31:14
  racing in, in SCCA back then.
• 31:16
  I hope so.
• 31:17
  And I just remember I was real happy doing what I was doing and
• 31:20
  she didn't look like she was having a really good time to be honest.
• 31:23
  And they didn't want her there.
• 31:25
  I mean, there was the coverage I saw.
• 31:27
  I mean, I'm having a great time, you know, I got a lot of friends.
• 31:29
  I look forward to seeing my friends when I go to the races, you know, and, and
• 31:32
  that was not her experience at Indy.
• 31:34
  So that was not a, That didn't leave a really good, you know, positive
• 31:37
  image in my mind, you know, after doing Daytona and winning at the
• 31:41
  24 hours and winning at Sebring.
• 31:43
  And then I started doing the TV coverage at IndyCar because I was done Trans Am.
• 31:48
  And we were the same weekend.
• 31:49
  Often I was actually working for ESPN and ABC and doing that.
• 31:53
  And I, so I got to hang out a lot with the IndyCar teams and the cars.
• 31:58
  I became just mesmerized with those cars.
• 32:01
  I mean, when you get up close, it's one thing to watch them,
• 32:03
  you know, when they're going 190, 200 plus miles an hour going by.
• 32:08
  But when you're in the pits where they make pit stops, you
• 32:10
  know, I was a pit reporter.
• 32:11
  And when you're in the garage and you're around them, you know, the sophistication
• 32:16
  level back, back in the eighties.
• 32:18
  And I thought, you know, I just want to drive an Indy car.
• 32:20
  I mean, I'm a race car driver, prototypes and the cars that
• 32:23
  I'm racing are pretty cool.
• 32:25
  But, you know, this is a lot cooler.
• 32:27
  And so I just want to drive an Indy car.
• 32:29
  I mean, seriously, that was it
• 32:32
  want to go fast.
• 32:33
  I want to drive an Indy car.
• 32:35
  I want to know what it's like to drive what I'm going to call a perfect race car.
• 32:39
  And so I spent probably two years talking to team owners.
• 32:43
  Can I just, when you guys are testing sometime, you know,
• 32:46
  it doesn't work that way.
• 32:50
  Leave the keys in it.
• 32:51
  Just turn around.
• 32:52
  Exactly.
• 32:52
  It doesn't work that way.
• 32:54
  And so, you know, doing a test, they like big money to do that, you know, I
• 32:59
  mean, for a driver to do an IndyCar test.
• 33:01
  is expensive.
• 33:02
  So it was really like, I don't know what the hell I was
• 33:04
  thinking, but I really kept.
• 33:06
  And so finally I ended up talking to Dick Simon.
• 33:09
  I talked to him a lot.
• 33:10
  I would talk to him almost every race, you know, and they may, Hey Dick.
• 33:13
  And, you know, this is a fairly long story, but it's the truth.
• 33:16
  I was doing TV coverage at Tamiyami, which was the last race of the season.
• 33:19
  And it was actually the race where Al senior beat Al junior to win.
• 33:23
  You know, the championship was a very big deal.
• 33:25
  I also owned an auto parts.
• 33:27
  Shock absorber business.
• 33:28
  And I remember Sunday night getting back to my office down in South Florida
• 33:32
  and the phone rang and it was Dick.
• 33:34
  He said, Hey kid, you said you wanted to drive an IndyCar be at Memphis tomorrow.
• 33:38
  And that was about the end of that conversation.
• 33:41
  I'm like, what, what, what, what, what?
• 33:42
  I didn't even know there was a racetrack in Memphis.
• 33:44
  I'll see you tomorrow.
• 33:46
  He hangs up.
• 33:47
  I get an airplane ticket.
• 33:48
  I go to Memphis.
• 33:49
  I rent a car.
• 33:50
  I find this damn racetrack that I didn't know existed, which is basically it's
• 33:54
  a drag strip with a little return route and the IndyCars test there sometimes.
• 33:58
  He was on the way back to the shop at Indy.
• 34:00
  He had a rookie test scheduled, but he also had Rolls cars and other cars on
• 34:05
  the trailer that he'd brought into Miami.
• 34:06
  And he also, I found out later, he had miles left on his
• 34:10
  Cosworth because you had to.
• 34:12
  Send them back to Cosworth to get rebuilt after so many miles.
• 34:15
  Well, he had miles left on that engine, so it wasn't going to cost him anything.
• 34:18
  He gave me that chance.
• 34:19
  And so I showed up, he's like, hi, how you doing?
• 34:23
  And then I had my race suit and everything, but we weren't going to
• 34:25
  pour a seat or anything, so now we're trying to get me fitted in the car.
• 34:29
  You know, we're using rags and jackets and, you know, anything we could get
• 34:32
  a hold of to try to get me fitted in the car, the kid working on the
• 34:36
  car could have had that day off.
• 34:39
  If I hadn't been there as the test, he was in charge of that car, but that car
• 34:43
  wasn't supposed to do anything except Dick said he, he let me have some laps.
• 34:47
  So, while we're getting fitted in the car, I'm thinking to myself, you know, this
• 34:50
  is such a cool opportunity, but I could get the feeling that this guy was like,
• 34:54
  not necessarily excited about having to work that day, but then he says to me,
• 34:59
  Hey, he said, were you ever at Snedderton?
• 35:01
  I was at Snedderton.
• 35:03
  One day, about four years prior, when I tested the Argo GTP
• 35:08
  car, and I went, yeah, yeah.
• 35:10
  He said, I was there that day.
• 35:11
  He said, you ran good.
• 35:13
  So magic, in my opinion, this kid knew me, knew that I was at least a decent race
• 35:20
  car driver, maybe a good race car driver.
• 35:22
  And so he was in the game that day.
• 35:24
  He could have made my life miserable, but instead he worked with me.
• 35:28
  All day.
• 35:28
  And Dick told him, he said, put 10 gallons of fuel in, let her run 10 laps and then
• 35:33
  bring her in and just keep doing that.
• 35:35
  And then Dick left, he had meetings or something and he left.
• 35:38
  I, I started out, I'm sure horrible, but I mean, I got to run almost the whole day.
• 35:42
  I would do 10 laps and I would come in and he'd put fuel in,
• 35:46
  I'd go back out and do 10 laps.
• 35:47
  'cause that way it didn't change the weight of the car.
• 35:50
  In other words, the car was pretty stable.
• 35:52
  And Dick came back and when he came back, By then I was
• 35:55
  actually running pretty decent.
• 35:56
  When I got out of the car, Dick said to me, we can do this.
• 36:00
  He didn't say you can do this.
• 36:01
  He said, we can do this.
• 36:03
  And I'm like, what?
• 36:04
  And so that was what changed from, I want to drive an IndyCar to, oh
• 36:09
  my God, I got a team owner who's willing to give me a shot at this.
• 36:12
  It was in 1988.
• 36:14
  And that's when I started the whole mission of trying to race an IndyCar.
• 36:18
  God knows I did not want to start at the Indy 500, but when I was
• 36:22
  pitching sponsorships, that was the only race that anybody wanted
• 36:25
  to talk about was the Indy 500.
• 36:27
  I was in.
• 36:28
  I felt so good in the car.
• 36:30
  It's the first time I didn't have to wrestle with a car
• 36:32
  to get it around the track.
• 36:33
  I mean, hell, I stopped.
• 36:34
  I mean, I put the foot on the brake and the car stops.
• 36:36
  I literally, the first time I had to drive, the car came to a stop on the
• 36:40
  straightaway because I was so used to the Trans Am cars and the heavy cars that,
• 36:43
  you know, you, you have to break back there to get the car slowed down up there.
• 36:47
  And instead I break back there and then the car came to a stop.
• 36:50
  I'm like, holy shit, I have to put it in first gear and
• 36:52
  drive back down to the corner.
• 36:53
  But it was beautiful.
• 36:54
  I mean, I felt so one with the car and it was just great.
• 36:57
  And not only that.
• 36:58
  At the end of the day, after we got all done and Dick said that, he said,
• 37:01
  Hey, come on, join us for dinner.
• 37:03
  He took the whole team to dinner.
• 37:05
  It was just the family atmosphere.
• 37:07
  When you run with Dick Simon, you were just part of the family.
• 37:10
  That was something that I kind of didn't have with some of my other racing
• 37:14
  experiences that I remembered that I did have when I was running SCCA.
• 37:17
  It was like, there was just a family spirit with Dick
• 37:20
  that connected with me and.
• 37:22
  We're friends to this day.
• 37:23
  I mean, he and Diane are just wonderful people and there's so many people on pit
• 37:27
  lane, not so much now, but for many, many years that at one time or other, there's
• 37:32
  almost every crew guy working in IndyCar at one time or the other worked for Dick
• 37:35
  Simon, you know, I mean, he kind of.
• 37:37
  He was just a super, super team owner and a super guy.
• 37:40
  So catching everybody up, this road to Indy took four years.
• 37:43
  And in 1992, you got your chance on the big stage.
• 37:47
  You finished 11th in the world's most iconic race.
• 37:50
  I've watched this on TV as a kid.
• 37:52
  It was absolutely just amazing.
• 37:54
  And you took home the Rookie of the Year honors against a rookie class that
• 37:59
  featured both Paul Tracy and Jimmy Vassar.
• 38:01
  And notably you were the first woman to ever win the rookie of the year title.
• 38:06
  So what was it like being on track now that you've built up to it?
• 38:10
  Big day comes you're out there.
• 38:12
  First of all, Dick also was very smart.
• 38:14
  He took me to Texas, the old Texas track before we got to Indy
• 38:17
  for rookie orientation to teach me how to go flat on an oval.
• 38:21
  Because it is instinctive that when you are going to turn the steering wheel,
• 38:25
  that your right foot comes off the gas.
• 38:27
  I mean, it's just instinct, you know, turn the wheel, lift, and then go back.
• 38:32
  Well, you can't do that.
• 38:34
  Ultimately at Indy, you've got to be able to be comfortable.
• 38:36
  And there was no media, there were nobody else there.
• 38:38
  It was just, so it was this real comfort level that he prepared me for.
• 38:42
  So that when we got to Indy, at least I had that under my belt.
• 38:45
  I mean, the Indianapolis 500 was my second open wheel race.
• 38:50
  And my first oval track race, I mean, I don't recommend that for anybody.
• 38:54
  I did every lap available in the pace car that we could have had
• 38:58
  before we even got in the race cars.
• 39:00
  And I had dick simon again as he was a great teacher.
• 39:03
  He had that ability because he was a former driver himself that
• 39:06
  he could tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it.
• 39:09
  We took it nice and slow, you know, and that was when you had the whole month.
• 39:13
  I mean, that was when the whole month was available to you.
• 39:16
  I thought I died and gone to heaven.
• 39:17
  I mean, I, I looked at every day is like Christmas, you know, and I would
• 39:22
  show up at the track, even if we weren't running, I was there every day.
• 39:26
  And I just felt this is like, it's like Christmas.
• 39:29
  I mean, it was just.
• 39:30
  An amazing experience.
• 39:32
  I never, ever, ever expected to get Rookie of the Year.
• 39:35
  I didn't even know they had such a thing until we got this packet for
• 39:39
  all the rookies and then, you know, told us there's a Rookie of the Year.
• 39:42
  There's a past history of who all the former rookies.
• 39:45
  I never paid any attention to that.
• 39:46
  Until then, and then when I saw all the rookies that were there,
• 39:51
  we had 9 rookies that year.
• 39:52
  I think it was a very big rookie year.
• 39:53
  I was like, there ain't no way just forget that.
• 39:56
  So I really never expected that.
• 39:58
  I'm proud of it.
• 39:59
  I was really proud that I actually held the record until this year
• 40:02
  as being the oldest rookie in the history of the Indianapolis 500
• 40:06
  and the oldest rookie of the year.
• 40:08
  But good old buddy, Jimmy Johnson decided to take that
• 40:11
  record away from me this year.
• 40:12
  So he was, I told him that when I saw him at Daytona at the 24, I said, well,
• 40:18
  I got to tell you I'm cheering you on.
• 40:19
  But meanwhile, I'm kind of pissed off because you're also taking my record.
• 40:23
  I know you're going to get rookie of the year unless you crash
• 40:25
  and you aren't going to crash.
• 40:26
  You're too smart for that anyway.
• 40:28
  So yeah, he's got that record from me.
• 40:30
  But you also hold tons of other records, especially speed.
• 40:34
  Yeah, I know.
• 40:35
  So let's, let's talk about one important in particular to this race itself.
• 40:39
  Most people may not realize you were the first woman to go over 200 miles an hour.
• 40:44
  227.32 to be exact.
• 40:47
  And let me repeat that.
• 40:49
  The first woman to reach over 200 miles an hour.
• 40:52
  Full stop.
• 40:53
  What was that like?
• 40:54
  Well, I mean, actually the first time I went over 200 was
• 40:57
  in the Ford probe at Talladega.
• 40:59
  We averaged 204.
• 41:00
  You know, I can't say it was the first woman to go over 200 miles an hour,
• 41:03
  maybe on an oval track because there there's others going down Bonneville and
• 41:07
  other high speed, you know, drag racing.
• 41:08
  I mean, hell they've been going.
• 41:10
  Shirley Muldowney has gone over 200 miles an hour.
• 41:12
  I'm sure the dragster around an oval.
• 41:14
  Yeah.
• 41:14
  Over 200 things start to change.
• 41:16
  I can tell you that.
• 41:17
  I mean, everything comes up on you so much faster, you know?
• 41:20
  And then I went average to 12 at Talladega in the Ford Thunderbird in 1988.
• 41:26
  And my top speed there was two 32, all those things.
• 41:29
  When I talk about the Indy 500 being my first oval track race
• 41:34
  and only my second open wheel at the same time, because of Lamar.
• 41:38
  And running the most on straight at 230 miles an hour because of running
• 41:43
  Talladega at 230 some miles an hour and the Thunderbird and also running that
• 41:48
  oval, even though it was in a stock car.
• 41:50
  And this is to me important for any young driver.
• 41:53
  Or any driver wanting to go someplace they aren't there yet is to pay
• 41:57
  a lot of attention to what you're learning about where you're at now,
• 42:00
  because everything you do now will pay dividends on something that you're
• 42:05
  going to do that you haven't done yet.
• 42:07
  But if you aren't absorbing that, you know what I mean?
• 42:09
  If you aren't processing the learning that you're getting from
• 42:14
  that experience, you're having now.
• 42:16
  You'll have a hard time remembering it or drawing it when you go to that
• 42:19
  next thing, the high speed stuff that I had, the open meal stuff that I had,
• 42:23
  the little bit, it was the prototypes where I was able to run down for us,
• 42:27
  the turbo XR, 40, the turbo Ford probe, all of those pieces were things that
• 42:33
  I was able to use to some help, you know, when I got to IndyCar running.
• 42:37
  The Cosworth Turbo with a lot of downforce and then trimming it out, understanding
• 42:41
  the difference between having downforce and then loving it and then losing
• 42:47
  it because now we trim it out for qualifying, you know, and so it's just
• 42:51
  gobs and gobs and gobs of experience that you just have to, you have to be.
• 42:55
  able to really retain and retain the physicality of what it feels like.
• 43:01
  It isn't just data, even though by the time I got to Indy, there was data.
• 43:04
  Oh, I love the data by the way.
• 43:06
  I mean, I love, give me a graph, you know, let me see my, the
• 43:09
  trail, you know, of my throttle.
• 43:10
  Let me see my break, you know, anything I'm like, I want to know, I want to
• 43:14
  know it was, I loved the data, but you have to really process how it feels.
• 43:19
  Because how it feels is what you're going to really react to.
• 43:21
  You don't have data while you're in the race car.
• 43:23
  You only have that to study afterward.
• 43:25
  Very, very true.
• 43:26
  So what came after Indy?
• 43:29
  I mean, after 2000, my last
• 43:32
  500,
• 43:33
  I thought maybe life was over.
• 43:34
  I mean, to be really honest, because, you know, I've been racing solid from what?
• 43:38
  1974 to 2000.
• 43:41
  And then I tried to get a deal together for 2001 and it didn't happen.
• 43:44
  And then that's when I realized it's over 53 years old, older than any
• 43:48
  sane person should be driving anyway.
• 43:50
  At this point, it's over.
• 43:53
  And that was tough.
• 43:54
  I went through a really, really tough time because I had no race to look forward to.
• 43:59
  Even though I was only sometimes running Indy only, I was either
• 44:02
  working towards it or I knew it was in the, it was going to happen.
• 44:05
  And I was getting ready for it.
• 44:07
  I always had that next race.
• 44:09
  Always, even if it didn't happen, I was still getting ready for that
• 44:13
  next race and I had no next race.
• 44:15
  I can tell you, it was really tough and a lot of other stuff that wasn't going
• 44:19
  well in my life as well, but what I did have is my driver development program.
• 44:23
  And so I, I had that commitment to try to help the young up and coming drivers.
• 44:28
  And so I continued with that.
• 44:30
  And then I got the opportunity to run a vintage race and I didn't really
• 44:34
  get the opportunity to run a vintage race at CSRG, which is the vintage
• 44:38
  race group out in the West Coast.
• 44:40
  And they asked me if I'd be the grand marshal.
• 44:42
  They wanted me there for four days and they had no budget.
• 44:44
  Isn't that always
• 44:45
  the case?
• 44:45
  Yeah.
• 44:46
  And I said, look at guys, you don't want me around for four days at a racetrack,
• 44:51
  particularly if you aren't paying me.
• 44:52
  I said, I'll drive you guys crazy.
• 44:54
  I'll be the biggest pain in the ass, but if you get me a ride and something,
• 44:58
  you don't have to pay me anything.
• 44:59
  Right.
• 44:59
  You know, I'll stay as many days as you want, you know?
• 45:02
  So for 11 years, I was a pain in the ass.
• 45:05
  And so I got a ride in a Formula Atlantic car.
• 45:07
  I was going to say, did they get you a Pinto?
• 45:09
  No.
• 45:10
  And in fact, I even said, no, I told him anything but a Pinto.
• 45:14
  Do not show up with a Pinto.
• 45:16
  Chris Locke had a Formula Atlantic car.
• 45:18
  He had a Formula One vintage car, one of the Mario Andretti's Lotus's.
• 45:22
  And then he had this Formula Atlantic car that he had used as a trainer to get
• 45:26
  ready for him to be able to run this.
• 45:28
  Lotus Formula One car of Mario's.
• 45:30
  He was this really good guy who, who then said, yeah, she could run my car.
• 45:34
  I remember in the seventies, what, when I was running the Pinto and then I'd run the
• 45:37
  Vega and then I was running that Corvette, I'd watch those Formula Atlantic cars and
• 45:42
  I'm like, God, those cars look so cool.
• 45:43
  Someday I want to race a Formula Atlantic car.
• 45:46
  So here I am in 2011, after everything else I've done, I finally get to
• 45:49
  race the Formula Atlantic car.
• 45:50
  And it was like everything that I could have dreamt about.
• 45:54
  I mean, it was like a mini Indy car, you know?
• 45:55
  And so, I mean, I was already.
• 45:58
  Old and the car was not as fast as an Indy car, which was a good
• 46:01
  thing, but it had downforce and it had power and it handled and it did
• 46:05
  all the things like an Indy car.
• 46:07
  And so I got to run a lot of seasons in that the vintage car
• 46:10
  world opened up to me in 2011.
• 46:13
  And all of a sudden I had a next race to look forward to.
• 46:16
  And it was like, I was reborn all over again.
• 46:18
  So, you know, I continued the driver development program.
• 46:21
  When you said what happened after, you know, Indy is that.
• 46:24
  I did that until around 2013, and then I decided to turn over whatever
• 46:31
  funds I had raised to create a scholarship fund for women in racing.
• 46:35
  And I turned it over to the women's sports foundation, which I was very
• 46:38
  active in and very involved in.
• 46:40
  I continued to do vintage racing up until 2019 when I had a bad crash at Indy.
• 46:45
  So I got to do vintage racing, but for eight years was fun.
• 46:49
  You hit on this earlier.
• 46:50
  You talked about it.
• 46:51
  But you didn't really.
• 46:52
  Share any negatives and I'm sure there must have been so the elephant
• 46:57
  that's been on the podcast this whole time is the sexism you undoubtedly
• 47:02
  must have encountered or maybe you didn't, but I would be very
• 47:05
  surprised if that's the answer.
• 47:07
  Did you have any particularly bad experiences?
• 47:09
  Was it not that bad, but you're just the type of person that you
• 47:12
  said, I ain't dealing with your crap and I'm doing my thing.
• 47:16
  So get out of my way.
• 47:18
  It was probably mostly the last, but at the same time, I mean, I
• 47:21
  had to develop a pretty thick skin.
• 47:23
  Obviously I hired a basketball coach at one point to help me deal with.
• 47:28
  The stuff, this is another thing that I advise people is that you have to have
• 47:32
  your own personal board of directors or whatever you want to call it, your group
• 47:35
  that are wanting to support you and that are outside of the circle of your race
• 47:40
  team and your race so that you could keep a clear head and you get good advice.
• 47:45
  And I mean, there, there's some stories for sure.
• 47:47
  I mean, and most of them center around Jack Roush, who was the team owner for
• 47:51
  many of the seasons I was with Ford.
• 47:53
  Jack and I were not on the same page and he was the boss.
• 47:57
  There were some really, really rough times.
• 47:59
  I've shared some of those.
• 48:00
  The year that I won Daytona the first time, 87, I literally was going to retire
• 48:05
  from racing at two o'clock in the morning because he wouldn't let me in the car.
• 48:08
  I had one stint and then I was out of the car and there was a thing on the
• 48:12
  board, you know, when the next shift is, you know, and I just kept getting
• 48:16
  moved off, moved off, moved off.
• 48:18
  And I was so pissed, you know, but I had a friend that I called
• 48:21
  at two o'clock in the morning.
• 48:22
  In Miami, I'm in Daytona and I said, I've had it.
• 48:25
  I'm not going to put up with this step anymore.
• 48:27
  And I said, so I'm going to go press conference that I'm going to retire.
• 48:31
  And my friend said, Lynn, it's two o'clock in the morning.
• 48:33
  Nothing good happens after 2am.
• 48:36
  First of all, nobody cares.
• 48:37
  Nobody cares if you retire from racing or whether you race or not, you're going to
• 48:41
  let somebody else take away your passion.
• 48:43
  You're going to let somebody else really just talk sensitive to me.
• 48:46
  He said, go and get some sleep.
• 48:48
  When the sun comes up, you'll be in the car.
• 48:50
  So, well, when the sun came up, I got ahold of the head at Ford
• 48:53
  racing and I called a meeting and with Jack and with him.
• 48:56
  And I said, I got to get in this car.
• 48:58
  Ford is the sponsor.
• 48:59
  They're paying for me to be in this car.
• 49:01
  And Mr.
• 49:02
  Ford, who happened to be Lee Morris, I said, you tell him
• 49:06
  that I'm going to be in this car.
• 49:09
  And I got in the car and I got my four hours in and at two
• 49:12
  o'clock that afternoon, I was in victory circle at Daytona.
• 49:15
  So, I mean, that was a huge, huge lesson, you know what I mean?
• 49:19
  So, but you know, Jack and I had had many, many, many of these up until that point
• 49:24
  and before that and after that, but you know, there was shit that happened, but
• 49:28
  at the same time, I would be like, I had to focus on the things I could control
• 49:32
  or that I could do something about.
• 49:33
  And so I would just continually want to learn more about how to be a better
• 49:38
  race car driver, how to know like stuff I was telling you about learning
• 49:41
  more about how to identify what was right or wrong with a race car.
• 49:44
  I mean, the people part of it was the hardest part, but I've tried to deflect
• 49:49
  by focusing more on the competition part and how I could be better prepared.
• 49:54
  That was my way of dealing with it was I can't.
• 49:56
  And I, and I had a basketball coach that said, don't try to change others.
• 50:01
  You have to change yourself to adapt, to put yourself in a stronger situation.
• 50:05
  You can't fix the world, Len.
• 50:07
  Fix yourself and focus on yourself.
• 50:09
  And so that's what I did.
• 50:10
  Can't always fix other people, but you can fix how you react.
• 50:12
  To other people
• 50:14
  and be better prepared.
• 50:16
  And, you know, just the whole thing was, you know, most of it, I mean,
• 50:18
  it was just get over it and focus on my performance and, uh, and let it
• 50:23
  speak hopefully more, but it's hard.
• 50:26
  It's hard.
• 50:26
  I, the hardest part with my crew, because in most cases.
• 50:30
  Literally, almost 99.
• 50:31
  9 percent of the time, the crew working on my car, we were
• 50:35
  like, together, we were a unit.
• 50:37
  They were the ones that had to put up with a lot of the shit.
• 50:39
  It was hard to try to help keep them motivated and to
• 50:43
  help keep them glued together.
• 50:45
  Because they were the ones that directly impacted my performance.
• 50:48
  But at the same time there, if their hands were tied, they were more frustrated
• 50:52
  than I was, you know what I mean?
• 50:53
  And in some cases, cause they knew more, you know, you just had to focus
• 50:56
  on the stuff you can do something about and let the rest of it,
• 50:59
  was there a difference between when you were on the amateur level versus
• 51:03
  going to the professional level, or is it pretty much the same?
• 51:06
  No, it was pretty much the same.
• 51:07
  I mean, it was probably worse on the amateur level because
• 51:10
  they were mostly my buddies.
• 51:11
  And then they're like, well, you go make a sandwich.
• 51:14
  I mean, cause that's what I was doing too.
• 51:17
  I was making the sandwiches, doing the timing and scoring, go make a
• 51:20
  sandwich, go shut up and make a sandwich.
• 51:22
  You know, you know, and I'd be like,
• 51:27
  do you think it's better now?
• 51:29
  I think so.
• 51:29
  But you know, the thing that I still worry because it's, the world has not changed as
• 51:34
  much as we would like it and it's evolved a bit, but I do worry partly because.
• 51:39
  They're all so much younger now.
• 51:40
  In other words, you have to understand, I was in most cases old,
• 51:43
  as I said, old enough to be some of their mothers, you know, I mean,
• 51:46
  a lot of the people that I worked with, I was so much older than them.
• 51:50
  You already knew
• 51:51
  how to deal with a lot of that stuff.
• 51:52
  I did.
• 51:53
  I didn't
• 51:53
  understand that.
• 51:53
  I really had a more mature brain than most.
• 51:56
  And so many of the gals today that are out there competing
• 51:59
  are young and that's great.
• 52:00
  Cause everybody is younger.
• 52:02
  I mean, But at the same time that they haven't had life experiences,
• 52:05
  you know, and, and I'm a little worried that they're not ready to
• 52:08
  figure out how to deal with it.
• 52:09
  And you can't train that you can't, you know, it's, it comes.
• 52:13
  Yeah.
• 52:13
  One of those things you don't understand until it happens to you, where somebody
• 52:17
  is acting away just because you happen to be female, or you happen to be even
• 52:22
  with minorities or anything like that, like until you've had that experience.
• 52:25
  For yourself, then it's like, wow, that's what that is.
• 52:29
  Yeah.
• 52:29
  And you know, many of you gals are very attractive.
• 52:33
  When you
• 52:34
  had that perm back in the day.
• 52:35
  Oh my God.
• 52:36
  Some of these hairstyles.
• 52:39
  I know.
• 52:39
  Oh God.
• 52:40
  God, I know.
• 52:41
  It's the way we laugh about those.
• 52:42
  That's for sure.
• 52:43
  I mean, there's just the way the culture of the way society is, you know, and
• 52:47
  there's a lot of stuff that goes on.
• 52:48
  And, but when I hear some of these stories, Tonya, that
• 52:50
  these gals have told me.
• 52:52
  And then I go, well, what did you say?
• 52:53
  Or what did you do?
• 52:56
  Oh, you know, I didn't really know.
• 52:57
  And I didn't want to complain.
• 52:59
  I said, you grab him by the collar and say, don't do that.
• 53:03
  Not going to happen.
• 53:04
  You know, sometimes you've got to stop it.
• 53:06
  Unfortunately, we're not trained to be that way.
• 53:10
  So that is one thing we could do to help the young ladies is train that
• 53:13
  assertiveness and to not tolerate That behavior when it happens and
• 53:18
  yeah, don't make it exactly that.
• 53:19
  Don't go screaming and hollering and make a big fuss, but stop it at the butt.
• 53:23
  You know, nip it at the butt.
• 53:25
  Exactly.
• 53:25
  Yeah.
• 53:25
  You don't
• 53:25
  have to go all postal, if you will, on somebody.
• 53:28
  You can make your point assertively and say, this does not fly.
• 53:32
  Sorry.
• 53:34
  That's exactly.
• 53:34
  Yeah.
• 53:35
  So I, I was thinking about this.
• 53:36
  You're seeing more all female teams these days.
• 53:39
  Take Beth Perretta's team as an example, or the Iron Dames who
• 53:42
  just competed in the 22 Le Mans.
• 53:44
  Do you think what you did back at Le Mans, you know, in the late eighties,
• 53:49
  early nineties set the stage for that?
• 53:51
  Well, first of all, because.
• 53:52
  I was just the woman, you know, the girl, whatever.
• 53:55
  I don't think it set the stage.
• 53:57
  I mean, it laid some groundwork to create in the minds of the others.
• 54:05
  And I don't mean the other females, but I think of the, of the guys that,
• 54:08
  oh, I may be making assumptions, it's wrong, but it's like, well, she's okay.
• 54:11
  I think there was an acceptance.
• 54:13
  I mean, like Wayne Taylor was actually my teammate at Le Mans, you know, the
• 54:17
  year that I ran with, because we had two cars and I was with Gordon Weiss and
• 54:20
  Ray Bellum, but Wayne Taylor was in the other car, you know, of the two cars.
• 54:24
  And I'm only using that as an example that I, you know, Wayne's now a dad and
• 54:28
  he's got his own team and he's totally receptive and open to having females.
• 54:32
  You know, on a scene, and I'm not saying that's because of me, but I'm just
• 54:35
  saying, I think that I planted some seeds.
• 54:37
  I kind of created an image that, oh, I mean, it is okay.
• 54:42
  Not that they wanted it necessarily, not that they were excited about it,
• 54:45
  not that they were going to celebrate it, but it was just, it was okay.
• 54:49
  And then you have the women that are now showing up, which is
• 54:51
  amazing and their performance.
• 54:53
  is that clearly it's okay.
• 54:55
  In other words, their performance is solid.
• 54:57
  So whether it's Catherine Legge or Simona or the Iron Dames today or Anna
• 55:02
  Beatrice or, I mean, we could go on, you know, and on with the Sarah Fisher.
• 55:06
  I mean, these drivers earned.
• 55:09
  Those seats and earn those.
• 55:11
  I mean, they had their ups and downs is like every race car driver has.
• 55:15
  But I think that that's what excites me is that the ones showing up
• 55:18
  with a rare exception are fully qualified, fully earning the respect
• 55:23
  and delivering the performance.
• 55:24
  And I think that's what needed to happen, you know, I was the odd one out to a
• 55:28
  certain degree because I was the only one and thank God I didn't mess up too much.
• 55:32
  And I kind of opened the, the minds, I guess, the plant, the seed and open the
• 55:36
  minds that it's where I think I made a difference and I didn't plan this.
• 55:39
  Believe me, it was just my own stubbornness.
• 55:42
  And determination to not ever stop was that I was around long enough
• 55:46
  the whole decade of the 90s that I mean, if I had done Indy one rookie
• 55:50
  of the year, which I only had a one race deal from JC Penney, everybody's
• 55:54
  expectation was, Hey, check the box.
• 55:57
  You're old, you know, you're the oldest rookie.
• 55:59
  You're done.
• 56:00
  And I had a one race deal.
• 56:01
  Dick and everybody was like, we did it.
• 56:03
  Terrific.
• 56:04
  Next.
• 56:05
  There was no next, except I decided there was.
• 56:08
  And then, and I went to JC Penney and I, you know, and I kept going and going.
• 56:11
  So I think the best thing was that I continued to compete in the
• 56:14
  nineties while these other kids were growing up and getting old enough to
• 56:19
  then be there, you know, and then.
• 56:21
  Sarah came and Danica came, you know, so there was enough continuation.
• 56:25
  If there's a big gap, a big void in history, in anything, if you go like,
• 56:30
  like this, and then there's this big gap and it just falls off, people
• 56:34
  forget about what happened back here.
• 56:36
  Where I think there was enough sustaining story about a woman that's still
• 56:41
  competing, you know, and then you've got Michelle Mouton started the women
• 56:44
  in motorsports commission in 2010.
• 56:47
  It was a trickle, a little activity, but at least there was activity
• 56:51
  continuing and Danica going to NASCAR.
• 56:53
  I mean, the whole thing is that there was sustaining enough.
• 56:57
  And now we've got more numbers, which is what we've needed for the longest time.
• 57:01
  And so it
• 57:02
  still felt like a huge hurdle, but at least you could see
• 57:05
  there is a possibility for us.
• 57:07
  We could also be,
• 57:10
  I really got to know you, Tanya.
• 57:11
  I liked you.
• 57:12
  Oh, thank you.
• 57:13
  Oh, I'm enjoying you very much.
• 57:14
  So
• 57:16
  you're, you're that generation now that's, you know, your perspective
• 57:20
  valuable and is, you know, really, I mean, you're living it.
• 57:23
  And yeah, yeah,
• 57:26
  living it.
• 57:26
  And yeah, we'll see.
• 57:29
  So another question, given what you know now and what you went through,
• 57:34
  if you were starting over, let's say, I think the first thing you'd
• 57:38
  probably say is I would start earlier.
• 57:40
  Yeah.
• 57:40
  Start younger.
• 57:43
  So you're starting earlier now, but you're starting today.
• 57:46
  Would you still jump straight into competition license?
• 57:50
  into the races, or do you think you would have gone a different
• 57:52
  route, maybe built up to that differently, or your personality,
• 57:56
  you would have just jumped in.
• 57:57
  So
• 57:57
  that's a really good question.
• 57:59
  I mean, I definitely would have started earlier, even though I worry when they
• 58:01
  start five, six, seven, eight years old, that they're going to get burned out by
• 58:04
  the time, you know, they kind of peak at that age of seven, 16, 17, 18, when
• 58:08
  the world is really should start opening up to them, that they're burned out.
• 58:11
  You know, I, I worry when.
• 58:13
  Cause after, you know, 10 or 15 years of that life, you can get burned out.
• 58:18
  And so, you know, I wish I'd known about like things like autocross
• 58:21
  and even though I hate pylons.
• 58:23
  So a pylon is a target to me, you know, I got to hit it.
• 58:28
  You know, you mentioned like track days, like, you know, if I had had more.
• 58:31
  Track time, more seat time, because I love testing and I
• 58:35
  love going against the clock.
• 58:36
  I love that.
• 58:38
  Give me a lap time and the target
• 58:41
  fixate on.
• 58:42
  Yeah.
• 58:42
  And also the, you know, the, the data that's available today.
• 58:45
  I mean, I'd be, I'd be looking at those graphs and, you know, and
• 58:48
  absolutely loving every bit of it.
• 58:49
  The by product of that is, Oh, I'm going to be faster than it.
• 58:52
  And I can take the corner.
• 58:54
  You know, I can, I know I can take that corner because.
• 58:57
  I've done it, you know, and I'm going to take it better than the idiot next to me.
• 59:00
  But it was as much about the joy of driving, the joy of driving
• 59:03
  the race car and then of getting the most out of the race car.
• 59:06
  So those are my priorities.
• 59:07
  The joy of getting in the car and getting the most out of the car.
• 59:11
  And then, oh, by the way, beating that's the third piece for me.
• 59:14
  And I think that's in my nature, no matter how young or old I am, because it
• 59:18
  is hard to learn while you're doing it.
• 59:20
  You know, there was those early races were rough.
• 59:22
  I mean, I had a guy that.
• 59:23
  protested me for giving them the finger in the race.
• 59:26
  I was like, what?
• 59:27
  You know, and I had to get witnesses to come in from the corner to say that
• 59:31
  I was only pointing him by and I, you know, I don't know what finger I used.
• 59:35
  I don't know, but it was like, you know, I mean, it was silly, stupid
• 59:38
  stuff that I had to deal with, you know, really early on that if I hadn't
• 59:42
  been in that wheel to wheel competition mode right out of the box, I think
• 59:45
  I probably, you know, would have.
• 59:47
  been a little more comfortable, but,
• 59:48
  and I'd honestly question whichever finger you may or may not have used,
• 59:52
  had you been a different gender, would anyone have protested you?
• 59:56
  Probably not.
• 59:57
  A big deal, right?
• 59:58
  Yeah.
• 59:59
  No, I don't know.
• 1:00:00
  You know, I think knowing what I know about the sport and knowing what I
• 1:00:03
  know about me starting sooner and maybe taking advantage of what's available
• 1:00:07
  now, which would be technology data.
• 1:00:10
  I would have definitely fought to have a better race car.
• 1:00:13
  I
• 1:00:13
  was about
• 1:00:13
  to say, would you have still chosen Ford Pinto?
• 1:00:17
  Even though I have to admit, I have to, I've watched the Miata, the spec
• 1:00:21
  Miata series and all that, and that's some of the best training ground
• 1:00:23
  because race craft is so critical.
• 1:00:26
  And if you're in a series that there's too much variance.
• 1:00:29
  In the speeds, or you're in a series where there's like 6 or 7 cars or 8 cars or
• 1:00:33
  10 cars in your class versus 30 cars in your class and have them all be the same.
• 1:00:38
  That's where you get race crap.
• 1:00:39
  I have to admit that I would have liked that because I think that's
• 1:00:42
  where you really develop the confidence and, you know, the knowledge and.
• 1:00:46
  And you learn how to be a clean racer.
• 1:00:47
  You gotta be a clean racer to be successful.
• 1:00:49
  You gotta bring the car home.
• 1:00:51
  Yep.
• 1:00:51
  You know, and you can't be running people off the track, you know.
• 1:00:54
  So Lynn, looking at all the cars that exist in the fields between, you know,
• 1:00:58
  IMSA and SRO and all these different racing organizations that are out there.
• 1:01:02
  If you were starting today, is there something you would love
• 1:01:04
  to jump behind the wheel of?
• 1:01:06
  I just don't look at it that way anymore.
• 1:01:08
  I mean, I just posted actually on Facebook, my favorite race
• 1:01:11
  car that I have had my butt in that I would love to race again.
• 1:01:14
  And I will actually, I've talked to him about it is the Ford GT that
• 1:01:18
  Kevin Doran built from the 2007.
• 1:01:20
  So it's like the GT3 car, you know, it's prepared to a GT3 level.
• 1:01:24
  And it was a GT3 car that speed handling package.
• 1:01:29
  I would get pretty impatient if I don't have a lot of power.
• 1:01:31
  I've gotten spoiled where I like a car that I want to do the breaking.
• 1:01:35
  I don't want.
• 1:01:36
  ABS.
• 1:01:36
  I don't want to go so to the highest level of technology.
• 1:01:39
  I looked at the Ford GT that won Le Mans in 16 and I saw that.
• 1:01:43
  I think it was at Long Beach when they were still where
• 1:01:45
  they were running an IMSA.
• 1:01:46
  And I mean, it was like.
• 1:01:47
  Oh, my God.
• 1:01:48
  Way too complicated.
• 1:01:49
  I mean, you know, the cockpit, everything on the steering wheel.
• 1:01:52
  I mean, all of it.
• 1:01:53
  It was like, you know, I so I want some simplicity and that's kind of the era
• 1:01:58
  would have been the probably the mid 2000s and that for GT was just fabulous.
• 1:02:03
  So the new shit is way too much.
• 1:02:06
  It's way too much, too complicated,
• 1:02:10
  especially when it breaks.
• 1:02:11
  Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  And then, and I even remember at the time with Chris, the technology is
• 1:02:15
  better today, but when we were with the Ford probe, you know, the thing
• 1:02:18
  would just stop running out of the, you know, and nobody, nobody knew all it's.
• 1:02:21
  got to be the black box, you know, and they just changed the box.
• 1:02:23
  Nobody knows what was wrong with the car, but that's how they learned.
• 1:02:26
  The point I'm making is I don't want a lot of technology.
• 1:02:29
  So I would want to have a car that I'm racing and driving and not
• 1:02:32
  technology and not having, and then just a car, a car that you drive.
• 1:02:36
  Lots of power, lots of power, brakes and handles.
• 1:02:38
  That's all.
• 1:02:40
  I think what we learned though, is by reading between the lines that
• 1:02:43
  Lynn is a blue oval gal through and through with that answer.
• 1:02:47
  Well, I mean, Ford was good to me.
• 1:02:50
  I mean, seriously, I mean, I'd be very, very candid on this.
• 1:02:53
  I had Ford as a sponsor on one year contracts from 1981 to 1994 between
• 1:02:58
  personal service and full race sponsorship in good equipment dealing with a
• 1:03:03
  very difficult owner at one point, but still that gave me such quality
• 1:03:08
  experience and exposure and race.
• 1:03:10
  I would have not had the kind of career I had without that kind of experience.
• 1:03:15
  So, I mean, I, I have a loyalty to Ford that will run forever in my, my veins.
• 1:03:19
  My blood's not blue.
• 1:03:20
  It's just that, you know, I, I have a loyalty to Ford for what we did together.
• 1:03:25
  I mean, they didn't give it to me, but I earned it, but I worked hard to get it.
• 1:03:28
  But at the same time they were there and there were critical
• 1:03:32
  people that at the right time.
• 1:03:34
  And I talked about that a lot, quite frankly, is that it's the people that
• 1:03:38
  have your back When you're not in the room within the team, within corporate
• 1:03:43
  sponsorship, within, even if it's the chief steward, you have to know who's in
• 1:03:48
  charge and you have to know who's got your back because many times it'll be somebody
• 1:03:53
  that will make the difference in your career when you weren't even in the room.
• 1:03:56
  You didn't even know that conversation happened.
• 1:03:58
  That's why relationships are so critical and you have to pay
• 1:04:01
  attention, not just who your friends are, but who to make sure.
• 1:04:05
  Understands who you are and what you're about.
• 1:04:07
  That's very, very important.
• 1:04:08
  And
• 1:04:08
  those are true words, not only in the racing environment, but
• 1:04:12
  any business in any relationship.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah.
• 1:04:14
  Yep.
• 1:04:15
  Yep.
• 1:04:15
  I
• 1:04:15
  mean, most businesses have a fairly structured business.
• 1:04:19
  You know who the boss is or, you know, who's in charge, who's
• 1:04:21
  the manager, whatever racing, it's, it's a free for all.
• 1:04:24
  And you just don't know necessarily who can make the difference.
• 1:04:27
  And so there's, it's a harder to reel it in, you know,
• 1:04:31
  shifting gears a little bit.
• 1:04:33
  So tell us about this foundation.
• 1:04:35
  You founded the women in the winner's circle,
• 1:04:38
  the women in the winner's circle, I have disbanded.
• 1:04:41
  So that doesn't exist.
• 1:04:42
  I closed it in 2013 and turned the funds over to the women's sports
• 1:04:46
  foundation for project podium.
• 1:04:47
  But what I did co found this year with Beth Perretta is women in
• 1:04:52
  motorsports, North America, and that I'm very proud, very excited.
• 1:04:55
  We have a working group of over 40 people.
• 1:04:58
  I mean, I have to admit, I was totally focused in my past activities for drivers
• 1:05:03
  because I've always felt that it's the drivers who are the most visible.
• 1:05:06
  And so if you've got women drivers out there successful.
• 1:05:10
  Then it'll trickle over to everybody.
• 1:05:11
  But the reality is it's cause I'm a driver, I guess.
• 1:05:14
  And that's how I felt the world was functioning is that now we have Beth as a
• 1:05:18
  team owner, people like Alba Cullen, you know, who used to be GM representative for
• 1:05:22
  NASCAR engineering now works for Hendrick.
• 1:05:24
  You know, so we have engineering, we have the business side.
• 1:05:26
  We have Laurie Eberhard, who's a woman attorney and not just women.
• 1:05:30
  We have men who are our allies.
• 1:05:32
  You know, we've got Dean Case, John Doonan, and Jim Jordan, and people
• 1:05:36
  that I know will have your back, even when you're not in the room.
• 1:05:40
  So now we have this working group.
• 1:05:41
  We got our heads together last year, and we spent six months on the phone, once
• 1:05:46
  a month, talking about how can we make a difference for women in motorsports,
• 1:05:50
  in all disciplines, in all categories.
• 1:05:53
  And that that's how we're going to move the ball forward.
• 1:05:56
  That's how we're going to help grow the sport.
• 1:05:58
  We've got an organization.
• 1:05:59
  It's a 501 C3.
• 1:06:01
  We've got priorities in advocacy and mentorship.
• 1:06:05
  I wanted to create sentiment.
• 1:06:07
  There's a lot going on.
• 1:06:08
  I mean, there's shift up now.
• 1:06:09
  There's.
• 1:06:10
  Michelle Della Petta started a, you know, a scholarship program in her next gen.
• 1:06:14
  There's all kinds of stuff happening.
• 1:06:16
  The problem is that it's all a little fragmented here and there.
• 1:06:18
  So I said, I want to create some kind of an umbrella over
• 1:06:21
  all of the stuff going on.
• 1:06:23
  SCCA has their women on track.
• 1:06:25
  So we've just caught this website that I'm most proud of that has multiple
• 1:06:30
  pages of information about Racing 101.
• 1:06:33
  What kind of jobs are even existing within motorsports?
• 1:06:36
  You know, if you go to a website of a corporation, you know that you can
• 1:06:39
  find out the structure of the company.
• 1:06:41
  If you go to a motorsports website, all they give you is the
• 1:06:44
  schedule or how to become a member.
• 1:06:48
  There's no careers tab at the top.
• 1:06:50
  Exactly.
• 1:06:50
  Exactly.
• 1:06:51
  And I'm finding that some of the times now there isn't the way we're
• 1:06:53
  at the bottom, but you know, I'm just trying to be information central.
• 1:06:57
  Also everybody who's are part of our community.
• 1:07:00
  It's not a membership deal where you pay a membership fee and all that.
• 1:07:03
  Our community or people who are mentorship minded, you know, that their mindset
• 1:07:07
  is that if you pick up the phone and call them or you send them an email,
• 1:07:11
  they will respond because they want to mentor others and even mentor each other.
• 1:07:16
  So we're just kind of this umbrella organization to pull everything
• 1:07:19
  together that's happening.
• 1:07:20
  And whether you're in the media or you're.
• 1:07:23
  A student, or whether you're in the sport already, or you're interested
• 1:07:26
  in the sport, you can come to this website and hopefully get your hands
• 1:07:30
  wrapped around what's possible.
• 1:07:32
  And that's what Women in Motorsports North America is all about.
• 1:07:35
  That's amazing.
• 1:07:35
  Cause some people don't want to be a driver, but they very much love the sport.
• 1:07:39
  And there's so many ways they could be involved.
• 1:07:42
  You know, whether you're a reporter or commentator or you're, you're an engineer,
• 1:07:45
  so you're working as crew or whatever.
• 1:07:48
  And.
• 1:07:49
  It really is hard to know what those opportunities are.
• 1:07:51
  So that's a great resource for folks.
• 1:07:53
  Yeah.
• 1:07:53
  And you often start as a volunteer.
• 1:07:55
  We know that.
• 1:07:55
  I mean, that's what our sport, the lifeblood of our sport of volunteers.
• 1:07:58
  Do you actually know that you could actually become paid and have a career?
• 1:08:02
  You know, you may start as a volunteer, but you ultimately
• 1:08:05
  you could have a career.
• 1:08:06
  So that's kind of what we're trying to accomplish.
• 1:08:08
  Excellent.
• 1:08:08
  And that website for anyone who's interested is women in motor sports and a.
• 1:08:13
  com
• 1:08:14
  women.
• 1:08:15
  We call it women now, but
• 1:08:18
  that doesn't help for the website, but it's yes, it's
• 1:08:20
  women in motor sports and a.
• 1:08:23
  And it sounds like there's an upcoming event later this year.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah, we are very excited.
• 1:08:27
  We just literally launched it today, October 5th and 6th.
• 1:08:31
  We are going to have our women with drive summit.
• 1:08:33
  The debt proceeds will benefit women in motor sports, North America,
• 1:08:36
  but we have two days of panel discussions and keynote speakers.
• 1:08:39
  It's going to be at the Hendrick racing team headquarters in
• 1:08:43
  Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 1:08:44
  And it's, you know, literally are full of agenda.
• 1:08:48
  So if you go to our website, womeninmotorsportsna.
• 1:08:52
  com you can click on that to sign up and register for this two day seminar.
• 1:08:56
  It's going to be full of good folks, interesting people,
• 1:08:59
  not just in motorsports.
• 1:09:01
  We've got a lot of people in motorsports that sometimes you can learn from best
• 1:09:04
  practices from other organizations.
• 1:09:05
  So we've got sailing, you know, is another sport that women
• 1:09:09
  compete in and often with men.
• 1:09:11
  And we have other sports like that and other people coming in
• 1:09:15
  from other disciplines to talk about their Experiences and
• 1:09:19
  to help our sport be better.
• 1:09:21
  If you go to our website, the survey pops right up.
• 1:09:24
  And it's a survey that I did through women in the winner's circle.
• 1:09:28
  When I had it back in 2004, we had 1856 respondents, 75 percent men.
• 1:09:35
  And it was all about the attitudes of women in motor sports.
• 1:09:37
  It amazed me that 75 percent of the respondents were men.
• 1:09:40
  It was very interesting.
• 1:09:41
  I had all kinds of research that was done with the data,
• 1:09:45
  but I had nowhere to go with it.
• 1:09:46
  I mean, it was.
• 1:09:47
  Done with University of Indianapolis, U of I, a professor from the Women's Sports
• 1:09:52
  Foundation from a university that did the analysis, but we never published it.
• 1:09:56
  It was just kind of there.
• 1:09:58
  And so what we did was with my help, Cindy Sisson from GS Events and Shifting Gears.
• 1:10:03
  She said, let's redo that survey.
• 1:10:06
  It'd be great to compare it to the data that was.
• 1:10:08
  In 2004, and so we just upgraded it a little bit with the current sanctioning
• 1:10:12
  bodies and the types of racing going on, you know, in the, in social
• 1:10:15
  media, which we didn't have back then.
• 1:10:17
  So, that survey is now online available through our website takes about 10
• 1:10:22
  minutes to go through and it's the same questions that we had back in 2004, and
• 1:10:25
  then we'll be able to analyze those.
• 1:10:27
  To just see what the attitudes about women in motor sports
• 1:10:30
  have changed, or it's the same.
• 1:10:31
  And if any of our listeners are interested in helping contribute
• 1:10:34
  to this survey, we'll be sure to include all the web addresses
• 1:10:37
  and everything in our show notes.
• 1:10:39
  Terrific.
• 1:10:39
  And then we're going to keep it going because we're going to
• 1:10:41
  announce the results of the survey.
• 1:10:44
  at the October event.
• 1:10:45
  So the survey will be up for a while.
• 1:10:47
  I mean, my goal is to make sure we get at least that many respondents
• 1:10:50
  to compare what we had before.
• 1:10:52
  Excellent.
• 1:10:52
  That sounds very exciting.
• 1:10:53
  I guess as we wrap up a little bit, what would you say if a young
• 1:10:58
  girl walked up to you right now and asked, why did you, why do you race?
• 1:11:02
  What would your answer be to them?
• 1:11:04
  I mean, it's actually because I love it and I found my passion.
• 1:11:06
  I mean, I think that we all have untapped reservoir that doesn't always
• 1:11:11
  get tapped until we find our passion.
• 1:11:12
  I was always a hard worker.
• 1:11:14
  I was always, I always tried to be really good at what I did and, you know, get
• 1:11:18
  good grades, whatever you want to call it.
• 1:11:20
  But I was kind of lost to be honest, until I found racing and racing found me.
• 1:11:25
  And so I just don't think you don't, we don't know.
• 1:11:28
  What's available to us or what's possible until you do something that you're
• 1:11:32
  just so passionate about, because it, it makes you better at everything.
• 1:11:35
  It makes you better, not only at finding that and doing that, but it also
• 1:11:38
  makes you better at everything else.
• 1:11:39
  So it's just find your passion.
• 1:11:41
  It really is find your passion.
• 1:11:42
  It may be racing.
• 1:11:43
  It may not.
• 1:11:44
  Don't hesitate to explore the world to find something that just.
• 1:11:48
  You are so passionate about it, so compelled that it
• 1:11:51
  brings the best out in you.
• 1:11:53
  It brings everything you, you know, everything you have out because you'll
• 1:11:56
  find that you have power, you have intelligence, you have energy, you have
• 1:12:00
  whatever that you don't know you have, that you maybe have to drag yourself to
• 1:12:03
  do the other things that you have to do.
• 1:12:05
  And don't let any of the naysayers tell you you can't.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah.
• 1:12:09
  And don't let anybody take it away from you.
• 1:12:10
  Yeah.
• 1:12:11
  And on that, Lynn, any other shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like.
• 1:12:15
  Talk about the, we didn't cover thus far.
• 1:12:17
  Well, thank you.
• 1:12:18
  I mean, I'm going to add, I am going to add one thing.
• 1:12:19
  Women need to be invited.
• 1:12:21
  Men just show up.
• 1:12:22
  My piece of advice to every motor sports racetrack, every club, just invite the
• 1:12:29
  women by yourself, ladies, or, well, and if it's the women out there that
• 1:12:34
  show up, don't wait to be invited, but I just think it's inherent in us, you
• 1:12:38
  know, that we just, we feel welcomed if we've been invited as opposed to that.
• 1:12:42
  Oh, we just got to show up.
• 1:12:43
  You know, we hear it all the time.
• 1:12:45
  And that's.
• 1:12:45
  It's not just women actually, but it's, if you, it's a simple thing.
• 1:12:49
  I mean, I can't, I mean, myself, I thought, well, I don't, of
• 1:12:52
  course I don't do that anymore.
• 1:12:53
  Now I'll walk into any place, but you know, back in the day, I wouldn't
• 1:12:57
  necessarily, you know, and if you don't see someone like yourself, then you
• 1:13:01
  don't necessarily think I belong there.
• 1:13:03
  And if you don't belong there, you tend to not go there.
• 1:13:06
  Yep.
• 1:13:06
  So it leads to a great question.
• 1:13:07
  What would you do to change the programs to make the paddock more
• 1:13:11
  inviting without being invited?
• 1:13:13
  Yeah.
• 1:13:14
  I mean, without being invited, well, I mean, you don't need to do a ladies day.
• 1:13:18
  You don't need to have a ladies section, but think about having
• 1:13:22
  women that are part of your organization already in most cases.
• 1:13:26
  I mean, there's hardly and celebrate them, bring them forth as a part of your.
• 1:13:32
  Organization.
• 1:13:33
  And it's an important part of your organization because I
• 1:13:35
  guarantee you, they probably are.
• 1:13:37
  And so a lot of times women are comfortable being in the background, you
• 1:13:41
  know, but if they work for you or they volunteer for you, celebrate that, elevate
• 1:13:46
  that as part of your story without making it sound like it's a tokenism thing.
• 1:13:51
  And if you don't have anybody to celebrate, think about that because
• 1:13:55
  that means you're probably missing an important piece of the puzzle and,
• 1:13:59
  and that's how it's going to grow.
• 1:14:00
  I mean, I can remember with automobile dealerships, when I used to go to these
• 1:14:03
  dealers back in the 80s for Ford, you know, how do we sell more cars to women?
• 1:14:07
  I mean, this is probably not a good example.
• 1:14:09
  One of the things I would do is I, can I use your restroom?
• 1:14:11
  And if you go in the restroom and it's filthy, I mean,
• 1:14:14
  dealerships, it was often that way.
• 1:14:16
  And there would be nothing but baby car magazines around.
• 1:14:19
  Not that you should have women's magazines around, but I mean, just think about
• 1:14:23
  what makes a woman comfortable to be in your space, to be in your environment.
• 1:14:27
  So invitation, cleanliness, openness, celebrating the
• 1:14:32
  women that are already there.
• 1:14:33
  And the women need to step in and take some ownership.
• 1:14:36
  The women who are there need to take some ownership.
• 1:14:38
  Put yourself out there, step up to the plate.
• 1:14:40
  It's a two way street from that standpoint.
• 1:14:42
  I would appreciate that you promote women in motorsports in North America
• 1:14:45
  because that's ongoing, you know, and obviously a lot of your listeners are
• 1:14:48
  probably women or young girls or females.
• 1:14:51
  And also appreciate the survey.
• 1:14:53
  You know, I do have a book out that's been out for a while, so it's not new.
• 1:14:57
  If people just go to my website, they're in my garage and I ship them out.
• 1:15:00
  And if you tell me you want me to autograph it, I'll autograph it.
• 1:15:03
  Love going to the races.
• 1:15:05
  Just go to the races, man.
• 1:15:06
  Just go to the races.
• 1:15:07
  Have fun.
• 1:15:08
  With 31 speed records earned over a 20 year span with many.
• 1:15:13
  many wins and titles in her logbook.
• 1:15:16
  Lynn St.
• 1:15:16
  James reset more than just metrics in a record book.
• 1:15:19
  She rebooted the way we look at and think about motorsports.
• 1:15:24
  And because of her perseverance and accomplishments, she has inspired
• 1:15:28
  generations of talented women to also get behind the wheel of a race car.
• 1:15:33
  And at 74 years young, her efforts to expand and equalize motorsports are far
• 1:15:38
  from over, and we can't thank her enough.
• 1:15:40
  For all she's done and continues to do for the racing world at large.
• 1:15:43
  To learn more about Lynn, you can visit her website www.lynnstjames.com,
• 1:15:49
  as well as her latest program, www.womeninmotorsportsna.com.
• 1:15:55
  Or follow her on social@lynn.st.
• 1:15:58
  James on Facebook or search Lynn St.
• 1:16:01
  James on LinkedIn.
• 1:16:02
  That's right.
• 1:16:03
  And Lynn, we cannot thank you enough for spending your evening with us
• 1:16:07
  here on break fix to walk us through the past and into the future.
• 1:16:11
  I want to again, thank you for everything you've done for the motor sports
• 1:16:14
  community at large and all the ladies that are out there that might be.
• 1:16:18
  Considering going to the track, like Lynn said, go to the track.
• 1:16:22
  Oh, I'm exhausted.
• 1:16:25
  So I'm glad that it worked out.
• 1:16:28
  Thank you very much.
• 1:16:29
  All right.
• 1:16:34
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 1:16:37
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:16:41
  gtmotorsports.
• 1:16:41
  org.
• 1:16:41
  You can also find us on Motorsports.
• 1:16:45
  Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You
• 1:16:49
  can call or text us at 202 630 1770.
• 1:16:54
  Or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 1:16:57
  org.
• 1:16:57
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:16:59
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:17:01
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted
• 1:17:05
  to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
• 1:17:10
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