Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Where Horsepower Meets Heart: Women of Drag Racing Blaze the Trail

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Where Horsepower Meets Heart: Women of Drag Racing Blaze the Trail · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  The following episode is brought to you in part by Women in Motorsports North
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  America, a community of professional women and men devoted to supporting
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  opportunities for women across all disciplines of motorsport by
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  creating an inclusive and resourceful environment to foster mentorship,
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  advocacy, education, and growth, thereby ensuring the continued strength
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  and successful future of our sport.
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  Well, welcome to everyone here because this is pretty special tonight.
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  Where horsepower meets heart and speed knows no limits, we're shifting
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  into high gear for a special panel in honor of International Women's Month.
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  From burning rubber on the track to breaking barriers in a male dominated
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  sport, today, we celebrate with the fearless women of drag racing.
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  Joining us Our Eric Enders, Ida Zetterstrom, Megan
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  Meyer, and Maddie Gordon.
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  Incredible drivers from around the world, pioneers, champions, and all
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  around speed demons who prove that racing isn't just for the boys.
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  So buckle up, because we're driving into the thrill of competition.
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  The challenge of the industry and what it truly means to be a champion.
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  And with that, I'm your host crew chief, Eric, from the motoring podcast
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  network, along with Lauren Goodman from the revs Institute, welcoming everyone
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  to this virtual center conversation, Erica, Ida, Megan, and Maddie.
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  Welcome to the show.
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  Thank you.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  Well, like all good stories, there's an origin.
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  So let's.
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  Briefly talk about how everybody got into motor sports, more
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  specifically drag racing.
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  What drew you into the world of drag racing?
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  And were there any female role models that inspired you along the way?
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  Go ahead, Maddie.
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  I've kind of been born into it.
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  I went to my first drag race at seven days old, never looked back.
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  My grandpa started drag racing and then my dad, and then now my
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  sister and I, so I mean, we've been involved in it since we were kids.
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  Grew up through the junior drag racing program and did super
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  comp and worked on the funny car ever since we were little kids.
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  But as far as women role models, that has inspired me really honestly, even though
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  my mom's not a driver, she's inspired me so much and really helped, of course, me
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  and my sister through everything in life.
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  Through the ups and the downs, racing is very challenging and really can beat you
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  down sometimes, but my mom has always been there and always has a way of cheering
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  us up or kind of keeping us in line.
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  But so I would say my mom's definitely being my biggest
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  woman role model for sure.
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  Ida, how about you?
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  So yeah, I also grew up at the drag strip.
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  I was three weeks old when I was there first time.
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  So Maddie beat me to it on that one a little earlier, but yeah, I've definitely
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  been at the track for a long time.
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  My parents and especially my dad has been involved with racing
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  and didn't really race himself.
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  During the years I grew up, he raised before I was born,
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  but worked with other teams.
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  He has American car repair shop and engine dyno builds engines and so on.
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  Worked with a lot of pro stock teams and promo teams.
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  He actually raised pro stock himself in the late eighties where I was born.
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  So I kind of always been at the track, started racing unit
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  tracks to around eight years old.
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  I always knew I wanted to start racing.
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  We never really chased a championship when I raced the juniors, just because I always
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  went to the races where my dad worked.
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  So we kind of just loaded that dragster in together with the team
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  that he worked for and then just went to the races where it fit in.
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  But we had a really great growing up in that class, had a lot of
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  success and we, it was just a perfect in, you know, if you.
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  Getting into drag racing and you're really getting the hold of that class.
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  Like you understand the business of drag racing or like what it goes down to.
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  And I feel like a lot of the champions today and the really great
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  drivers, they got to start there.
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  So I'm really happy I got to get my start in there.
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  I feel like growing up, I can't pinpoint one specific female role model.
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  I think that there's been many of them along the way.
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  Drag racing has always had a lot of strong female drivers
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  throughout the years I grew up.
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  Not just in the classes that I've been in, but in others too.
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  You and growing up in junior drag, so we were almost 50, 50 on girls and boys.
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  So it was never really a thing that women wouldn't be there racing.
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  We had the top fuel champion, uh, Anita Meckler was running when I grew up and
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  raised other classes, and obviously that was a big inspiration and even
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  looking at a lot of the female drivers overseas, I feel like there's a lot
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  of them here in NHRA that I admired a lot when I raced over in Europe and
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  many of them for different reasons.
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  I mean, some of them I might admire because.
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  They were so good at their marketing, their social media,
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  like how they presented themselves.
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  Some of them were just badass drivers.
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  I remember I always looked up to Erika for her great reaction times
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  and her just being a really badass female in that class and dominating.
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  In a class, there haven't been a lot of women.
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  A lot of the other classes, there has been, but that was really somewhere
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  where it's like she was a pioneer.
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  in that and there's just been many of them throughout the years where I feel
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  like at the track you are constantly surrounded by strong female role
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  models and it's very empowering to see.
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  Well thank you Ida, I appreciate the compliment.
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  Yeah much like the other ladies I got my start growing up at the track from the
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  time I was a little kid probably before I could walk and then growing up watching
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  my dad race and I'm a daddy's girl.
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  So he's my hero, still is, and just wanted to follow in his footsteps.
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  He never raced professionally, just in the sportsman ranks and as a hobby.
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  It's all I ever wanted to do and I started junior drag racing when NHRA came out
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  with the junior drag racing league in 92.
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  I was eight about to turn nine and that was kind of the beginning of the end.
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  My sister's three years younger than me and when she turned
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  eight, she started as well.
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  So we toured the country driving juniors.
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  My dad sold his stuff to help us focus on what we wanted to do.
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  And we raced juniors for nine years.
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  I competed in the Lucas Oil Series for five years.
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  And this is my 22nd year in Pro Stock.
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  Like everyone else here, I dedicated my whole life to the sport.
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  And it's something that I'm extremely passionate about and love very much.
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  Work hard at it every single day.
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  I'm fortunate enough to work at the shop every day as well.
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  And it's just all hands on deck all the time to make our dreams come to fruition.
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  And that's pretty much it.
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  But as far as female role models growing up, I was a huge Shelly Anderson fan.
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  She had the Jolly Rancher sponsored back then.
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  And my sister and I were kids.
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  We were like those super annoying fans.
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  I think we stood outside of her ropes.
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  and got her autographed like four or five times a weekend.
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  So she probably got sick of seeing us around, but it's definitely cool to see
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  her out there still with her husband and her two kids are competing as well.
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  And that's really awesome.
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  But I mean, you can't deviate from the Shirley Maldoney
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  legend and, uh, Angel as well.
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  Those are the gals that I followed when I was younger and through the years.
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  became friends and allies and just been drag racing all
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  day, every day, all the time.
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  Megan, how about you?
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  Yeah, well, very similar story to all the other ladies here.
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  My dad started racing in the 70s.
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  I have no idea when my first race was as a kid, but I'm pretty sure I was
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  Still, you know, a newborn back then I got started with junior dragsters
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  when I was 10 years old, had to wait for my little sister to turn eight.
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  So that way we could get it at the same time.
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  I still remember the day we picked up those juniors.
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  I was completely obsessed.
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  So it was.
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  Two brothers that were aging out and we got everything that they had
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  cause they didn't need anything else anymore, including their fire suits.
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  That was way too big for me, but I put the whole thing on including like the
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  neck harness and everything and just would not take it off and had a very
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  successful career with junior drag racing one, two track championships there.
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  And we had.
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  Such a great community there.
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  Just like what you do was talking about.
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  It was about like 50, 50 between boys and girls that we were racing junior
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  dragsters with, and my older cousins were racing with us at the same time.
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  So we had a very good support system because my dad was still chasing.
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  NHRA in his top alcohol dragster.
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  So he missed a lot of the races that we had at our local track growing up.
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  And so it was either my mom would load us up in the dually and the trailer and take
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  us there, or my uncle or someone else's parents would have to take us until I
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  was actually old enough to drive myself.
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  And then it's so funny.
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  Cause.
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  When my sister and I were in the same class back then, which was the 13
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  to 18, I'd have her be like the very first car up in the staging lanes.
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  I'd start her junior dragster and like, you know, set her idle.
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  And then I'd run back.
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  I'd have mine up there at the front of the staging lanes.
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  And I'd wait till everybody else ran.
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  And I'd get my suit on and have someone else's parents start my junior
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  dragster, and I can go and do my run.
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  We learned at a very young age that if we wanted to do it, we had to be.
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  very dedicated.
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  We have to give it 100 percent and very similar to Maddie's story.
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  My dad made us work on the cars nights and weekends.
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  We would rather be out playing with our friends, you know, but we were
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  dedicated to drag racing and still am for me growing up quite a few role
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  models, including Erica, especially when, you know, her movie came out is right
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  when I was at that perfect age for it.
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  Also, Ashley Forrest, When she was racing in Top Alcohol Dragster,
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  we were still pretty young.
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  She was sponsored by Barbie.
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  That was at the time where my sister and I were playing with the Barbie dolls,
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  and she was the nicest person ever.
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  And like, we'll never forget this, how she treated us like
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  we were like her little sisters.
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  Even though, you know, she has her little sisters.
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  But she'd always let us come into her motorhome or her trailer, and we'd get to
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  watch movies with her between her runs.
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  Like, she just was so nice with hospitality with us and would send
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  us Barbie dolls for Christmas gifts.
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  And she'd even still send us like handwritten cards.
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  And so she made such a good impression on us of how to treat
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  other people in this sport.
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  And then also another role model that I had growing up is Diana Harker, who
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  she doesn't race anymore, but she was the first female driver on our team.
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  And it was.
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  back in like 2007 2008 when she drove for my dad.
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  She has a twin sister who actually drove for a different Top Alcohol Jaxxer team,
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  but Diana taught me so much with how to like race competitively, but then
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  also how to have your eyes set on other stuff outside of racing and so she was
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  a photographer and her twin sister was in marketing and so they were doing a
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  bunch of graphic design and websites and photography and all that stuff.
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  They had amazing branding and all that and so that's what led
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  me on to the path of wanting to.
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  Get into marketing and social media and do all that when that became big in racing.
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  So, um, which led me to something completely different than I thought.
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  Listening to your guys stories, this being the third of four in our
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  mini series here dedicated to women in motorsport for International
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  Women's Month is how similar.
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  A lot of the, what I call intergenerational racing.
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  There is across all the disciplines.
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  A lot of people are like, yeah, my dad and my uncle and my brothers and my
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  sister, and it's so family oriented, especially short track is very close
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  to you guys in that sort of way.
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  You know, everybody's hands on and this and that, but a lot of us grew up
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  around the track and some people go away from it, maybe school gets in the way.
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  They mature out of it somehow.
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  It's just not interesting anymore.
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  And I've always wondered, especially drag racing, how did you stay committed?
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  What kept.
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  you there what makes drag racing so kind of sticky to use a pun what was that
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  for you that kept you racing after all these years from coming up as a little
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  kid you can go you know well for me i was actually out of it for a few years
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  i mean i've always known i wanted to race like i said i started racing when
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  i was eight when 16, I was able to get my license in super comp dragster.
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  Always had my eyes set on top fuel.
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  That had been, you know, my goal since I can't even remember.
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  I remember seeing like a video of me recently when I did a TV
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  in June when I was like eight and they asked, so what's your plan?
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  And I'm like, I'm going to raise top fuel when I'm 18 and then I get to 18.
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  And I realized like, that's not that easy.
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  That's not really how it happens, but obviously the passion for
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  it and the will to do that had been there from a very young age,
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  but I did not have the finances.
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  to do it on my own and obviously my parents paid for my racing
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  when I raced junior dragsters.
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  They obviously owed everything and we went to the races where
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  my dad was working basically, and I got to race at the same time.
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  But they were also very open with the fact that when I graduate out of
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  junior dragster, I'm on my own feet.
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  Racing wise, obviously they've always helped and supported me.
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  Just financially, like it's more been the support system that
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  I've had around for other things.
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  But when I turned 16 and I was in school, I did not have the
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  money to buy anything myself.
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  So for Dan, I got my supercomp license and I was actually out of it for quite
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  a few years before I found my way back.
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  In 2017 when I started racing bikes and the main reason I started racing bikes
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  was because it was cheaper Like it's so much cheaper racing a motorcycle.
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  It is to race something on four wheels Everything is cheaper for part, you
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  know They just to buy it the time it takes to work on it can many times
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  be a little less not not a whole lot less It's still a lot of work on that.
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  But just getting to and from the track you can easily Pair up and have two
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  bikes in a van and then, you know, have a mattress and sleep in the van,
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  like you can do for a really low cost.
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  And this class was still a pro class.
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  So in us pro stock bike is a pro class, but over in Europe, the
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  class that I raised, that was super street bike was also a pro class.
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  So that meant I could do it at a really high level.
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  With getting my sponsors, the exposure and doing everything that I would do in
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  a pro class, but for a lot less money.
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  But the main reason I did that was just because that passion was there.
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  Like even for me being away from the track, all I could
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  think about was how to get back.
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  Like, how could I find the money to get in there?
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  I wouldn't say that I had an easy.
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  You know, hey, here's a bigger car.
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  Here's, you know, you know, you graduate from one class and you have the
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  opportunity to jump into something else.
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  Like I had to actively take time away from the track to find the
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  money to be able to get back.
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  And that was obviously money from working, but also from sponsorship and
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  like trying just to get all of that.
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  Get it to get back.
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  And that's where the passion comes in.
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  I feel like there's a lot of juniors that raise maybe because you have the
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  opportunity, same way that we all did.
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  We had the opportunity there with our parents supporting us to do that on the
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  track, but a lot of the times you see a big percentage of them growing out of it.
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  You know, you do it for a few years, but maybe something else comes in.
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  You have other sports or your other hobbies or life just happens.
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  But I think for us that sits here, I believe that it's the passion.
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  I guess that everybody else here has that same feeling that you
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  don't want to do anything else.
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  This is what takes up all your life.
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  Just like Erica, I'm also in the shop every day working with
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  my team to make everything.
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  This takes up everything.
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  And I think if you don't have that passion and that feeling for it, you will have
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  a hard time getting to this top level.
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  Cause it will really take everything to be able to get.
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  And I think either you kind of have that or you don't.
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  I hear a lot of the times where other people talk about, I want to
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  race cause I want to be a strong female role model, or I want to
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  raise cause I want to inspire others.
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  I want to race because I want to be here like they're not
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  doing this for anybody else.
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  This is for me and for what we're doing with our team.
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  And if that inspires others, absolutely.
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  I'm happy for that, but I'm not doing it for anybody else, but
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  for the fact that I love it.
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  And I think that's what drives me and makes me be able to stay in it.
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  You know?
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  Yeah.
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  Very well said.
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  I have the passion.
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  I love to win plain and simple.
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  I hate losing.
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  When I lose, it tears me up.
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  I'll analyze it and be like, where exactly did I go wrong?
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  And how can we fix that so it doesn't happen again?
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  Like with juniors, when I first transitioned to that older age group
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  and had a faster car, I red lit almost every single race that first year.
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  It was like the worst year I've ever had, but I didn't quit.
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  Totally could have and probably wanted to like every weekend, but I knew
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  that like this was what I wanted to do, like in my bones and like I had
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  to get better and I wanted to win.
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  My dad always.
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  taught us whatever we do, we have to give it a hundred percent.
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  We can't half ass anything.
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  He always says, you're only as strong as your weakest link.
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  And so if the driver's your weakest link on your team, then like,
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  you're never going to win a race.
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  So he is always training us be better, be faster, be stronger, whatever we could do
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  to have that leg up on our competition.
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  And so, for me, mental, physical strength, that's so huge.
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  I feel like that's what helped me when I did finally go pro
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  in Top Out College Axter.
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  Like, I had so much success early on and within a very short time frame, because
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  I was very well prepared for that.
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  But I also put in the Hours and the years to get to that point.
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  Whereas like when you see kids that their parents just give them
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  everything they want, they don't have to actually work for it.
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  You can completely tell it's not what they actually want to do.
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  Like they're just there because mom and dad want them to be there or
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  they think that's what they want to do, or they don't want to get a job.
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  So they decided to become race car drivers or they just want to get famous.
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  And with us having our rental car program, we see that all the
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  time and you can completely tell.
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  Who actually came up and grew up and worked for it versus
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  those that it was just given to?
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  We say that we all have a disease over here.
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  Like, we just are absolutely obsessed with drag racing.
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  Sometimes my mom sees both sides of it.
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  You know, she didn't grow up as a drag racer.
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  She loves it and she comes to every single race.
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  She's never missed a race.
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  But you can see the other side of life too, the normal people's side of life.
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  The side of life that it's like, Hey, do you like want to go hang
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  out with your friends on a Saturday instead of go to the race car shop?
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  I was never forced to learn how to race.
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  It was something that was an option if I wanted to.
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  But if I wanted to, I was going to put in the work.
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  It was never like, Oh, here's your race car.
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  And you can go do whatever you want on the weekends.
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  And that'll work on it.
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  My parents always taught us how to work on the cars.
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  We just loved it.
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  My sister and I, we both love the mechanical side of the race car.
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  In 2020, COVID messed up a lot of things, but it changed my sister and
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  my life for the best way possible.
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  When school went online, we were like, well, shoot, we're at home.
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  So let's go racing with dad.
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  So we actually became the full time crew with my dad's team.
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  And it was the first year in 2020 that my dad ever won a world championship.
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  And it was so Special to do it as a family.
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  We race with my grandma, my grandpa, my dad, my mom, me and my sister.
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  And that's our whole team.
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  Everybody's Gordon drag racing for our family has truly brought us so close.
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  So it's not only something we love to do.
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  We not only love to win, we love to work on the race car, but
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  we get to do it as a family.
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  And it's just so.
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  Special.
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  It's just the most amazing thing.
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  And before we make a run, my sister, my dad fired the race car.
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  My mom backs me up.
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  My grandpa gives me the biggest fist bump ever before I go into the lights.
• 17:54
  And it's my life.
• 17:55
  It's my world.
• 17:56
  It's everything to me.
• 17:57
  It's literally everything I do.
• 17:59
  I don't know what I would do without drag racing, but it's my world.
• 18:02
  That's what I love.
• 18:02
  I feel like the four of us are pretty similar in a lot of ways.
• 18:06
  You know, starting off in Junior Dragsters as a kid and having really big dreams
• 18:10
  and feel like you have huge footsteps to follow in part of the magic of being a kid
• 18:14
  is actually believing that it can happen.
• 18:17
  And I, and we on this call have been really lucky to
• 18:20
  see it all come to fruition.
• 18:22
  And it's.
• 18:23
  I want to focus on like they did about the hard work and the effort
• 18:26
  and the sacrifice that it takes to get to where you're going.
• 18:30
  And Maddie, you talked about a normal life.
• 18:32
  What is a normal life?
• 18:33
  I don't really know.
• 18:35
  I don't think many of us do.
• 18:36
  I mean, through junior high and high school, I played
• 18:39
  stick and ball sports as well.
• 18:40
  I felt like I was pretty well rounded.
• 18:42
  But when it came time to Choosing between a volleyball tournament or a track
• 18:47
  meet or a golf tournament, you know, I always picked drag racing and eventually
• 18:52
  everything in my life went to the wayside and it's hard to be a good friend When
• 18:57
  you can't attend weddings and baby showers and all the things that are important
• 19:01
  to other people and eventually you stop getting invited So is all encompassing.
• 19:05
  It just, it swallows you up.
• 19:07
  And I think like the best advice that I have heard and that I try to give is like,
• 19:11
  make sure that it's a true desire of your heart, because if it is not something
• 19:16
  that you just kind of think you want to do, you should probably not do it.
• 19:19
  It takes a lot of time and effort.
• 19:21
  Talk about hours and years and decades.
• 19:23
  It's everything.
• 19:24
  And to be able to drive is one thing, but to be really great at it is another.
• 19:28
  And it takes a whole nother level of commitment.
• 19:31
  It's definitely tough, but I think what made me stick was just my
• 19:35
  family's love for the sport and Maddie being left to talk her saying,
• 19:39
  like, it's a whole family deal.
• 19:41
  And that's what makes everything about it so special is you get to
• 19:43
  do what you love for a living with the people that you love most in the
• 19:46
  world and to be great at something.
• 19:48
  I think you have to kind of have that.
• 19:50
  positive mental attitude.
• 19:51
  And Megan talked about physical and mental toughness and all of these things apply.
• 19:56
  So I think everyone has great stories and things to offer.
• 19:59
  But the newer generation of drivers and kids, I feel like in any aspect
• 20:04
  of life, everybody's about instant gratification and they want the
• 20:07
  results now and they don't realize what it actually takes to get there.
• 20:11
  And seeing the dynamic of Pro stock change over the years.
• 20:15
  When I first started, it was kind of like the good old boys country club.
• 20:18
  I competed with a bunch of middle aged men and I was 19 years old.
• 20:22
  So I can't even imagine what they thought about me coming into it, but it's changed.
• 20:26
  And now I'm one of the ones that's been in the class for a really long time.
• 20:30
  And you have all these kids coming in who their first experience with it is
• 20:34
  they get to get in state of the art equipment with really great horsepower
• 20:37
  and run at the front of the packs.
• 20:39
  That instant gratification thing, like is false hope in a sense that the results
• 20:43
  are just going to come immediately, seven years and seven final rounds
• 20:47
  before I finally got my first one in pro stocks, but it's awesome that
• 20:50
  we're able to give these people like with our team at elite motorsports.
• 20:54
  We have a bring your helmet and drive program.
• 20:56
  Obviously you have to pay for it, but it opens the door for
• 21:00
  opportunities like that, that I wish were around when I was a teenager.
• 21:03
  It's really cool to see how it's evolved.
• 21:05
  You know, what made it stick for me was just having that burning in my
• 21:08
  gut for drag racing and wanting to do whatever it took to make it work.
• 21:12
  You know, going to college, I picked my electives based around
• 21:15
  drag racing and intake science.
• 21:16
  I took meteorology because weather plays a part in drag racing or, or racing.
• 21:21
  I was a marketing and business management major because if I wasn't
• 21:25
  drag racing, I was going to find a way to put the money together, the
• 21:27
  marketing programs to make it happen if it wasn't for me, for someone else.
• 21:31
  So it's always been racing.
• 21:32
  And I guess the one word answer for that would just be passion.
• 21:36
  Erica, and to all of our panelists, I could listen to y'all talk about
• 21:40
  your passion and your stories.
• 21:42
  All night long, but for me, my background in terms of understanding the history
• 21:47
  of motorsport was more road racing, so I'm really fascinated by drag racing.
• 21:52
  And what I want to know, since I have y'all on the horn right
• 21:54
  now, what does it feel like?
• 21:56
  You're talking about sort of like the iceberg, like all of this work, all
• 22:00
  of this preparation goes into that like one moment there when you're in
• 22:04
  the seat, and it's over like that.
• 22:06
  I would find it hard to deal with, like, I would find it hard to deal
• 22:09
  with the fact that, like, my victory was decided like this and not over
• 22:13
  the course of, say, a hundred laps.
• 22:15
  Could you walk me through what it's like being in the seat?
• 22:18
  It takes so much out of you that, for me, like, it's five and a half
• 22:21
  seconds is my pass and then I'm done, that, like, it's physically, like,
• 22:25
  so demanding, not, like, endurance wise, but, like, it's like a sprint.
• 22:28
  And like by the time I'm done with that, like five and a half seconds
• 22:32
  and I'm getting out of the car, you're trying to like catch your breath.
• 22:35
  It's so much like G force and like the acceleration.
• 22:38
  And then the deceleration when your parachutes come out, like for us, it was
• 22:42
  like positive three G's off the starting line and then negative three G's when
• 22:46
  the parachutes come out within five and a half seconds at 270, 80 miles per
• 22:52
  hour, like on your body, it takes a toll.
• 22:54
  And so that's why, like I was saying, like physical fitness is important.
• 22:57
  But like mental fitness is too, because you've got to like mentally prepare,
• 23:02
  like say, like you won that round, you've got to do it all over again and
• 23:05
  get ready for that next competition.
• 23:07
  And just try to keep that momentum going with your adrenaline.
• 23:11
  So yeah, it's, it's very different.
• 23:14
  It's a short amount of time, but it's just a sprint, not a marathon.
• 23:18
  I do definitely agree that mental and physical fitness is very important.
• 23:21
  Your mental game can make or break you as a driver because everything
• 23:25
  literally happens so quickly.
• 23:27
  If you're down on yourself, you're going to have a bad light or you're
• 23:29
  going to shift wrong or something like that if you're having all these
• 23:32
  negative thoughts and so mental fitness is so important and physical fitness
• 23:36
  is really important as well and.
• 23:38
  You know, we have a team of six people, so I do the clutch in between rounds.
• 23:41
  And if we heard a motor or something like that, I go from clutch and I jump
• 23:44
  on the motor and I'm helping tear it down or take the blower off or go through
• 23:48
  the blower, whatever needs to be done.
• 23:49
  You know, last year was my first year driving the funny car.
• 23:52
  And it was really tough when we were at our first race.
• 23:55
  Last year, we went to the final round, which was absolutely amazing.
• 23:57
  And before that final round, I was so beat and I was torquing the clutch.
• 24:01
  I was putting the last nut on.
• 24:03
  The wrench slipped off.
• 24:04
  I literally flew backwards, landed in between the tables, hit
• 24:07
  both of my wrists on the tables.
• 24:09
  And I was like, it was just so much because I was just so tired.
• 24:14
  I got through it.
• 24:14
  Everything is fine.
• 24:15
  But coming this season, I started going to the gym, working on
• 24:18
  physical fitness so I can be up to par throughout the whole weekend.
• 24:21
  Not just when I'm fresh at the beginning of the weekend.
• 24:23
  But as far as going through a run.
• 24:25
  I always say the calm before the storm.
• 24:27
  When you're just sitting there, the cars in front of you
• 24:29
  have gone down the racetrack.
• 24:30
  It's like silent and you're just waiting for them to tell you to fire it up.
• 24:34
  It's like, I swear you can hear my heartbeat.
• 24:36
  Like it's so aggressive.
• 24:38
  For me, I drove a funny car.
• 24:40
  So the motor sits right in front of me.
• 24:41
  I can see my dad and my sister fired up.
• 24:43
  And as soon as the motor fires up, it's just business.
• 24:46
  Like it just, all the nerves really go away.
• 24:48
  And especially when they lower the body down, it's weird,
• 24:50
  but it gets like Calming.
• 24:51
  It's kind of like a calm feeling when they lower the body down and
• 24:54
  it just kind of turns into business.
• 24:56
  You just got to do what you got to do.
• 24:57
  And I guess you just don't want to get nervous anymore.
• 24:59
  At least I don't.
• 25:00
  Definitely extremely a lot of G forces and just like what you fiend for every day.
• 25:04
  What about you, Eric?
• 25:05
  What about bad lights?
• 25:07
  What does that mean?
• 25:08
  I hate them, but doing this for as long as, as we have, or I have, there are
• 25:13
  way more values than there are peaks.
• 25:15
  And you just have to try to keep a positive mental attitude about it.
• 25:18
  Like Maddie said, if you get down on yourself or if you have a negative
• 25:22
  attitude, it shows on your report card.
• 25:25
  Drag Race is an instant report card.
• 25:27
  You get to see how great you did or how bad you screwed up in a matter of seconds.
• 25:31
  And at Elite, we always say we win races before we leave the shop.
• 25:34
  And it's a lot of hard work and effort, but being prepared when you're
• 25:37
  out in the field, having everything in order for when something does
• 25:41
  go wrong and you have to thrash and swing engines and change things and.
• 25:45
  Being a driver is one part of it, but also working on the car, you
• 25:48
  know, adds another aspect to it.
• 25:50
  And that's something that I enjoy.
• 25:52
  I feel like working on the car makes me a better driver,
• 25:54
  understanding everything that goes on.
• 25:56
  And, you know, after I serviced the engine in between runs, I go up and
• 25:59
  meet with my crew chiefs and we go over the data, so it's like super
• 26:03
  mentally and physically demanding.
• 26:05
  And then like the fun part of it, right.
• 26:06
  Is when they shut the door and you hit the starter button and everything goes calm,
• 26:10
  like Maddie said, the nerves go away.
• 26:12
  And like, that's my.
• 26:15
  My happy place.
• 26:16
  Like I love that.
• 26:16
  I love when they shut the doors and the way of the world's on my
• 26:19
  shoulders, everything that we've done collectively as a team, we've
• 26:22
  done to the best of our ability, and now it's time for us to go shine.
• 26:25
  And I love that part of it, but the adrenaline rush is super intense.
• 26:29
  You know, the G forces driving a pro stock car.
• 26:32
  We leave with it.
• 26:33
  And we have a five speed Liberty.
• 26:34
  So we're in high gear by half track, which is just at four seconds into the run.
• 26:38
  So everything happens really fast, but you have to perform as
• 26:42
  perfectly as possible because you mentioned a hundred laps, right?
• 26:45
  You don't have another turn to make up a mistake.
• 26:47
  You have to execute as perfectly as possible.
• 26:50
  We win and lose races by thousands of a second when the weekend's over, or
• 26:54
  when you either win the race or you're eliminated, that adrenaline crash is
• 26:59
  super intense and it's not something that I really understood before I
• 27:02
  went through it and was super hands on with the pro stock operations.
• 27:06
  Just a quick story.
• 27:07
  Like going back to our first world championship in 2014, we skipped two
• 27:11
  races cause we didn't have the funding throughout the summer, but we led the.
• 27:15
  the entire year.
• 27:16
  We got to Brainerd, we had a transmission failure first round and
• 27:19
  lost and we lost the points lead.
• 27:21
  From that point on the rest of the season, which is now the countdown, we had to
• 27:25
  battle and it came down to the final round of the final race of the year between
• 27:29
  myself and Jason Lyon, winner take all.
• 27:31
  And every single round he ran in front of me, Maddie talked about
• 27:35
  like how quiet and calm it was when the race was over in front of you
• 27:38
  and everything that's happening.
• 27:39
  Will you watch him turn on the wind light?
• 27:41
  Well, now in order to have a chance at winning the world championship,
• 27:43
  I have to turn on the wind light and it went tip for tap all day long.
• 27:46
  We ended up winning the race and winning the championship.
• 27:49
  But when we got done with the winner's circle, I remember laying in the floor
• 27:53
  of the trailer and I'm like, I don't even have the energy to take my shoes off.
• 27:56
  Uh, the adrenaline crash is definitely, definitely real, but it's intense.
• 28:00
  And that's the fun part.
• 28:01
  Like when you hit the starter button or when somebody fires your car, that's
• 28:05
  your and your team's time to shine.
• 28:07
  And it is like, nothing replaces the feeling of turning on the wind light
• 28:10
  at about 4 30 on Sunday afternoon.
• 28:12
  Ida, I wanted to ask this.
• 28:14
  I'm so fascinated by, it sounds like all the adrenaline of racing that
• 28:18
  might be spread out over many laps is compressed into just a few seconds.
• 28:22
  And so the highs are even higher and the lows are even lower.
• 28:25
  Has that been your experience too?
• 28:27
  That's what it's sounding like from the other panelists.
• 28:29
  Everything that the others say is so true.
• 28:31
  I mean, everything from, we were very much chasing perfection in drag racing.
• 28:34
  Just like Erica mentioned, you don't have a second lap to make up for a mistake.
• 28:38
  You can't say, ah, I didn't do that.
• 28:39
  Perfectly.
• 28:40
  I'll make up for it in the other 30 rounds or whatever it might be.
• 28:43
  We don't have that chance.
• 28:44
  So if we don't execute perfectly, we're usually out.
• 28:47
  If we don't get a lucky strike every now and then, and they don't come around
• 28:51
  that often, then we are out if we make a mistake, it's such a teamwork, everything
• 28:55
  we do in the car and obviously how the car is performing, how the team.
• 28:58
  Like, all these other girls, I'm very hands on with the car
• 29:01
  when we are in between runs.
• 29:02
  The guys are working on the engine, but I'm mixing my own fuel, I'm
• 29:05
  fueling the car, I'm doing my shoots.
• 29:07
  Like, all of this takes time, and there's no more extra time in between runs.
• 29:11
  Like, you need to hustle as soon as you get back in the pit.
• 29:14
  There is a big drop of energy, cause You get back in the pit, you
• 29:17
  know, you got to get your fuel on.
• 29:19
  You got to get it in the car.
• 29:19
  You got to get your shoots in.
• 29:20
  You got to warm up and off the warmup.
• 29:22
  You need to get more fuel in the car and mix more fuel and go put your
• 29:25
  suit on and head down to the lineup.
• 29:26
  It's not the actual run.
• 29:28
  I mean, I run about 3.
• 29:30
  7 seconds.
• 29:31
  That's not what wears you out.
• 29:32
  What wears you out is actually everything around and everything that happens
• 29:36
  like throughout the whole race weekend.
• 29:38
  And also just like Erica said, we win races from what we do in the shop.
• 29:41
  So there's so much.
• 29:42
  Work that has been put in prior to getting there, which means that
• 29:46
  there's such a long build up until we actually get to this point.
• 29:49
  And I think that that's what makes these high and low so
• 29:53
  much extra high or extra low.
• 29:55
  For me personally, there is a big toll on your body, obviously.
• 29:58
  I experience around positive 6G and about negative 6G when we pull the parachute.
• 30:01
  So it's a big variation there.
• 30:03
  It's about 330 plus miles per hour in 3.
• 30:06
  7 seconds.
• 30:07
  So obviously it takes a toll on your body.
• 30:09
  But when we talk about adrenaline rushes, It's not driving the car
• 30:12
  that gives me the adrenaline rush.
• 30:14
  For me, if we do qualifying, like if you don't qualify, you won't make the show.
• 30:18
  If it's just a normal qualifying session, I don't get any adrenaline rushes.
• 30:21
  My adrenaline rushes comes from winning.
• 30:23
  If I turn the wind light on, my adrenaline rush.
• 30:26
  You can almost get like a negative adrenaline rush if you
• 30:28
  just get so mad at yourself.
• 30:29
  Usually that's, you know, my experience.
• 30:31
  But those big adrenaline rushes, those really high peaks.
• 30:34
  Those are when you win.
• 30:34
  And I think that's why you're so mentally drained after a weekend.
• 30:38
  Cause obviously if you lose, you go into your mode of trying to analyze.
• 30:40
  Why did we lose?
• 30:41
  We do not want to do that again.
• 30:42
  And you go through all that, but when you win, even like again, okay.
• 30:44
  Explained when you go through a long race week and it has been so much
• 30:47
  pressure on there's so long time and you turn those wind lights on and
• 30:50
  you get adrenaline, but you need to get back in your mode of blocking
• 30:53
  everything out and be in race mode.
• 30:55
  By the end of the day, there's nothing left.
• 30:57
  Like you don't have any more energy source tap off.
• 30:59
  You're just drained.
• 31:00
  And I felt like from the beginning, when I'm in good physical shape and
• 31:03
  like I eat well, sleep well, and all that, the recovery period is
• 31:06
  a little bit easier the day after.
• 31:09
  It's still as hard when you come to the races and you will still get
• 31:12
  that feeling by the end of race day.
• 31:13
  But I feel like when I'm in a really good shape, I can recover better the day after.
• 31:17
  I remember my first races.
• 31:19
  It was right around COVID and I had been sick and I was just not feeling it.
• 31:23
  We won a race and the day after I felt like I had been hit by a train, but like
• 31:26
  someone ran me over, like I was just so worn out and it wasn't 'cause that
• 31:30
  race was anything extra than the others.
• 31:32
  It was just my body.
• 31:34
  I don't think you could take those high and lows going back
• 31:36
  and forth for a full race day and a full race weekend basically.
• 31:39
  This is incredible.
• 31:40
  This is giving me this window onto a discipline that I know some about.
• 31:44
  I saw that incredible documentary about Joshua Boey and I got to hear her talk.
• 31:49
  Which what a trip she is like a full force of life even now, but I'm also
• 31:55
  sort of curious about the business of racing, but if there were an aspect of
• 31:59
  your career right now that you could either get rid of magically with a wave
• 32:03
  of a wand or delegate to somebody else.
• 32:05
  It's costing you nothing.
• 32:07
  What would it be?
• 32:07
  I would never leave taking care of my sponsors because
• 32:10
  that's one of my highlights.
• 32:10
  I love taking care of my sponsors and you know, everything that
• 32:14
  we do to take care of them.
• 32:15
  But the pressure of finding money, like right now I'm in a situation
• 32:19
  where I do not have a full schedule.
• 32:21
  I have a 10 race schedule and I am not fully funded.
• 32:24
  I do not come from money.
• 32:25
  I don't have any money myself to tap into and I am really working to make
• 32:30
  this full season come together and be able to chase the championship.
• 32:33
  This pressure of actually finding the sponsors is my hardest point.
• 32:37
  I feel like taking care of them, even closing the deals, having
• 32:41
  those meetings, I love it.
• 32:43
  But getting myself in the room, it's a hustle.
• 32:45
  And I'm guessing that other people might have felt this too, but.
• 32:49
  I am not an American.
• 32:50
  I do not have any contact net over here in us.
• 32:53
  I don't have people.
• 32:54
  I know that I could call that either has money or knows who has money.
• 32:57
  So pitching myself is what I hate the most when I'm actually in the room and I
• 33:01
  can explain what we can do for sponsors.
• 33:03
  I know we have so much return on investment to offer, and I have
• 33:07
  closed a lot of business to business deals where we have been able to,
• 33:10
  you know, help sponsors set up global networks to sell their products or.
• 33:15
  Anything from a marketing standpoint, when it comes to social media or in
• 33:19
  venue, or even doing, you know, a lot of events, whatever it might be, but
• 33:22
  just that business to business side is something I feel like I'm really good
• 33:25
  at, but opening that door for myself, basically calling someone and, you know,
• 33:30
  pitching why they should go for me.
• 33:33
  That is why I find it's the absolute hardest.
• 33:35
  What about the rest of our panelists?
• 33:36
  Are you all in the same boat?
• 33:38
  Yeah, for me, it would also be setting up the pits because.
• 33:41
  I hate doing that.
• 33:42
  It's just so repetitive.
• 33:44
  Do the same thing every weekend.
• 33:46
  I don't miss having to do that part.
• 33:48
  No, I have been very fortunate, you know, in our, in our racing program,
• 33:52
  my grandparents built a very successful cabinet company in our hometown and my
• 33:56
  dad runs it and I actually worked there.
• 33:58
  I do sales there.
• 33:59
  I've been very, very fortunate that, you know, I haven't had to go out
• 34:03
  and find money for our operation.
• 34:05
  You know, I have so much respect for EDA and everybody out there who has had to go
• 34:10
  through that because That is really tough and hard and very difficult to do that.
• 34:15
  But yeah, so I'm very fortunate in that aspect.
• 34:17
  But as far as things I would take away, I honestly can't think of
• 34:21
  anything off the top of my head.
• 34:22
  I love the mechanic side of it.
• 34:24
  You know, I can see if somebody who didn't love the mechanic side
• 34:27
  of it, they would hate what I do.
• 34:29
  That's like, all we do are the five seconds of race down the racetrack.
• 34:33
  But gosh, I just.
• 34:34
  I love this sport.
• 34:35
  Probably like what Erica said, you basically don't have a home life.
• 34:38
  I mean, if you commit yourself to drag racing, you literally
• 34:40
  don't have a life at home.
• 34:41
  You know, it's hard to keep friends because you're just never there.
• 34:44
  You can't be a good friend because you're never home.
• 34:46
  So, you know what, I guess that would be my take.
• 34:48
  It'd be easier to have more friends or whatever, but you know,
• 34:50
  it just comes with the sport.
• 34:51
  It comes with the category.
• 34:52
  It comes with Racing.
• 34:53
  So this is what it is.
• 34:54
  And you got to take the goods with the bads.
• 34:56
  I guess.
• 34:56
  The selling your, yourself thing.
• 34:58
  I'll agree with Eda there.
• 35:00
  It's extremely uncomfortable for as long as I've been racing, we've had
• 35:04
  to dig and find the funding to do it.
• 35:06
  Last year, when Jay, she came on board with us.
• 35:09
  In addition to Melling and some other great partners that we have, it's the
• 35:12
  first couple of years that we've been fully funded on my car, we operate
• 35:16
  nine pro stock teams out of our shop and not all of them are funded.
• 35:19
  So it's a continuous effort on trying to find the money.
• 35:23
  And the day of sponsorship is completely over.
• 35:26
  In my opinion, it's, I don't say it's sponsorship.
• 35:28
  I say partnership because you end up going to work for these people.
• 35:31
  And the majority of the decals on my car are business to business deals.
• 35:35
  So.
• 35:35
  Ultimately, we end up going to work for them and giving them a return
• 35:39
  on their investment to make sure that they stay on board with us.
• 35:42
  It's like having like a ton of full time jobs.
• 35:44
  I can't really think of something that I wish to get rid of them.
• 35:48
  Like the negative crap on social media.
• 35:51
  Like I wish that I could pay someone to do all that for me because I hate it.
• 35:56
  And I want, like, I come from a family, like you don't say nasty things.
• 36:00
  To people like you didn't learn that in Sunday school, so you're not gonna treat
• 36:03
  others the way you don't wanna be treated.
• 36:05
  I can't fathom telling a stranger something awful about their self,
• 36:09
  whether it be the way they look or how much they weigh, or, you know, a
• 36:13
  lot of times it's not even focusing on your driving ability or lack thereof.
• 36:17
  It's something more personal.
• 36:18
  And so I guess I don't understand that aspect of it, and I never will.
• 36:22
  I would rather knock their teeth out than to have an argument
• 36:26
  on a keyboard with someone.
• 36:27
  So if I could get rid of one thing, it would be to delegate that to someone else.
• 36:31
  But everything else, again, I like being hands on and working on the car
• 36:34
  and, you know, working hand in hand with our partners and having them
• 36:38
  in their gaps out at the racetrack.
• 36:40
  Very unique atmosphere to do business in a less traditional way to do business.
• 36:43
  And I really liked that aspect of it.
• 36:45
  So nothing, nothing bad except for the negative haters on the, on
• 36:50
  the interweb haters to the left.
• 36:51
  As we were talking about the sponsors and things like that, like EDA and Erica
• 36:55
  were talking about like selling yourself and having to go in front of doing your
• 36:58
  meetings, responding, things like that.
• 37:00
  I have been very fortunate that I haven't had to do that yet.
• 37:03
  But when we were basically just fully funded by my grandparents
• 37:07
  company, we weren't able to really run for a world championship.
• 37:10
  But when Beta came on board and Lucas Oil and GK, everybody
• 37:13
  came on big with us in 2020.
• 37:15
  That is when we won our first world championship and we were able to get
• 37:18
  the best of the best parts and the best.
• 37:20
  equipment and all that kind of stuff and run all the races
• 37:23
  for a world championship.
• 37:25
  So although I haven't had to do a lot of hard work like you guys do
• 37:29
  with that aspect of things, we have been really, really fortunate to
• 37:32
  have amazing partners who have truly stepped up our program to where we
• 37:37
  are a world championship caliber car.
• 37:38
  Here's what I'm fascinated by drag racing and its sanctioning body.
• 37:43
  We're looking at a sport that has a lot of gender parity when in wider motor
• 37:47
  sports, we're not seeing the same thing.
• 37:49
  And to me, I'm sure you all have friends who are driving in other
• 37:52
  disciplines, or you're a fan of other disciplines in motorsport.
• 37:54
  So what is it that drag is doing right that other disciplines could learn from?
• 37:59
  I think NHRA offers a really great platform to kind of stair step your way to
• 38:04
  the top, starting off with the Junior Drag Racing League and Our entire sportsman
• 38:07
  organization, you can drive something as slow as a super street or a stalker and
• 38:12
  go 10, 11, 12 seconds at barely a hundred miles per hour, or, you know, all the way
• 38:17
  up through alcohol, dragster and funny car who are five seconds at 280 miles an hour.
• 38:22
  So there's like an array of classes that you can choose from, including
• 38:25
  bringing your own street car.
• 38:26
  So I think the platform is there to be able to stair step in
• 38:30
  the diversity in NHRA is not.
• 38:32
  Something that I feel like we need to work on because it's super natural there.
• 38:35
  It's again, family oriented and a lot of people that raise their dads and
• 38:39
  grandparents have raised, and it's a generational hobby and lifestyles.
• 38:44
  I love that part about NHRA drag racing.
• 38:46
  You know, it's something that they want to talk about in NAVCAR and.
• 38:50
  all of the other roundy round classes that are out there that, you know, I
• 38:54
  went to college with a girl that was in NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program,
• 38:57
  and that's not something NHRA has ever had or that we've been a part of.
• 39:01
  I'm thankful for that aspect of it because it's just, it's super natural
• 39:04
  because the platform it provides.
• 39:05
  Too, it's never been a thing.
• 39:07
  Like, growing up, just like Megan said too, like, even both
• 39:09
  here and over in Europe, we were about 50 50 girls and boys.
• 39:12
  There was never anyone that said, hey, you gotta raise a girl.
• 39:15
  Like, it was very common to raise a girl.
• 39:17
  It was very common to have girls around.
• 39:18
  In the pit, both from lower to higher classes.
• 39:21
  So it's like, we never really made a deal out of it.
• 39:23
  Like it's always just been that way.
• 39:25
  I have seen other sports where I've been involved in other motor sports
• 39:29
  where you separated girls from boys at an early age until you turned a certain
• 39:33
  age and then you were supposed to like integrate the girls and the boys together.
• 39:37
  And that could cause some problems.
• 39:38
  Cause all of a sudden it was like, Hey, we don't want to race with
• 39:40
  the girls or whatever it was be, but we've never had that problem.
• 39:43
  It's never been something that anybody would ever question.
• 39:46
  And I think that that's something that they've done really well.
• 39:48
  Like it's just always felt very natural.
• 39:50
  I think that's definitely something that helps.
• 39:52
  And also with drag racing, girls don't just participate.
• 39:55
  We're dominating, setting records, winning championships.
• 39:58
  We're really here being great at what we do.
• 40:00
  And I think that that's a big difference too, because a lot of the times I see.
• 40:04
  Other sports or other multi sport disciplines highlighting that they
• 40:08
  have a girl in the start field.
• 40:09
  And I'm like, you know, we have that all the time, but we have girls out
• 40:12
  here that are really, really racing the bar with what we're doing.
• 40:16
  Having all the different categories is just awesome.
• 40:19
  You know, you don't just have the top, like NASC, it's just like.
• 40:22
  Only 30 people will get there.
• 40:23
  Like there's a lot more people who want to be involved in it than just the, who
• 40:26
  is at the very top, but all the different variety of classes that you have, I feel
• 40:30
  like it just makes it so welcoming for everybody from somebody who just wants
• 40:33
  to literally bring their Kia out to the racetrack, like they can race and race for
• 40:38
  a win in the wind light and get that same adrenaline, whether you're racing 20 miles
• 40:42
  an hour or 300 miles an hour, you can still turn out on that one line and still.
• 40:47
  Get that adrenaline rush that we all feed for.
• 40:49
  I mean, we all shared it in our stories.
• 40:51
  We're all second or third generation racers.
• 40:53
  So we had the members that were there to support us.
• 40:57
  And like one thing with my dad is he had two daughters, you
• 41:01
  know, he always wanted a son.
• 41:02
  He didn't get a son.
• 41:03
  He didn't treat us any different because of our gender.
• 41:05
  And I think other people saw that and didn't discredit us.
• 41:10
  Because we were girls, that's a really interesting point you make there, Megan,
• 41:13
  because I was thinking about this as disciplines go, drag racing has the
• 41:17
  most, as Lauren put a gender parody.
• 41:20
  And then probably behind that is going to be some of, as Erica said, the roundy
• 41:23
  round or the short tracks and that kind of thing, and then it starts to diminish as
• 41:28
  you go further and further into sports car and endurance racing and things like that.
• 41:32
  And I think about this a lot because I have two daughters, right?
• 41:34
  And they've been obviously biased by my background coming from
• 41:38
  sports car and endurance and road racing and stuff like that.
• 41:40
  But if my eldest, who's almost 11 came up to you and said, any one of you and
• 41:45
  said, Hey, I'm interested in racing, but.
• 41:47
  Why drag racing?
• 41:48
  Why should I do this versus something else?
• 41:50
  What would you say to her?
• 41:51
  You know, I get this question a lot, whether it's like at the
• 41:54
  tracker in DMS on social media.
• 41:56
  And like the easiest way to get started is just to go to a race and check it out.
• 42:02
  Gets to know the people that run the track, could talk to the track operator
• 42:08
  or manager, or like the announcer.
• 42:11
  You know, they'll point you in the right direction of, Oh, you should
• 42:13
  go talk to this team or this driver.
• 42:16
  You know, someone that could relate to you.
• 42:18
  Drag racing is very easy to get into.
• 42:19
  You don't have to spend a lot of money.
• 42:21
  Like Maddie said, you can just have your daily driver, your Kia and tracks also
• 42:25
  offer test sessions, usually on like.
• 42:27
  Friday nights where it's just open to anybody.
• 42:29
  There's no classes, literally anybody with a car or a bike can
• 42:33
  go make passes down the drag strip.
• 42:35
  So I would go to the track, get to know the people there and do
• 42:38
  a test session with your daily driver and just see if you like it.
• 42:40
  Just going to a race is the best way, in my opinion, to get started because like
• 42:44
  she said, you don't have to have a ton of money to get started, much like other
• 42:47
  sports, but going to a race and just.
• 42:50
  Getting involved with the drivers.
• 42:51
  And what's so amazing about NHRA is like Jon Forrest always said, every
• 42:54
  path is a pit pass, which is so amazing.
• 42:56
  You can go right up to the drivers, talk to them, really
• 42:58
  get a feel for the race cars.
• 42:59
  So I think going to a race is the best start to kind of get
• 43:03
  your feet wet in drag racing.
• 43:05
  Ida and Erica kind of switching this question a little bit, focusing on the
• 43:08
  younger drivers, Megan and Maddie sort of covered it into say, how do you get in?
• 43:13
  Now, how do we keep them there?
• 43:14
  You guys have had a long career at this.
• 43:17
  How do we keep that 10 year old in drag racing for the next 20 years?
• 43:20
  Like you guys did like just hanging around too.
• 43:22
  If you can't drive something, I always say, drive anything you can, anytime
• 43:26
  you can, but also keeping your name and your face out there is important.
• 43:30
  There have been plenty of years and races where we didn't have the funding.
• 43:34
  And I was out there pounding the pavement and shaking hands and
• 43:36
  kissing babies, but also being a true.
• 43:40
  You know, I'd go up when Pro Stock would run and I'd sit on the guard wall and
• 43:43
  I'd watch my competitors tendencies and what they like and didn't like and how
• 43:47
  they do their burnouts and like just always trying to learn and to be better.
• 43:51
  But driving anything you can, obviously, is a great way because it's
• 43:55
  like you're addicted to something.
• 43:57
  It's crazy how much that you can fall in love with it by just being around it.
• 44:00
  You don't necessarily have to be behind the wheel, but if you can,
• 44:04
  obviously that's the best way.
• 44:05
  Everything that Erica used.
• 44:06
  said, it's obviously how you can stay in it.
• 44:08
  And a big part of it is again, going back to the passion.
• 44:11
  Like if you have the passion for it and you know, you want to be out there,
• 44:13
  that's when you do all of those things.
• 44:14
  If you feel like you don't have the passion for it, then you don't.
• 44:16
  That's usually when we lose them, you know, no matter which age we get
• 44:20
  them in, that's usually where you realize that maybe the real life on
• 44:23
  the outside for many people, there's more than this basically, but.
• 44:26
  For me, I've been in the exact situation that she just mentioned
• 44:29
  where I don't have the money.
• 44:30
  Like last year I raced eight races, but I was still at all the 20 NHRA events.
• 44:35
  And just like she said, shaking hands, taking care of our sponsors, meeting
• 44:38
  people, did interviews, had autograph sessions, like did all of that that
• 44:43
  I would normally do as a driver.
• 44:44
  I also mixed the fuel, fueled the car and so on for my teammates.
• 44:48
  So I was basically doing all the driver duties except for driving the car.
• 44:52
  And it's the same this year.
• 44:54
  I will not be racing a full schedule as it looks right now, but I
• 44:57
  will still be at all those races.
• 44:59
  So meet all the people, take care of our partners and, uh, obviously have
• 45:04
  a lot of stuff lined up at the track.
• 45:05
  I'm actually taking a, um.
• 45:07
  Announcing side gigs, so to say, with NHRA on the side.
• 45:10
  Well, I'll be one of their in venue announcers for that.
• 45:13
  And that's again, to try and, you know, meet people, be in front of
• 45:17
  our partner's eyes or new potential partners, and also learn more.
• 45:22
  Everything you do out there is to get better.
• 45:24
  This is stepping out of my comfort zone again, like.
• 45:26
  Doing this announcing English is my second language.
• 45:29
  This is not in my comfort zone, but that's how you grow.
• 45:32
  So I know that the more I do it, the better I'll feel at it.
• 45:34
  And I do feel like doing stuff like that is also going to help me in my
• 45:37
  own interviews when I'm in the car and I'm on the other side of the mic and
• 45:41
  all of these are opportunities to learn opportunities to meet new people and put
• 45:46
  your face out there and show that your passion is here and this is what you.
• 45:49
  want to do.
• 45:50
  So I feel like you just have to try and open all those doors and be open
• 45:54
  to, yeah, okay, I don't have a full time ride right now, but I can't sit
• 45:57
  at home and wait for something to fall into my lap because it will not.
• 46:01
  You need to be out there working your butt off to basically
• 46:04
  show that you belong out here.
• 46:05
  And that's exactly what I'm trying to do right now.
• 46:08
  So I want to dovetail off this with one of our crowd questions.
• 46:12
  And so William Ross writes, Sadly, there are drag strips that
• 46:16
  are closing around the country.
• 46:18
  And as we bring a younger generation into drag racing, what would you do to
• 46:22
  raise the exposure and the interest?
• 46:24
  How do we combat these closures?
• 46:26
  That's really true.
• 46:27
  I mean, unfortunately, drag racing caps are closing a lot, especially myself.
• 46:31
  I live in California.
• 46:32
  With all the rules and regulations in California, it makes it extremely
• 46:36
  difficult for track owners to have a racetrack in California.
• 46:40
  There's just so many laws in California that make it so difficult.
• 46:43
  Unfortunately, I know that's why there are less drag strips, at least
• 46:46
  in California, but it is so sad to see a lot of them closing in.
• 46:49
  I gotta be honest.
• 46:50
  I don't have an opinion on how to fix that.
• 46:52
  Well, like my home track with Houston closed.
• 46:54
  That's where I grew up watching my dad.
• 46:56
  The first drag strip I ever went to.
• 46:58
  We were lucky enough to win the last national event that they had there
• 47:01
  before they closed but in that track Circumstance it was the land was sold
• 47:05
  for a lot of money I think they're building like industrial buildings out
• 47:09
  there Atlanta closed because I think they put like a battery factory in
• 47:13
  there where they're building apartment complexes for a huge battery factory
• 47:16
  That was down the road and in that sense I don't really know if you can avoid
• 47:20
  it when the owners are getting offered
• 47:24
  I don't really see how to change that, but a lot of people are advocating for
• 47:29
  small hometown drag strips and talk with some guys about being on a board
• 47:32
  of directors to help keep the drag strips alive and something that we
• 47:36
  all definitely have to give effort to, but I'm not really sure that you can
• 47:39
  put your thumb on a specific answer.
• 47:41
  Like Maddie said, California has rules and regulations and the crazy
• 47:45
  government that they have out there.
• 47:47
  And then other states It kind of depends.
• 47:50
  Each situation is that in itself, a situation by itself.
• 47:53
  So I don't really know if there's an answer, but definitely
• 47:55
  sucks to see them close.
• 47:57
  So that's fair, but also, is it something that keeps you guys sort of up at night?
• 48:01
  Does it worry you?
• 48:02
  Because as the tracks begin to close, and then the dragstrips become more
• 48:06
  exclusive, then your travel costs Your travel time, preparation, all
• 48:10
  that stuff goes up and up and up.
• 48:12
  So does that now create a barrier of entry into a sport that was so accessible to any
• 48:17
  of these drivers, male or female alike?
• 48:19
  Again, does that worry you guys for the future of drag racing?
• 48:22
  We're in the Midwest, we're in Kansas and both of my home tracks closed down.
• 48:25
  That does affect us because we do a regional series as well and
• 48:29
  we have to travel further outside of our region now to collect.
• 48:33
  enough points for this series.
• 48:36
  So yeah, so it does, I mean, it's not something that I think keeps us up at
• 48:39
  night because we are able to include that in the budget, but I know for
• 48:44
  smaller teams out there that even just them getting to that race, that
• 48:48
  racetrack, that's even just a few hours away from home to them that now
• 48:51
  they've got to travel twice as much.
• 48:52
  Yeah, like I can't imagine what that's like.
• 48:54
  Growing up in Europe, we traveled a lot for our races.
• 48:57
  We did not have a super close drag strip.
• 48:59
  My season over there, we raced.
• 49:02
  throughout Europe.
• 49:02
  I mean, I lived on a small island between Sweden and Finland, and we went
• 49:06
  to Sweden, to Norway, to Finland, to Germany, to UK several times a year.
• 49:11
  Like, it was a lot of travel for us, and I feel like we still had a lot of
• 49:15
  teams that did all of that, and a lot of teams that showed up, and that kind
• 49:19
  of showed me that the passion for the sport don't really know those limits.
• 49:22
  Obviously, it might make it a little harder for for people to
• 49:25
  get into it in the beginning.
• 49:26
  But I do feel like when there's passion for the sport, people do travel.
• 49:30
  So that's kind of why I don't think of it as much.
• 49:33
  I know when I got started, there was a lot of local smaller drag strip where
• 49:37
  you could run basically your street cars or your unit dragsters and so on.
• 49:40
  So the opportunity to get into the sport in that way were easier, but
• 49:45
  there wasn't tracks where we could run top fuel dragsters on our pro classes.
• 49:48
  It got harder when you moved up for class.
• 49:51
  So that ain't but enjoyable.
• 49:53
  classes still have access to tracks that were at least within four or five
• 49:58
  hours or so long, which is close for us.
• 50:00
  I want to talk a little bit about WMNA.
• 50:02
  One of their missions now is by growing women in the sport,
• 50:06
  we're growing the sport.
• 50:07
  But I also want to talk about in your sport, which has
• 50:10
  almost gender parity, which is.
• 50:11
  Incredible.
• 50:12
  Do you still find it really special to have a place where you can connect with
• 50:15
  other women who are in the same field?
• 50:18
  Not even necessarily the driver's seat.
• 50:19
  They might be on the sponsorship side.
• 50:21
  They might be on engineering side.
• 50:23
  For those of you who are involved in WMNA or going to some of the summits, the
• 50:26
  importance of having that special space.
• 50:28
  Before women in motorsports North America, Lynn St. James had a program
• 50:32
  called Women in the Winner's Circle.
• 50:34
  I was not old enough to travel by myself the first time that I was invited there.
• 50:39
  My mom went with to Indy, but I think it's really nice to have people
• 50:43
  like Lynn and Cindy who believe in the whole women aspect of it,
• 50:48
  but not like completely, totally dwelling on it and in a negative way.
• 50:51
  But so it is cool to have a group that gets together that share the
• 50:56
  same love and passion for something.
• 50:57
  And.
• 50:58
  Like Lauren said, you don't have to be a driver, but you know,
• 51:00
  just involved in the sport.
• 51:01
  Like my sister grew up driving and now she works for Flow, which is a
• 51:05
  streaming company, but she found her little niche in the sport where, you
• 51:09
  know, it's not behind the wheels.
• 51:11
  It's definitely neat.
• 51:12
  There's like a, in a way, like a negative connotation to it.
• 51:15
  Like growing up, you're competing for the same spot, but once you get old enough to
• 51:19
  realize that it's more of like a sorority than something that you have to like, be
• 51:24
  a hater of and be jealous of, like you can work together and share the spotlight and
• 51:29
  instead of fighting for one specific spot.
• 51:31
  And I think that's something that these programs really shine a light on.
• 51:34
  So we're, we're definitely grateful to have them.
• 51:36
  Yeah.
• 51:37
  And that's so well said.
• 51:37
  Um, I can't say enough good things about WMNA.
• 51:41
  I first joined a few years ago and.
• 51:44
  From the moment I walked into the doors, just absolutely loved it.
• 51:47
  Lynn and Cindy are so gracious and so inviting, and it's just amazing
• 51:53
  the reach that they have in all different types of motor sports.
• 51:56
  I was able to meet a lot of the ladies that I follow on social media in person
• 52:02
  that are in other types of racing.
• 52:05
  And I was just like, so starstruck by them.
• 52:07
  And like, now I can call them some of my good friends.
• 52:09
  Like, you know, we're in text groups and DM groups on Instagram
• 52:13
  and all that type of stuff.
• 52:13
  stuff.
• 52:14
  I absolutely loved it.
• 52:15
  It's helped open doors to different possibilities for me
• 52:19
  in both racing and business.
• 52:21
  You know, even before I joined WMNA, I was a part of other
• 52:23
  groups like women in auto care.
• 52:25
  Just being able to kind of have that, like Erica said, like a
• 52:29
  sorority and having like that sisterhood in this industry that is.
• 52:33
  male dominated and sometimes it's still some of that like old school mentality
• 52:38
  that people have especially in, you know, more of the corporate world.
• 52:41
  For us it's so great to be able to have that commonality and come together and
• 52:45
  work together to try to change things.
• 52:47
  I just, I absolutely loved it.
• 52:48
  It's helped change my life and I will be.
• 52:51
  WMNA supporter forever.
• 52:53
  First, like, official interaction with the WMNA program.
• 52:56
  I have briefly chatted with Sydney before, you know, back in PRI and stuff.
• 53:00
  It is so cool.
• 53:01
  I was, I did see all the social media stuff that was done at PRI and it
• 53:05
  is such an amazing group of women and just such a great thing to have.
• 53:08
  You know, I think everybody in drag racing is very supportive, very
• 53:11
  welcoming, very kind, and it is really cool to kind of have those little groups
• 53:16
  and just, I guess, like a gathering.
• 53:18
  For all the women, I guess we all kind of embark on the same
• 53:21
  journey and share the same passion.
• 53:22
  So it's just really a really cool group that Linda has created.
• 53:25
  Lin and Cindy's energy is very nice to be around.
• 53:30
  Like it, it inspires you to see their energy and their passion for it.
• 53:34
  I think that was something that struck me right away when I went to
• 53:36
  my first When I went last year, I just basically the energy that they
• 53:41
  had and the energy that they kind of projected into this whole project.
• 53:44
  And I think that that was very cool to see, obviously, like Megan said,
• 53:47
  very nice to be able to meet people at a place where you might've been
• 53:51
  following them for years on social media.
• 53:53
  It felt like you already knew each other, but you have actually never met in person
• 53:57
  and you got that opportunity to do that.
• 53:58
  I think that was very cool.
• 54:00
  We also had some really good speakers when we were there that we could hear about
• 54:04
  some really passionate stories and just.
• 54:06
  Be able to see another side of it.
• 54:08
  And something that struck me again, then was just how inclusive drag racing is.
• 54:12
  Cause we get to hear stories or groundbreaking moments in other forms
• 54:16
  of motorsport, where I noticed that it struck me that, Hey, that happened
• 54:21
  a long time ago in drag racing, where I kind of reminded me of how good we
• 54:26
  have it in drag racing with all of the attitude that it's never been a thing.
• 54:30
  We just belong here.
• 54:31
  So it was very cool to see, and I'm very happy to see the work they're
• 54:35
  doing for women in motorsport.
• 54:36
  We're coming down to the end of it.
• 54:37
  So I'm really curious to know what is next this upcoming
• 54:40
  season for each of our panelists.
• 54:42
  And I think this is a question from our audience.
• 54:44
  Is anyone considering maybe testing a car from another discipline?
• 54:49
  Yes, I am.
• 54:50
  I mean, it's very, very beginning, so I can't really say much yet.
• 54:54
  I've been in drag racing for.
• 54:56
  My entire life, 31 years, and I'm very interested in trying something else out.
• 55:00
  So I stepped away from being a professional drag racer in 2020 when my
• 55:05
  son was born and yeah, just exploring other options that are out there.
• 55:09
  But for me, I am still racing, just doing fun.
• 55:13
  No competing for points because I know as soon as I do, I'll do it a
• 55:17
  thousand percent and be so obsessed with it that I'll never be home.
• 55:21
  At this season of my life that I'm in right now, I'm just trying to have
• 55:24
  fun with it while having a three year old who's also in love with cars.
• 55:28
  So we'll figure out what that's going to look like in a few years for him.
• 55:32
  But yeah, so I'm just going to be doing two races this year, possibly
• 55:36
  a third one this summer for fun.
• 55:37
  And then outside of that, my full time job is to be the team
• 55:42
  manager, marketing manager.
• 55:43
  for my dad's team, which is Randy Meier Racing.
• 55:46
  They race two cars in the top alcohol dragster class, and we've got two
• 55:51
  new drivers to our team this year.
• 55:53
  So we have our first race coming up, the Baby Gators, followed
• 55:56
  by the Gator Nationals, which is the first NHRA national event.
• 56:00
  I do want to plug in that the week between those, on Tuesday,
• 56:04
  we are doing a Press conference at the state Capitol in Tallahassee.
• 56:09
  We're going to have both of our cars on display there.
• 56:12
  We are making the debut of our funny car and NHRA.
• 56:15
  So we're very excited for that.
• 56:16
  And we are working with the towing and recovery association
• 56:19
  to promote and spread awareness for the slow down, move over law.
• 56:23
  It's a law in all 50 States.
• 56:25
  The law is if you see an emergency vehicle on the side of the road, the
• 56:29
  law is to slow down and move over and change lanes so that way there's no.
• 56:35
  other incidents where someone might get struck, especially, you know,
• 56:38
  with distracted drivers and all that.
• 56:40
  And I could go on about that forever, but my parents and I also have a
• 56:44
  background in the towing industry.
• 56:45
  So does my uncle.
• 56:46
  And unfortunately in 2021, he passed away on a towing recovery job.
• 56:50
  So ever since then, we've been very passionate about trying
• 56:53
  to spread awareness for us.
• 56:54
  So we're very excited to do, uh, this really big.
• 56:57
  Press conference.
• 56:58
  We're going to have members from the Senate there as well.
• 57:01
  That will be speaking with me as well as government highway officials,
• 57:05
  first responders, emergency workers.
• 57:06
  And of course, we're going to have as many tow trucks there
• 57:09
  as we can on display as well.
• 57:10
  So very excited for that.
• 57:12
  This is going to be my second year in tobacco, funny car, which is like,
• 57:17
  literally so crazy to say, because I've dreamed of that my whole entire
• 57:20
  life, but this year we're very fortunate that all of our sponsors
• 57:23
  from last year have stuck with us.
• 57:25
  Very loyal to us, which we appreciate so much.
• 57:28
  We do have some really exciting stuff on the horizon coming up next year.
• 57:32
  But as we come into the second year of my Top Dog on Funny Car
• 57:35
  career, you know, we're hoping to chase the world championship.
• 57:39
  We're going to run enough races.
• 57:40
  to technically qualify for that.
• 57:43
  I'm obsessed with drag racing and I want to be the absolute best I can.
• 57:46
  And I'm very hard on myself.
• 57:47
  And I set goals when I set goals, I want to achieve them.
• 57:50
  And if I'm not able to achieve them, I'm hard on myself.
• 57:52
  So we have the team, we have the race car.
• 57:55
  I have so much learned my driving.
• 57:56
  But hopefully we can have some good success this year and maybe come out with
• 58:00
  a number one, but we got, I got a long ways to go and we'll see what happens,
• 58:03
  but really excited for this season.
• 58:05
  It's my second year with JCM racing.
• 58:07
  I had a part time schedule last year.
• 58:08
  I actually debuted it by the end of the year and made last eight races.
• 58:12
  We were.
• 58:12
  Part of work before that and building my team and everything that came with that.
• 58:16
  And that's a big job in itself.
• 58:18
  So this year I have a 10 race schedule as it looks like now,
• 58:21
  obviously I moved across the world to come here to chase championships
• 58:25
  and that's what it's all about.
• 58:27
  You can't chase the championships with only 10 races.
• 58:29
  So my other biggest thing to do this year is to try and find the correct
• 58:33
  partners to be able to be out here and actually chase that championship.
• 58:37
  For hopefully this year and years to come, but as it looks right now, we have
• 58:41
  a minimum of 10 races that we will reveal a schedule on which races those will be.
• 58:46
  And I'm hard at work on trying to fill in those gaps to make it a full one.
• 58:49
  So for me, it's a lot of work with that.
• 58:51
  A lot of work at the shop every day with the team, I will be at all of the
• 58:55
  other events, except for, I think maybe two other events that actually collide
• 58:59
  with some other marketing opportunities.
• 59:01
  I have with NHRA where I will be promoting the sport at other events.
• 59:04
  So that's going to be very exciting as well.
• 59:06
  But just basically trying to jump on all of those opportunities that
• 59:08
  I have to make this dream work.
• 59:10
  That's the main goal.
• 59:11
  And just like Maddie said, I'm also very, very hard on myself.
• 59:14
  I don't reach my goals and I did not move across the world to not reach them.
• 59:18
  So I am definitely hard at work on making this all come together.
• 59:21
  And I am very positive that we have what it takes to be out
• 59:25
  here chasing championships.
• 59:26
  I know what type of driver I can be when I'm at my best.
• 59:29
  I've seen it when I've raised previous classes or when I've raised.
• 59:33
  in, in Europe, but we won our championships and I feel like over
• 59:36
  here in us, I still do not have that much seat time in this car.
• 59:40
  And I am not one with the car in the way that I know I can be.
• 59:44
  So I look forward to more seat time, more races and really becoming one with
• 59:48
  the car because I do feel like that's when you drive at your very, very best.
• 59:51
  And I have more potential to tap into the team has more potential to tap into.
• 59:56
  I have championship winning crew around me.
• 59:59
  So I know that I have the right.
• 1:00:01
  Guys in my corner and everybody working on my car and with my
• 1:00:04
  team are absolutely the best.
• 1:00:06
  And I feel like we have so much out here to still prove, so to say.
• 1:00:10
  And when it comes to other forms of racing, I have run other bikes
• 1:00:14
  or cars and not professionally.
• 1:00:16
  I mean, my boyfriend raced motocross, so we did go out and
• 1:00:19
  run a lot of motocross years ago.
• 1:00:21
  So I always loved that, but it's something I haven't done in a few years now.
• 1:00:25
  Did recently go to an off road event called King of Hammers with the BP
• 1:00:29
  racing and got to run in a trophy truck.
• 1:00:31
  And it was definitely eyeopening.
• 1:00:33
  I do feel like that's something I would at one point like to try not to race.
• 1:00:37
  I would say, cause drag racing has my full attention, but if I
• 1:00:41
  could dabble more into stuff like that, I thought it was really cool.
• 1:00:45
  It was actually something I've never seen before.
• 1:00:47
  And I'm actually going to a sprint race, and I've never been
• 1:00:49
  to a sprint race before either.
• 1:00:50
  So we'll see what I feel about that.
• 1:00:51
  I'm trying to check off all these new experiences on my list, and I'm loving it.
• 1:00:55
  Well, Erika, you've collected enough rings, and you're
• 1:00:58
  starting on your second hand.
• 1:00:59
  Are you going to fill out all the fingers?
• 1:01:01
  Is it going to be a ring for every finger?
• 1:01:02
  What's next for you?
• 1:01:03
  You've done it all.
• 1:01:04
  Oh, I still have a lot of goals.
• 1:01:07
  I feel like, I mean, we've, we've definitely been fortunate to click a
• 1:01:11
  lot of them off, but I think the one that hangs over our head right now is
• 1:01:14
  our 50th national event win on the heels of winning back to back championships.
• 1:01:19
  I had a really lackluster season last year.
• 1:01:21
  We started off with a bang.
• 1:01:23
  We won the Pro Superstar Shootout, went to Gainesville.
• 1:01:25
  That race I tried to win for 20 years in Pro Stock and never
• 1:01:29
  was able to until last year.
• 1:01:30
  So we won the Pro Race and we won the Gator Nationals, and then had some
• 1:01:33
  final round appearances throughout the year, but never able to seal the deal.
• 1:01:37
  So it's kind of like one of those things, like getting my first win, right?
• 1:01:41
  It's right there within reach, but you just can't seem to get it done.
• 1:01:44
  So that 50th one is on the horizon and in a couple weeks in Gainesville, it
• 1:01:48
  marks the year since I've been in the winner's circle, which really doesn't
• 1:01:52
  make me happy, but you know, I've kind of buried myself in, in work and helping
• 1:01:56
  my teammates and you know, my teammates.
• 1:01:58
  Aaron Stanfield and TJ and Jake Coughlin had really, really successful years.
• 1:02:02
  Aaron was in the hunt for the championship right down to the wire last year.
• 1:02:05
  So that was fun to be a part of, but I think just checking off the
• 1:02:09
  number 50th and then obviously every driver's goal is to win a world title.
• 1:02:13
  And we've been so blessed to be able to have accomplished six of them.
• 1:02:17
  To get the seventh would put us in really cool territory.
• 1:02:20
  I think the only ones that have more would be John Forrest, Bob
• 1:02:24
  Glidden, and Tony Schumacher.
• 1:02:25
  So it'd be uncharted waters for sure to, to win the seventh.
• 1:02:30
  So that's obviously a goal and we have to take action to accomplish that.
• 1:02:33
  So, you know, having the year that we had last year for me personally getting
• 1:02:37
  mad and wanting to improve when I saw the stats at the end of the year,
• 1:02:43
  I was really disappointed in myself and that, you know, the other ladies.
• 1:02:46
  Talking about how when you set a goal and you want to win and you hate to
• 1:02:49
  lose and you're hard on yourself if you don't accomplish those goals.
• 1:02:52
  Well, my goal wasn't accomplished last year because of me.
• 1:02:55
  So I, uh, I really just want to dig deep and get hungry and get mad.
• 1:02:58
  And, you know, I came out swinging in 2022 cause I was.
• 1:03:02
  Just for lack of a better way to say it, I was just pissed off at, at a lot
• 1:03:05
  and I came out swinging and my team and I had our best season in my career.
• 1:03:10
  We won 10 races and went to 13 final rounds and in 18 events.
• 1:03:13
  So it was a really cool year.
• 1:03:15
  So anyway, I just want to, I want to have a better year than last year.
• 1:03:18
  I had realistic goals, but to click off the number 50 and you know, to
• 1:03:23
  contend for a seventh world title would obviously be a dream come true.
• 1:03:26
  But again, we've got really great partners with JHD and Melling.
• 1:03:30
  CTECH and CHE and Gallagher.
• 1:03:32
  I mean, without these people's support, we wouldn't be able to do what we love.
• 1:03:36
  So they're first and foremost, but having a solid, huge team like
• 1:03:40
  we do and all working together, I think the sky is the limit for us.
• 1:03:43
  I'm going to put my head down and go to work.
• 1:03:45
  Well, ladies, we've reached that part of the episode where I get to turn
• 1:03:48
  the mic over to our title sponsor, the international motor racing.
• 1:03:51
  research center for some closing thoughts.
• 1:03:53
  Ladies, this has been truly a treat.
• 1:03:55
  I am so impressed with your professionalism, your, the way you
• 1:03:58
  articulate your sport and most of all the passion that you bring to it.
• 1:04:02
  I think it's been certainly a treat for me.
• 1:04:04
  I hope it's been a treat for everybody that's tuned in on this.
• 1:04:07
  Erica, Ida, Maddie, and Megan, I wish you nothing but success in the coming year.
• 1:04:11
  On behalf of the International Motor Racing Research Center, we really
• 1:04:14
  appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules to, uh, be part of this.
• 1:04:18
  Thank you so much.
• 1:04:18
  And on behalf of everyone here and those listening at home, thank you ladies.
• 1:04:23
  For sharing your stories with us.
• 1:04:25
  And that's a wrap on this high octane conversation, celebrating
• 1:04:28
  the fearless women of drag racing.
• 1:04:30
  A huge thank you to our incredible panelists for sharing their stories, their
• 1:04:34
  struggles, and their victories on and off the track as we celebrate international
• 1:04:39
  women's month, let's remember that speed has no gender and passion knows no limits.
• 1:04:45
  These drivers are proving every day that the future of drag racing is faster,
• 1:04:49
  bolder, and more inclusive than ever.
• 1:04:51
  That's right.
• 1:04:52
  And we hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more virtual center
• 1:04:56
  conversations throughout the season.
• 1:04:57
  So be sure to follow, subscribe, and stay with us for more incredible
• 1:05:01
  discussions from the world of motorsport.
• 1:05:03
  So until next time, keep the wheels turning and the throttle.
• 1:05:06
  Wide open.
• 1:05:07
  Thank you.
• 1:05:08
  And with that, ladies, I can't thank you enough for coming
• 1:05:09
  on and sharing your stories.
• 1:05:10
  You are an absolute inspiration and role models, I think, for every other
• 1:05:14
  discipline of motorsport that's out there.
• 1:05:16
  We have a lot to learn from drag racing.
• 1:05:18
  We really do.
• 1:05:19
  So thank you for doing what you're doing.
• 1:05:21
  Thanks for having us.
• 1:05:22
  Yes, thank you for having us.
• 1:05:25
  Ladies, that was really terrific.
• 1:05:26
  Thank you.
• 1:05:27
  Thanks for having us.
• 1:05:28
  Yes.
• 1:05:29
  Thank you guys.
• 1:05:31
  Best of luck this year.
• 1:05:32
  We'll see you soon.
• 1:05:40
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• 1:05:43
  that began in 2022 known as Wimna.
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