Cara Krstolic Returns

On this episode of Throttle Therapy, Cara Krstolic is back, joining Katherine to debrief after the Atlanta NASCAR Xfinity race and nerd out about tires. They share thoughts on mentorship, dreams of being an astronaut-ballerina-scientist, and give their advice to the next Katherine Legge.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to this

(00:21):
week's episode of Throttle Therapy with Me, Catherine Legg and
very special guest. Have the honor, the privilege, and the
pleasure of having my very good friend, Kara Krystalic. Karra Crystaalic.
We've been through this sorry a few times.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
She's forever going to be Kara in my book. But
I don't hear the difference. I think that's just my
this ism. But thank you for coming out and supporting
me at the Atlanta race.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I actually and Pike's.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Peter, we had two great race weekends in the real
back to back.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
That's a good friend right there, like back to back
cross country craziness.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
But we'll get into that.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I want to see some Midica in there in the
middle for me.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, you did Iowa in the middle. Okay, So Atlanta,
I'm going to start there because we've already explained the
Pike's peak.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
I don't know whether frustration frustration.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yes, it's a very diplomatic way of putting it. This
is where you work in corporate America. I can never
have an HR department.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
We have people to make sure we take care of
those things when I say the wrong thing.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
So Atlanta Atlanta for me was again another experience. I
feel like I keep getting drinking through a fire hose.
But I love it so much. I'm not complaining in
any way, shape or form. So I had never driven
Atlanta before. I had never done the sim for Atlanta
before because I was doing Pike's Peak, so I couldn't
do the sim. So it definitely felt like I missed
missed a trick there. But one of my teammates, Jeff Britain,

(01:47):
took me out in the pace car and showed me
where to go, like how to get onto the track,
what the double stage pit lane was about the line
that you're running qualifying, How to get up to speed
because you have to go up by the wall like
you do on a super speedway. I mean it's like
a it's like a tight and aggressive super speedway kind of.
It races like that. But it was so much fun.

(02:08):
It was a one day event. I watched a bunch
of video before it. I watched the previous races and
actually somebody said make sure you watched the summer fall race,
not the spring race, because the track drives completely differently
with the heat, and it was hot this weekend. So anyway,
they say it's easy flat and qualifying. Just go out

(02:29):
and keep it flat and go up by the wall
and then take the green. And I'm like, okay, it's
not unlike Indie in twenty thirteen when I drove for
Sam Schmidt and they were also very confident that the
car was good and I hadn't tested all week and
I had to get in and qualify it and they.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Said, well, get out, go flat, and you know I did.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I don't know whether that makes me brave or stupid.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
With no practice either. So it wasn't like you had
been around the place once or twice before, like this
is no practice. It's like when you helped us get
ready for one Lap of America, where your first lap
is the time lap and it counts. So I'm so
impressed with what you can do and to be able
to just go out there with no some time just
studying video and put down P. Twenty three.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
That was cool, so we were p. Twenty three. I
must add that that actually wasn't too much to do
with me. I mean, I did what I was told right,
which is go out, keep my foot down, drive. I
didn't drive on the line, and I think we could
have been further up the grid, but I let the
car kind of have its head and take not scrub speed.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
I guess I'm trying to say.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Because I thought I either do the shortest distance or
I let it roll, and I let it roll because
it was the easier option for me having never seen
the place before. So I think we could have been
top twenty in qualifying because the car was that good.
The Jordan Addison racing with Bombrito Artisport, which by the way,
is such a mouthful. I've got it down now, but
it's such a mouthful. They gave me such a good car,
I was super stoked to get after it.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Well. Also, you qualified first position, so you had to
out there first, which meant the track was dirty, so
you were doing the job of cleaning the track for
the rest of the drivers.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Good point.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
So between that and a few other things, we kept
watching the sun and then some of the qualifying drivers
got to drive in the shade and I was like, no,
I know, there's a lot of good things that could
have put you up really high in qualifying for never
seeing the place.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, that's a good point. Actually.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I was heat to the day and no cloud cover,
and then when the others got cloud cover.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I was like, that's yes. It was hot. Miserable just
watching you guys. And I was like, I'll be miserable,
just let this then come back out.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
My team is so awesome there.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
It was fun.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
They're so awesome.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
I was sat there like really hot and sweaty, thinking
this is miserable. I said that I didn't need a
cool suit and the cool seats swift the whimps, but
I said it as a joke. But now I can
never have a cool suit. I do in a cup car.
But my team is so awesome. I love them all
so much. They're so great. I was sat there for
like seven minutes waiting to go grain for qualifying and

(04:55):
it was hot, right.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
It was sticking Atlanta Hot Lanta.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's known as for a reason A and I was like,
do we have a blower or anything, and they said
we don't.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I was like, oh, I'm dying in here.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
And so I think Hendrix is missing a blower because
I think we commenteered one from that it.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
May have shown up on national television.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sorry, you probably got it back. I don't know, but
I think we're going to invest in a leaf blow
right now.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
It seems like a good deal.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
So then obviously it's a night race, so cloud cover
not bad at all. Well, first of all, I had
like a ton of support, which I was really grateful
for because it was my home race, because I am
a proud Atlanta transplant.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well kind you even heard all of the people in
the stands, Like I was walking BHD people and they're like, oh,
that's Catherine Lake. She's from Atlanta. She's from and they
were giving them specific areas and I was like, oh good.
So it's like they were like one of our own.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Haven't the people your other people?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
I mean, we're kind of out in the woods in
the middle of nowhere in north Atlanta, north well, North
Georgia kind of yeah, kind of south. But anyway, so
I had a ton of support, and I said their
one goal was to give me the biggest cheer at
driver intros.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh my gosh, we understood the assignment.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Are you understood the assignment, and then we were on
a hold for what like an hour or more.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, the lightning started they did I think they were
going to start the anthemb and then they shoot everybody
off of the pit lane and.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Then they were like, Okay, we're gonna go green in
seven minutes.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
And I'm like, I'm not ready. I've only had two
hours to get ready. I'm not ready.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
But we went green and then it was probably what
thirty laps into the race.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
And she is climbing up like passing people. It's looking
really impressive.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Car was awesome. I felt super comfortable pretty much straight away.
I did lift in to Turn one at the start
a little bit and there was maybe a two car gap,
and I soon closed it up and I got comfortable.
And I have so much fun in these races, like
the super Speedway race. In this race, it's like a
chess game. It's like you actually have to you would

(06:51):
be really good.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
In it because it's strategicy.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, it's like you're thinking three moves ahead and you're
trying to figure out how to get a right and
how much run you can get and like if that
guy gets to run at the same time, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Really lucky that I have a really really good spotter.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
He's also Chase Elliott spotter, and I think Chase won
the Cup racer. He's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
We were moving out.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Through the fields and I felt really good in the car.
I was a little bit tight, and my crew chief,
who was also awesome. You can tell how much I
really like these guys, said did I want to do
anything about it? And I said no, because it's getting cooler,
it's going to tend to loose, and so I don't
think so.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
And actually the team nailed it.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
They did such a good job because when we went
back out after the lightning holds, I know we were
on fresh tires, but the car was perfect. Like I
was watching everybody else that either wash up or kind
of pin loose, and Mike, I could put my car
wherever I wanted to, and I was like, this is
going to be awesome. I'll bide my time, I'll stay
out of trouble, I'll make my way through them, I'll

(07:55):
let them do the crazy stuff. And then I was
absolutely gutted. Oh, I was so guted because we got
caught in somebody else's accident. First of all, why the
fudge pickles. Are they reckon on the straightway, like on
the back straight, they're all checking up, and my spotted
tray said check up, check up, and the guy in

(08:15):
front of me like checked up too much, honestly, So
I hit the brakes, and I hit the brakes too hard,
and my rears locked and that's what spun me, and
that's why I hit the wall, and that's why we're
out of the race. But it was just being involved
with somebody else's wreck. The lesson to be learned there
from me is didn't check my brake bias, and I

(08:37):
should have checked my breke bias because I just kind
of assumed that it was fine and I'd pitted already
and it was fine. But we never hit the brakes.
When we pitted. We pitted under yellow, so we never
hit the brakes super hard, so I never saw which
end was going to lock up first, and it just
locked up, went straight into wheel hop and by the
time I'd figured out what happened it was, it was

(08:58):
too late.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
And that's such a challenge of never having any practice,
because if you had practice, you would have had opportunity
to actually test that earlier.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
That's tough yeah, and it's just one of those things
I didn't know that I didn't know because I'm so
not used to doing that. Like we have a number
in sports car racing. We have a number on the
dash any car racing too, and you kind of just
set it fifty four to fifty six, whatever it is,
whatever you're driving, and hey, presto, it's pretty close, so.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
You're not going to do that.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
So that's another lesson learned, unfortunately with a wrecked race car,
and super unfortunately because I honestly that car was top ten.
Whether I was or not, I think I was making
pretty smart decisions absolutely, but you know, you live to
fight another day. And I had the same feeling at Talladega,
like the car was so good. So luckily we go

(09:46):
on to Chicago next week.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
And Cup Cup.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, but also you kind of get over it a
little bit better. I'm just so bummed about this one,
just because I know that we could have done something
really cool because I had a great car, and yeah,
I'm just I'm trying not to as well on it,
try to think forward. I go to I leave tomorrow,
I go to North Carolina and drive this sim thank

(10:13):
you RCR, and get ready for switching teams, switch a series,
switch of tracks. Unfortunately, you're not going to be the
Unfortunately is.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
This your first was Atlanta?

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Your first NASCAR is No, I actually went to mid
Ohio years ago when we were there for Expinity. Yeah,
that's fun. I love it. I'm used to the Indy
Car World and some of the other series that I
work with or I follow. And you were talking about
your crew chief. The one thing that about NASCAR, Exfinity
and NASCAR in general is the lack of real time telemetry.

(10:46):
So I just I'm really impressed by what the crew
chief can do because for me, I'm like, I want
to see all the tire pressures. I want to see splits,
I want to see what the breaks are doing, I
want to see all the temperatures. And not being able
to see that, it's just for him to be able
to make those calls and understand what they're doing with
just basically he's writing everything down in a computer, but
there's not any data that's coming towards them. So it's

(11:07):
just a fun, like raw form of motorsports. Because if
you're gonna go out and you're going to race your
own car, if you're a grassroots motorsports fan or you
do your own racing, typically you're not gonna have all
that stuff behind you. So it's really a fun form
of motorsports.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Not that it's cross roots or anything.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
It's not grassroots at all.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
We do have SMT yes, and that's kind of live,
but it's not anything like we have in IndyCar sportscar racing.
But I think that makes it. They don't want to
make it easy for us, and so I've had this
argument with them. And actually Brandon, who was my engineer
in twenty twelve when I did IndyCar, came from the
NASCAR world. He's also been on my podcast. He came

(11:47):
from the NASCAR world. He made that foray into IndyCar,
and then he's done a bit of everything, to be honest,
but then he went back to NASCAR, and I'm like, dude,
why don't we have pitleen speed? Like it's really hard
looking up, looking down, getting pushed, like trying to find
your box. I don't want to be speeding, but I
don't want to be giving up any time either, Like
just give us a button.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
He's like, why would we want to make it.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Easy for you? We want to make it good for
the fans, and in all honesty, he's got a point
because if you look at the TV numbers, which I
do every week for my sponsors, my wonderful sponsors Elf
and drop Light, who also in does Nuda Tequila and
Dos Nuda was on the car this week, which is
kind of fun. So everybody comes up and either wants

(12:28):
makeup or tequila. And I mean, I got two of
the best sponsors in the world. But the numbers are astonishing,
Like Cup gets twice as many, at least twice as
many as Indy Car does, Infinity normally gets more than
Indy Corri does. And this is the second tier, you know,
like it's not Cup. And then F one is all

(12:50):
over the place depending on where they're racing and how
accessible it is on the TV. The only five hundred
obviously very special, very different, and IndyCar's numbers are getting
better with Fox, so that's something. But like, people are
really interested in ASCAR, and so they're obviously doing something
right because they either watch it for the drama, like
the crashes, the people speeding on pit lane and getting

(13:12):
a penalty, and all the drivers have personalities. I think
I watch F one these days and we were actually
watching it slot from Austria.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
I've never driven the reb Ring.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
It looks beautiful, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Oh yeah, I kind of want to st.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
A surprised looking at the elevation because normally you look
at it and you don't see but we were talking
about some of the turns and the camera and the turns.
Yeah surprising, I.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Know, I mean too, but I was watching it and
all the drivers are the same, like they're like plug
and play. They don't have personalities that they're allowed to
show because of the sponsors and the amount of money
and everything. I guess, I mean some of them do,
but I think Drive to Survive has shown that they
can have outside of the broadcasts. But on the broadcast,

(13:56):
like you've got so many different driver personalities and ask
I think that makes.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
It interesting this morning. And I'm not going to mention
any driver's names, but somebody may have locked up a
little bit early and going into an early turn and
they asked him, you know why, it's you broke a
little late. No, No, it wasn't me breaking late. It
was just like by the time that I hit the
brakes that the bios was difficult and then it locked
up and I thought.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
No, I think they yeah, you know when they sign
on for being an F one driver, they the things
that you say, Whereas like I don't know if if
it had been host of ar hit in Stenhouse is
something like Stenhouse would have said he's an idiot. I
mean he did pretty much. I would have also. Anyway,
do you like NASCAR racing?

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I think it's fun as a as a spectator, it's fun.
I'm going to sport any series that you do. Obviously
I don't follow it quite as much as I do
with Indy Car and then Formula One a little bit too,
but again, all forms of everything on wheels. I don't
follow the sports ball so much. But NASCAR is fun.
I love just the raw racing. There's something just fun

(15:02):
about not having a whole lot of technology there.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, it's got an energy, it's got a vibe.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
It does have a vibe. Yeah, it really doesn't. Even
the crowd last night was, I mean impressive for those
people that stayed.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
It was.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
It was lightning hold after lightning hold and thread of
rain and I don't think it ever rained more than
a couple of sprinkles. But I don't know. Twenty minutes
north of the track. It was drenched, so all lots
of canceled flights and all but those fans stayed there.
So you usually see some pretty good fan engagement. It's
interesting being in different paddocks and seeing how people relate
to different drivers and a lot of little girls coming

(15:37):
up to you. And there was even a lady there
with her kiddo and she had a was it a
custom made Elf jersey? It was really impressive. Yeah, So
she came up and she oh my gosh, it was
so cool. She was like, she sees you, and she
just starts shaking and she's smiling and she goes she's like,
I see her from the back because you know, you've
been around racing for a while and you try to

(15:58):
read people's lips and she's like, oh my god, it's Catherine.
Oh my god, it's Catherine. And so she comes up
and you're awesome. People from drop Light see her and
say we're going to bring her over here so you
can sign the jersey and everything like that. So that
The fans are fun in pretty much all but they're
different in Nascar.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
It's fun, they are they're super passionate, which I learned
the hard way early on with how passionate they are.
But then I thought, you know what, I just want
to earn their respect. Are the ones that Matt and
you know this sum that are never gonna, never gonna
change opinions once they formed an opinion. It is what
it is. But I'm having a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
That's great. We just need to get rid of this
like dark cloud that has been following we talk about
like the crazy luck that you've had this year.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Do we think it's calm or something like was it
really bad in a previous one?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
No, I think this is just a dark cloud that
it's going to dissipate. It's just only a matter of time,
because I mean, just look at last night. You're you're you.
You had a top ten car. You were doing amazing
with that car, and you know you're at P twenty
I think when the disaster struck and you were still
moving up. So I think we would for sure have

(17:06):
had a top twenty car, for sure have I mean,
looking at you driving, I was thinking you're probably gonna
end up around fifteen or so. At some point somebody
had maybe even promised you a truck if you want tho.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Oh, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I should reach out to those places. So the tires
that I want to touch on the tires a little
bit obviously for those of you who don't know Kara Kara,

(17:42):
what else?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
And I met.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Twenty years ago, a little bit twenty years ago, and
you start stuff designing the wet tires for chap Car
back then, and then you designed my Delta. And then
obviously now you're the head of everything over at the IndyCar,
and well, yeah, so you know in great detail, very intimately,

(18:11):
everything about your tire, I would imagine, because you've designed
it and now you oversee everybody else doing doing the designing.
Then you look at the Exfinity tires and you look
at the Cup tires, which are both very differently. The
Cup tires are much lower profile. And you have friends
obviously in even at Pike's Peak the Yokohama.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, friends are good year.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Friends are good year. And I love how close knit
the racing community is.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yes, because you can like.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Talk about like how different it is and glean information
from them. When you see those tires, are you like
I could do that or are you thinking, wow, our
tire is so different. It's not even in the same
sport or like, what, what do you think?

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Well, I'm honestly always looking at tires. But then when
I'm at your racist, I'm just trying not to think
I was really on a work vacation there. I'm just
they're supporting you. But I can't help but look at tires,
even if I'm trying very hard not to. But the
application is just so different. Those cars are so heavy.
You know, we're not an IndyCar. You're not running innerliners

(19:16):
or anything like that. And just the demands of the car,
even with the closed venders that the nascars have, you
have to manage heat and the rub and there's all
kinds of different challenges in different forms of motorsports. You know,
obviously NASCAR is not going as fast as IndyCar and
some of these things, so some of the challenges are
a bit different. But you know, even Indy cars getting
towards more loads, and you know, you keep putting more

(19:38):
stuff on the car. You have more in different demands
that come out of the tires. But I don't think
anybody from any tire company is going to look and say, oh, man, like,
look at what you did, because we all understand the
unique demands of different series, so it's it's interesting and
as you get up higher and higher levels of motorsports,
those technical challenges persist in everything. So you know, we're

(20:00):
going from now just providing a tire to now, how
do we give the teams the best data, the best package.
We're getting excited over on our side, on the bridge
done side actually for Formula E coming up, so there's
some great testing and that miss that memo, so sorry,
I'll fun stuff. So we've got we've got some great

(20:21):
stuff cooking behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
So when I came over to do my NASCAR era,
yes I'm now calling it thanks to when I came
over to do the NASCAR era, I have this renewed
sense of like motivation and vigor and like excitement about
racing again, which is kind of like see the glimmer
in your eye about formerly e. Do you look at

(20:45):
me doing NASCAR and think, ooh, I would love to
design some of those tis, or I'd love to make
them better, or I would love to get my hands
to Eddie.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, I mean looking at anything with my engineer hat on.
So we've got the engineer hat and then I've got
the whole helping run and manage a business hat they're
two very different things. But you know, we always love
challenges to come up with something and think, oh, yeah,
maybe I do just slightly this, And you know, sometimes
I'll look at tires and go, okay, that's a that's

(21:15):
a set upset, right, I need just to make sure
that that's not going on the card speed or things
like that. So yeah, absolutely, I mean you look at
what they're doing with the with formulae with F one,
and you know, always as an engineer, you're like, I
think maybe I could do this, and I think maybe
we could do this part better. So yeah, there's always
as an engineer, there's always things like I would love

(21:36):
to be able to build the team up and have
more engineers. And my engineering team is awesome, like I've
got some great ladies and men that work for our
entire fires racing both professional and engineering side, and then
also on the production side, there's a great group behind
the scenes who works their kales off. But yeah, absolutely
like looking at different engineering challenges, I'd love to be

(21:57):
part of those. And just don't worry good you, I'm
not coming for your joba. I promise.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
No, you have a list I believe of things that
I do.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
So we had such a great conversation and we got
to at the end of our first podcast, So if
you haven't actually seen that already, check that out because
everyone fun conversation. But there were a couple we got
to San and was like, oh, so there are a
couple of things we didn't talk about. One of them
was just how of the how the ways that we
inspire each other. So whether it is, hey, let's do

(22:28):
something stupid and do a triathlon and not just a triathlon,
let's do an iron Man seventy point three because that
would be fine on for fun, for fine up and
then and then you're you're always telling me, like I
need to keep picking up heavy things and putting them
back down again. So like different things that we do,
but like the iron Man was so cool.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Iron Man was cool. The first thing that you ever
inspired me to do with spreadsheets?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Oh my gosh, thissco.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
So we go on so many adventures together, and so
many like vaca's and most of our vacas are active.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah I would, yeah, yeah, there's no there's very little
time where we're just going to go and we're going
to sit on the beach and not do anything. We're like,
there's going to be the beach. Those those things involved too,
but usually it's something active.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's always active, and one of us will get a
B and up on it. So car is great at
making lists and being organized, so rely heavily on her
for that. But she's also taught me how to do
it for myself. Yes, so now I have agendas and
it's like every trip that we do is a military operation,
which is great because we cramped so much in so
like London for example, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, when you

(23:34):
came to visit, we did what three days in England,
and so this was my list making time and I
wanted to hit all of the spots and do all
of the things. So we literally didn't have a minute
to but it was great. The Iron Man was great.
Kara said, we shouldn't know, I am man. I'm like, sure, yeah,
we trained. She gave me a training plan, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
I did. I've heard all those little cars each day.
What the workout was.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I still because I keep thinking maybe we should
do another one, and then I remember.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
That it was actually really hard.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, training for something like that, I know there's a
lot of drivers that have done Iron Means and Tony
Kannan is one. But to be able to stay organized
and then keep up your training level where you know,
it's really hard to find a YMCA on the on
the circuit when we're traveling and most places you're not
gonna be able to bring your bike. You can maybe

(24:26):
run a bike, you know, running is something that you
can do wherever, and then exercise bikes are just not
the same. So keeping up that hectic, crazy, time consuming
level of travel of working out while you're traveling is
just such a challenge.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, it's not gonna happen for me this year, I
don't think. But also I feel like we're up for
a different challenge. Yeah, I think we have to find
something else. What's next?

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
I I do love picking up heavy things and putting
them down.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yes, yeah, and you're doing all that fun CrossFit stuff. Now.
I got to meet the lady from your CrossFit gym
who came out.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
We also bought a ski pass because we keep saying
we're going to go skiing, and we have sporadically for
the last two decades, but then we always get busy,
and like your busy schedule. I have a busy schedule,
and so we decided if we buy the pass, then
it's going to force us because we're not going to

(25:20):
want to waste it.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yes, we've already paid for it for him.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
We're going to go do it.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
So now I see occasionally all the different epic pass
venues resorts, resorts, Yeah, resort.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
And oh can we get there?

Speaker 1 (25:34):
We get there, so we'll have to put some put
some dates in the diary. Your poor husband's with.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Sharing you with Yes he does, he does. We have
these text messages back and forth of Okay, yeah, you
can have her for.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
The weekend, like I'm going to steal her.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
I think at last time he said, but I do
have a contract.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
I'm like, is it valid in the country?

Speaker 2 (25:56):
But by Kyle loves it. When we started dating, I
think he asked the question, did I do I am
I going to have to be a motorsports fan and
I'm gonna have to be a racing fan And I
just laughed. I was like, no, you don't have to
be anything, but you're probably going to be by the time.
And he follows all the races sometimes those things and
you so he and Ellie Ellie is Kyle's almost sixteen.

(26:17):
In fact, maybe by the time this heirs Hi Barley.
Barley just came to join us, Hi girl, so by
the time she is maybe by the time it's airs,
she will be sixteen, so she's ready driving. She is
so lovely and she is such a big Catherine fan too.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
So yeah, she's great.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
I can't believe she's and.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
She's starting to follow racing and motorsports, which is fun.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, she's scaring to Goko.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yes, Oh, I'm sure she would love that. We had
her around a place that's local to us high Voltage
over in Madina. We had her in there maybe a
year ago. But we need to get her back there
with her friends. But her friends are going to be
coming to the midd Ohio IndyCar Race, so she's got
two of them that are going to come out with her,
Vivian and Peyton.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
So of IndyCar races.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Changing the subject as always, I was on the grid
of Indie last year for the five hundred and you
came up to me and you were like, your tithes
are on the wrong way around.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
I told you I always have your back, whether your
team's putting them on backwards.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Like what would have happen?

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Have you ever run them the wrong way round on
purpose to see what happens?

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Or Yes, we had a test plan we did years ago.
This is probably two thousand and seven. Yeah, a couple
of years ago, a minute ago. We're twelve at the time, yes,
must have been. So we're doing this test and it
was kind of a driver education for lack of a
better term. But what we did is it just kind

(27:43):
of give the driver some experience of what happens if
different things go on. So I think we were at
Homestead Road Course and we ran anything from like the
softest of soft street course alternates all the way up
to to indy left sides on both sides, because you
don't want to have all of that all of that
ability to turn or the tires then an oval. The

(28:05):
way they're designed, they want to turn left, so if
you just roll it, whether it's stagger or whether it's
how the tires are constructed, there's something in the tire
called ply steer, which if you think how a tire
is put together, especially if you look like at a
either a radial tire, but especially so in biased or
belted bias tires, there's splies that go in different directions,

(28:26):
and how those go together or how they panograph can
create side forces in the tire. I've turned into an
engineering nerd on your podcast. I'm so sorry. So, but
how these are put together and what direction and what
angles and all of those that you put together will
dictate how much side force the tire is going to
just generate on its own rolling. So a lot of
your your listeners are probably familiar with staggers. So it's

(28:47):
a bigger tire on the outside than the inside. So
if you take a solo cup and put it on
side and roll it, it's going to roll in one direction.
But just even the tires themselves want to turn.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
If you have one tire like forget stagger left or right,
could you have like a slightly shorter side wall on
one side and then along the side wall on the
other side, Yes, and then it would turn that way too.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah. So many years ago at Indy they actually had
front stagger too. So if you think about the rear
of a car at a place like Indianapolis, the differential
for easy to put it is just locked. So they're
going to turn at the same speed. So if they
have to turn at the same speed, they're going to
be pretty much locked. But there's all kinds of things

(29:28):
that they've done. Our tires sizes are actually slightly different
in the fronts too, but not enough to like have
significant stagger. You don't have one to have too much
of a differential because if you break up, like if
you're starting to hit the brakes hard, you may turn
in one direction and that's not so good either.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
That happens sometimes.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, So a in this test that we did back
in two thousand and seven, we went all the way
up to running two sets of right sides and two
sets of left sides on the car, so you could
see the drastic difference between all of the tires on
the circuit. So street course alter primary, a road course alternate,
which is going to be a little bit different materials,

(30:04):
a little bit more durable, road course primary, and then
all the way up to the right sides, and then
when we did part of this process we did flip
the fronts. And I was talking about the side forces
generated in a tire. If you look at a road
course or a street course, the side forces point in
towards the center, so it gives you really good, good
handling and feedback, and if you take those tires and

(30:26):
you flip them, they're going to point out. So those
forces are now pointing out. So when you break, the
car becomes a little bit more unstable, and as you're driving,
it's just a little bit more difficult to control the car.
And if you put two left ones on, We've had
that happen before. It happened to Danicut, mid Ohio, and
then one year at Indianapolis several years ago, Marco's team

(30:48):
grabbed Marco Andretti his team grabbed left front and right front,
but they just put them on the wrong side. I
heard on his radio, Hey, the car is handling terribly.
I look at and I can can't remember we see
we see tire pressures at the timing stand. Now, back then,
I don't think that we had live telemetry, but the
teams did, so I start to I hear this on

(31:10):
the radio and I start to think, do maybe they
have them switched? And I went over to their pit
box because I heard the complaint about something wrong with
the tires and looked at it into elementary this is
in the right starting the Indianapolis five hundred and we
it was either at our timing stand that we could see,
or it was at their timing stand. I looked at
it and I saw the right side pressure was really

(31:34):
low because the sensor knows what wheel it's in, so
I'm in the right front wheel, I'm the right front,
but it doesn't know where it is. So I could
put that right front on the left front and it
still says I'm the right front. Right, So the pressure
was so little rise on that tire, and then the
left left side, left front tire was like huge. So
we thought, okay, we're gonna have to pay a lot
of attention to this. So when they came in and

(31:56):
they took the tires off, and I want to be
there to see exactly what tire comes off. And then
the left front tire that was on the right front
position was blistered and it just it looked ugly and
men stayed together, but it was definitely the compound was
blistered because it had been punished outside of what it
was designed for. Marco, Yes, poor Marco. So then they
put the next set on and he's like, okay, cars fine.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Now I know that teams push the envelope. They push
it with camber, they push it with castera sometimes they
do with my arms and they definitely push it with
higher pressure, right, And there's been times where you mandate
a minimum tire pressure and a minimum camber and you

(32:36):
say you're not allowed to do more than this, and
you're not allowed to do less than this. We always
want to be like riding that thing, is there any
like you know that it performs better if it's under
that tire pressure or whatever it may be. But you
will also need to protect Bridgestone and Firestone, and you

(32:58):
can't have tires blow in under your watch, and.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
So they have to respect what you say.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Is it a constant battle to get them to adhere
to your recommendations so that you can protect the name
because the public if they're watching it and you have
a tie blow or something happens to it because a
team's not following the protocol, then it still looks bad
for you, right, because they don't understand that X, Y

(33:28):
and Z team. We're just pushing it a little bit,
but we want the advantage that we can get. So
how much of your job is fighting that fight with
all the teams?

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Well, I think the engineers really try. I don't think
anybody really is most of the time intentionally trying to
go out of the operating window. Just like anything, you
have a range where this is how you use this thing,
and these are the conditions that you need to use
this thing. You wouldn't I can't think of any examples
right now, but there are plenty of appliances that you

(33:58):
wouldn't try to do something stupid with because you know
it's going to happen. And I think our teams in
general try to run what's best, but there's always the
you can always tell when I'm coming down Pitleen and
I have got that look in my face like paper
are like, oh no, caras coming like uh oh cars.
Now we have the telemetry of inflation pressure at the

(34:19):
timing stand. So usually because we have that, so even
early in the weekend when we're practicing, whereas before like
maybe they would start going lower and lower and lower
in practice and then all my car set up for this,
that can't change it. Now now we're able to see
that earlier, so we're talking to the engineers. So there
are plenty of times and usually like the first and
at an oval, you're going to see me walking down

(34:40):
and trying to find the engineer and they might be
trying to dock a little bit, but.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Dave yours, Yeah, camber's way too much.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Camper is a hard one to see. So I'm getting
a little bit better over the years of just kind
of looking at a car and seeing within maybe point
two degrees of what I think it is. But yeah,
it was. It was funny. We were at your race
and I was looking at your car setup and and man,
those cars can take some camera looking at whoa you know,
completely different tire, completely different shape. But I think as

(35:10):
as tire manufacturers, we're always making sure that you know,
for I would think every single one of us, safety
is number one. We've been around for many years and
we've seen a lot of things happen in our sport
and a lot of things that you just don't ever
want to see happen. And I think both myself and
my engineering team looks at things like that and says,
you know, that's never going to happen because of a tire.

(35:32):
So you have that passion to make sure not only
your designs are the best that it can be, the
manufacturing is the best that can it can be, but
you need to make sure you protect the drivers from
themselves and maybe not even themselves but the team and
the setup and everything like that. So sometimes from themselves. Yeah,
but yeah, you know, we always want the best grip,
and we always want to get faster, and we want

(35:52):
to get that advantage wherever it exists, whether it's in
the tire, whether it's one one tire, we can exploit
a little bit more to be, you know, get the
car handle better in the corner. As teams, you're going
to want to do everything you can do to get
that little last bit of competitive advantage. But then again
it's my job to make sure that you're going to
do that safely.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
So two things. First thing, is it the teams that
are at the point to the end of the grid,
are the fast guys that push it more than the
others or is it just a range over the grid.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
So that's an interesting question because setup philosophies are very different.
You can have a very fast car and not have
any kind of overstress on the tires, and then you
could have a completely different setup philosophy where you buy
what you've decided to do in your engineering or car,

(36:43):
are pushing one side or the other just a little
bit more. We've seen in Indian past years where in
erder setups have led for left side vibrations. So we've
had years where we've had a specific team have vibration.
We had a year where one of the manufacturers realized
that if they stood up their left we retire a

(37:06):
little bit. It tipped it out of the airstream and
it was enough to save a bit of qualifying speed.
And they did this for one year at India several
years back, and our tires started blistering and we were
looking at it and looking at the camera and thinking,
why are you standing up your tire? This is not like,
this is not the best grip, and it wasn't about
the best script. They can they could get away with

(37:27):
that little bit and just tuck that the tire in
out of the arrow a little bit, and I was like,
you know, you start looking at it. And as a
tire engineer and as a leader, I'm always you know,
challenging my team to if you see something in a tire,
don't automatically jump to, uh, oh, what's wrong with the tire.
Let's look at where it's coming. Is there commonality? Are
we seeing it across several teams? Are we seeing it

(37:47):
only on one manufacture. And then you start looking at
the car and I just kind of stood behind the
car and I looked at it, and I was like,
is that stood up? Is that's lost its camera? Why
are they running that? And then you start thinking they're
nobody's Sometimes they will tell you and sometimes they won't
tell you. But in this case, you start looking at
and you're like, Okay, it's all engine manufacturer A that

(38:08):
is doing this, So it's clearly something and why would
they do this? And then you start having to reverse
logic it and say, okay, maybe it's out of the airstream.
And then you if you could ask the right questions
without actually like getting directly to it, then you can
learn these things.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
So the second part of that question then is your ties.
How closely matched are they?

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Like are they all within like a.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Half of percent if they're manufactured in the same batch
of the batches similar?

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Like how precise can you be with it?

Speaker 2 (38:40):
So there is a lot of work, a lot of
work to ensure the ingredients that we put in are
the same to make the same product. Yeah, it's like cooking.
I was surprised to find out, and it's not. I
guess it's not very surprising, but you look at a
brand like Kellogg's that makes whatever frosted flakes that you're getting.

(39:03):
Those frosted flakes have to taste the same whether you
whether they were made in the wintertime or the summertime,
and you're going to have different availabilities and different freshness
of different materials and different people doing it. So a
lot of it is that ingredients and how do you
get if you have to move things around and things
are going to change, how do you get that same output.

(39:23):
So we have a phenomenal polymer facility in the United
States for bridge Stone. We have just some amazing vendors
and customers, but there are always them things that are
going to change based on when a material was made,
what aged parts of that are used, from our suppliers

(39:45):
where they store it. So you have to come up
with a way to test your material and then down
select what material you use. And then if we get
to the point where we've made a batch and it's
not just not the same as the batch before, then
you can't You're not going to mix those tires now.
So it's always a challenge in any kind of manufacturing world,
especially now with you know, you had all those supply

(40:07):
chain issues with COVID and then it just doesn't have
to seem to have picked up. We had a material
mid last year where there was maybe one mention of yay,
we're looking at maybe selling our facility, and they closed
and this was one of our major materials and they
just closed, and we said, well, okay, we read an
article that said this plant is closing at the end

(40:29):
of the month, and so we reached out, can you
do one more production run. So you have to really
plan second sources and even third sources on material because
things are changing globally all the time.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
I always wondered that we use a lot of tires,
a lot a lot of tires.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
So when they take them off the cock, what do
you do with them?

Speaker 2 (40:48):
So different manufacturers do different things. And one disappointing thing
I see at other racetracks and with some of the
other people that we see in motorsports is sometimes they
give them away to people and people are always like, oh,
I want to get a firestone tire, I want to
make a coffee table. Well that's great, but what are
you going to do when you bring it home and
your husband or your wife says that thinging ain't going

(41:09):
in our living room. It's dirty and smelly, and yes,
tis tires are smelling and they'll leave a mark, and yeah,
kids bring them home. They think that good, good things
are going to happen, and what happens They end up
in the landfill.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
We are very serious about sustainability at bridge Stone, and
I know so many other companies now, different different tire companies,
different vehicle manufacturers understand how important it is to be
doing things sustainably because we want to be around in
racing for a long time.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
So in my mind, in my little dream world over here,
I think you melt them down and make them into street.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
I love that. I love that that is that is
actually actually perfect in one of the technologies that we
are working on and looking at, because I mean, what
kind of great advertisement is that to say that, hey,
you're going to buy these Firestone fire Hawks that you're
going to put in your car and they were once
in a past life or ase tire that would that's
so cool.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
You may have had an andreasy or arrayable yeah, Catherines
Indy five hundred time maybe on your car in.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Your car right now. Yeah, So that's awesome. So right
now you may have catherines any five hundred tire in
an asphalt additive. So that's that's where right now where
we're going. You need to start climbing up the sustainability ladder,
and there's good ways to get rid of tires, and
part of this is getting our technology back. So every

(42:30):
single one of those fire stones out there has specific
designs and specific materials and we just don't really want
to get to have those get in the hands of
the wrong people. But then also we need to make
sure that they're disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner.
We used to use tired derived fuel, so the tires
would go to a facility in Indianapolis where they were

(42:51):
used then as fuel and they ended up powering the
city of Indianapolis, which is super cool, but there are
challenges with that and maybe one step up on the
line then taking those tires and be able to recycle
them use them in places where you would have used
some other kind of virgin material. So that's a new
thing that we're working on. And then so that's what
our tires do right now as they get recycled, but

(43:13):
ideally and end up it would be great to have
them actually end up in in Passion Retires. Yeah. So
one of the things that we didn't get a chance
to talk to last time was both you and I
have a very strong passioning for mentoring and just bringing

(43:35):
up that next generation of talent. And I was so
blessed to be able to sit in a conversation in
Pike's Peak beautiful area near Colorado Springs with you and
lynn Lynd Saint James, who is lovely, and talk about
how do we get those that next Catherine, that next
driver that's going to do a phenomenal job and also

(43:56):
happens to be female, because we need to get more
in the sport. And then on my side, I'm always
looking at how do we get more girls interested in science?
And and yes, so I didn't know both of you
and I had some great role models growing up and
each other of course. Yeah, so when I was well,
I was a little girl, I was very excited this

(44:18):
is going to age me here. But I was in
first grade maybe when one of our Akron's own, Judith Resnik,
was going to be on the Space Shuttle Challenger. So
just seeing her, who came from the Akron area, I
think She even went to Firestone High School and she
was able to study engineering, electrical engineering, and she was
so smart. She was an astronaut. So when I was little,

(44:40):
I didn't see myself being you know, head of bridges
on Firestone. I saw myself being an astronaut, ballerina, scientist.
So yes, astronautval scientists. So I was going to like
go up in space and like do purewits and see rotation.
I don't know, but it was a whole thing.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
So I was seventeen at the time.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
No, no, this is this is little. I'm not going
to be a ballerina.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Just I never wanted to do anything.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
No, okay, I loved ballet. I was not so good
at gymnastics because my like my backbends. My back is
not flexible. It never has been. I love gance, and
I love music and so the music art stuff. And
you know, if you watch me alone in my kitchen
or doing laundry, I'm still quite the dancer. Nobody's gonna
see it.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Nobody needs to see anything or dance. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I did ballet when I was a kid. My mom
took my sister and I to ballet. My sister was
way better than me. The teacher said that I was
like a baby elephant.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Oh how much?

Speaker 1 (45:38):
So my mom was like tap.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Dancing it is going.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
I tried that.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
I didn't like that either, couldn't sing, can't play any
musical instruments.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
I know you're You're way more creative than I am.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
You can drive the heck out of a race car
more than ninety nine nine percent of the people out here.
It's a lot of significant figures.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
I've got that like logical side of my brain, Like
we've discussed how great of a team we would be
at something like the amazing race oh yes, or navigating somewhere.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
We did that escape room. I don't remember where were
we got out in like miracle time.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
But what amazes me.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
I was talking to somebody about this the other day,
and I can't think because we were there with Andy,
and Andy's very much like us, and we're all kind
of a type people. And I don't do well not
being in charge, yes, and taking control of the situation
with ninety nine point nineer cent of the population, but

(46:36):
you're also the same, yes, but together somehow it works,
it works, and we just know that that's your strength,
and this is my strength, and this is how we're
going to do it. And we never argue about any
people well.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Because we know there are areas like I'm gonna let
you drive. And I remember while there was once an
argument about driving. Was it was in Whistler and I
had rented a jeep and we're driving up Mountain and
I was like, yeah, I got this, and You're like, no, no,
I'm a professional driver. I'm like, well, I grew up
in the Midwest, I know snow. And it was like
this whole thing and we settled it and we're good now.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
So remember that.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
So I just always let you drive, which is good
unless you're tired. And oh, my gosh, the year that
you did the rookie test at was it Texas?

Speaker 1 (47:19):
And then oh when we were supposed to go to
Davis's wedding.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
We're supposed to go to Davis's wedding and it just oh,
it was so brutal. It was it raining in the morning,
there was some reason why we couldn't run, and they
pushed it up and you were I mean, that was
a brutal test. It was hot.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
I got migraine, and yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Got a migraine. It was and you still were like yep, nope,
driving it, got this, got this, and then you got
the car and I feel like you could barely stand up.
It was. It was brutal.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
I remember that, Yeah, because you had to book the
hotel and do all the things because we didn't have
all because we were supposed to fly out yes to
Europe for Davis and Barn's wedding.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Tried to do the flight change and it was like
a minimum twelve hundred dollars to change it and we
would have gotten in the late, might not have made
the wedding.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
So we didn't. So I was like, please just tell
me what I'm doing, because I did not function.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
But that was good. I mean that's a good example
of yes, we're both Type A, but you know, you
know the areas where you're going to step back and
let me take charge, and I know the areas where
and that you're you were best at so and I
think we played each other's strengths well. So Yeah, it's
not often that you get to type well it works
so well together. Yeah, And then you know, going back
to the mentoring subject, you were you were talking to

(48:26):
Linn and you were talking about like, how do we
find that that right person, and how do we find
the person that has the drive and the motivation to
do those things, which is always a challenge, you know.
You you just like worked your way through it. And
I think I'm going to steal your phrase here. You
said something like you've got to find that person's like
willing to drive over the grandmother for us, right.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
But I think that's a generational thing too. And I'm struggling,
honestly because I would love to create some kind of
diversity pathway, and I know Lynn has been doing it
for years, but Lynn has to support everybody, right, And
so Lynn and I were having a discussion we'll call
it discussion. We disagreed, but like I really respect that

(49:10):
about the people that are close to me, is that
we can have a discussion and not agree on all
the points and still be okay with that. And I
think that's how it should be. We don't all have
to think the same absolutely correct. So Lenna and I
were having this discussion about the F one Academy and
about supporting women, and she has to be Switzerland, right,

(49:32):
so she has to be diplomatic about all things and
all drivers, whereas I don't. I can cherry pick the
best ones and who I want, and I can support them,
and I can support the ones that I think are
deserving of it, regardless of whereas you know, she doesn't
have that luxury, I guess, and so I want to

(49:53):
find the next the person in the next generation that
has that drive. And it's a generation in my mind,
it's generational thing because they seemed to give up maybe
a little bit too easily, because they have it too easy.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
I had to fight.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
If you look at it, you had Janet Guthrie, you
had Lincent James, you had Sarah Fisher, you had Danika,
you had Me, you had Simoni, you had beer right like,
there was a it was an accelerating program that we
were all in. There was more and more and more
if you looked at it like a peramoid.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
And you had to fight through everything too. It wasn't like, oh, Catherine,
you're a girl, so we're gonna give you this right,
that's not a thing.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
None of us had it easy. Even if you had
the money, you still had to fight and scrape. And
we went with the best teams. And you know, Danika
also scrappy, right, super scrappy. Sarah kind of paved the
way for her and I and Simona, and I respect
the hell out of her. And I know that Sarah
shit is the same.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Opinion that I do in that.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
They need to want it, they need it to be
the only thing that drives them, the only thing they
think about. They wake up in the morning and they
think about and they're prepared to do the hard things.
Whereas I look now and I think maybe it is
a generational thing and it's going to take somebody super
special to want to put in the effort, you know.
And I see it in some people like Lady Abuse.
I think she's amazing. She's doing the cars Tour. At

(51:18):
the moment, I want to help her as much as possible.
I want to see her come up and succeed and
go through. And there's a handful of them, And I
know it's so hard because I've done it to like
walk the line between being feminine and being taken seriously right.
And I have gone both sides of that line. And
I'm just in the very fortunate position now that I

(51:38):
get to be myself.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Which is amazing. We talked about this last time, But
like all the great work ELF has done to help
you to accomplish that vision has been amazing because we've
all been through that.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
But where are those nine year olds that would literally
give up everything else for the opportunity, just the opportunity
to be the best race card driver that they could be,
wherever that takes them.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
And I want to find those people.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
And I have been asking around, you know, Okay, who's
got that glimmer in their I who's it going to be?

Speaker 3 (52:13):
And there are a handful.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Most of them have been sucked into either Ion Danes
or the F one Academy, which are giving women opportunities. Okay,
so I get it. I don't agree with them, but
I get it. I just think that they should be
racing as the best of the best and against the boys.
And I want to see them succeed on their own
two feet, on their own merit, rather than as a girl.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Let's just have them be a race god driver.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, absolutely, So let me ask you a question. Now,
So there's a nine year old girl out here. Now
I don't know who you are, but you're listening to
this podcast. What is it that you would say to her?
I mean, I think about what I say, and it's
more on the lines of like don't give up if
you get those setbacks, just keep pushing asking questions. If

(53:01):
you don't know, go out there, be persistent, ask talk
to people. But from your perspective, there's this nine year
old girl out here listening, or ten or eight or twelve,
what are you going to tell her?

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I mean, it's so difficult these days because of social media. Right,
So I would say, have a thick skin, be authentically you,
and never give up. Right, They just keep on keeping on.
If you want it that badly, you'll find a way
to make it happen. And I don't know whether you
can learn that. I don't know whether you can persuade
yourself that you want it badly, right, you even know
or you don't. A lot of people say they do,

(53:34):
Like I had a teammate a couple of years ago
who was a girl woman that I wanted to bring
up through and she said she wanted it badly enough,
but then didn't do any of the things.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
To support that. So it's just words.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Whereas I had another teammate like Christina, who was prepared
to put in all the blood, sweat and tears, and
so even though she had the means to do it,
she also wanted it more badly, so more badly. My
English is terrible. I am British as well. I think
that it's way tougher because you have this constant noise

(54:12):
with social media, and I know you have to do it,
and I know I'm just as guilty as anybody else
who's in there scrolling, but I'm also twenty years in
and I also don't give a monkey's what those people
are saying. Twenty years ago, if I'd had social media
and Lsbradia, I would have been devastated.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
I derustated. Yeah. Yeah, there are even times where I'm
not even a driver and that I've had to pull
back social media posts. The one year that I was
so excited that you looked at the top three finishing
teams for the Indianapolis five hundred and realizing each one
of them had a woman on it, and I was
so excited, and they made a post and I was roasted,
absolutely roasted online for that. So and it's I mean,

(54:53):
you have to choose your words carefully always, no matter
what you're saying and when you post, and you were
very good at it. Seen some others that just don't
know how to use social media well and just just
understanding that like what you say lives forever and all
of those things too. So I don't know, it's it's
tough for the girls going up now, and it's it's

(55:14):
a necessary evil, right. You have to promote yourself. You
have to promote your brands. Man, you've had some great
luck with your your drop light and.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
This new too.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
All they do such wonderful social.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Media that they do.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
But yeah, I mean that's tough if you're if you're
growing up, and yeah, how do you how do you
really get people to want it? I think work on things.
My my advice would be to work on things that
are hard. Too many times we look at something and
we just give up too quickly. So whether it's like
doing a puzzle or something like that. If you if

(55:46):
you give up on a puzzle or if you give
up on a hay, I'm going to run to the
end of the block, and you don't make it. At
the end of the block, your brain, I think, starts
to adjust to the signal that the words are telling
me is not necessarily the thing that we need to do.
So if I always say I'm going to run to
that next sign and I never make it, you're programming
myself to fail. So doing do things that challenge you

(56:09):
and stick through it, whether it's a hard math problem
or something at school, or a book that you're like, oh,
sometimes it's good to put down a book because it's
not the best thing that you're reading. But if it's
a challenge and it's something that you set yourself to do,
I think those little things can help.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
I think maybe we're built differently, though. I think it's
because I never consciously did those things.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Okay, I just.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
A massacres and I'm like, if it hurts, it's good
for you.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
So it doesn't kill you, mix you stronger, going to
do all the hard things.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
I think I've probably got that from my dad.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Yes, your dad is awesome, but I don't know. But yeah,
I would think that, And I would even when I
was running, or when I was doing something back in
the day and I wanted to stop because it was hard,
or I didn't want to do the extra rep or
whatever it was, I'd be like, Roger Penske's watching you, Yeah,
that's good. Or I didn't want to make the phone calls.

(56:59):
I didn't want to put my out there because I
was shy, so like to find the sponsorship to do it.
I didn't want to have to go and talks to
team owners because I didn't want to have to sell myself.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
It's awkward, it's hard, and.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
You freaking do it anyway, and so I don't know
whether it's too easy for the kids getting it nowadays.
But then I also look at all these series like
F two, F three, F four, especially in Europe, and
every year they seem to be getting better and better,
and you always think that your era is the best era,

(57:31):
but then you look at.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
These kids and they're so good.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
I don't know whether my ascitation's right. But I also
look at these series and there are a lot of
good young women coming out through but there's also a
lot doing it for the wrong reasons. And I think
your brain knows the difference. I think if you're out
there trying to be like an Instagram model who gets
the attention by driving a race car, then your brain

(57:57):
knows and that's why you're not making it as a
race car driver. So I think you have to make
sure that your motivation is the right one, because you
get one life right, and so you have to do
something that you really want to do. And I think
that so many of us, because of social media, want the.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Reassurance or the for people to think that we're doing
the rest thing. You have to take that away.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
You have to be able to separate that and reprogram
and be true to who you are for the right reason. Yes,
like when you're talking about engineering your eyes lighter and
you know, like that's what you were born to do.
And I think that your brain knows the difference too.
It's like if we put you in a different if
we made you a race car driver, it wouldn't be authentic.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Yeah, And I think there's something about that authenticity. There's
something about, you know, finding a lot of people never
find what it is. I mean, there's something out there.
We're probably for everybody. But we're very lucky to be
able to do what we do.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
I mean I say that all the time. I think
hashtag blast, I think some of these like vibe and
blessed words, they do my head in. But I also
I feel so incredibly lucky that we have something that
we're passionate about.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
Because you ask people.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Like what do they want to be when they grow up,
and they just want to have a job or they
just do something. They don't have that passion, they don't
have that thing that makes them want to get out
better in the morning. And even now, twenty years into
a career, I may not be a car nut, but
I'm still a racing not and I still love it
and it still really want to do it. And I
think if I hadn't found racing, I would have been, like,

(59:40):
my life would have been so drastically different in so
many ways. I don't know that I would have had
the zestful life that I have.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Yes, So hearing you say that, it reminds me of
a Japanese concept called icky guy. So it's something that
I learned in a management class at one point. But
there's five core principles. But the general idea is if
you can find something that you're good at, that can
contribute to society, that can make you money, that's also contentment.

(01:00:10):
And then we just googled it. What was the fifth one?
I'm missing balance? Balance. So if you can find that,
I guess balance of all of those and maybe if
you think about it as then diagram, if you can
find that sweet spot of all of those things, it
just really is. It's a sweet spot. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
I am fascinated by this now and I love it
so much and I'm so glad that you brought this
to my attention. So the Googles my series says, it's
fundamentally about finding your reason for being.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
It's yeah, what makes you want to get out of
bed every morning? Passionate skills, So you identify activities that
align with your passions on where your skills and talents
can be utilized, which takes a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Of self reflection.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Oh, it does, like when you are deciding what you
want to be when you grow up, are you analyzing
like what I guess you do? Because I guess like
in school, I was good at math and science and geography,
and I was terrible at art and English lit and
things like that. So I guess you kind of are
aware of them, you just never consciously think about them.
So involves identifying activities at line with your passions, where

(01:01:16):
your skills and talents are. It encourages the sense of
contributing to something larger than yourselfer than yourself, yes, whether
through work, cobbies, or community in movement. And I guess
if you're passionate about something, then you do want to
give back.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Balance. It's not about having one single grand purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Oh man, we just lost it there, but rather about
finding a balance between what you love, what you're good at,
what the world needs, and what can provide you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
I guess that's maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Why I do want to find, you know, the young
generation and help and support and give back, because I
wouldn't be racing and I won't be where I am
without a lot of support from a lot of different people,
and so I think it's only fair that you then support.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
Be that for others.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
And the last one contentment, rather than seeking external validation.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
See this is why we were just talking about Instagram
now now we're at it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Rather than seeking external validation all material possessions, it emphasizes
finding ikey, I emphasizes finding contentment and joy in the
every day. I love this so much and these are
the new principles that I'm living black by the.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Way, Catherine, Icky Guy, ike Guy, I.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Kind of want to put out on my helmet.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
Now that's a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
So I do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I really do like that balance, just to be able
to define and keep looking for it. Right if you
don't know, if you're listening and you're like oh, I
just don't have that. Maybe you're maybe you're doing the
wrong thing, or maybe there is something And honestly that
that sense of contentment could be just you know, the
person that is working at a food bank and they're
really talented, or the person that plays music for their

(01:02:50):
church and is getting back, or you know, whatever that
thing is. To be able to have that, that's just
so kind of cool philosophy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
It's a really neat philosophy. Well, I think that we
didn't get to touch on all the topics that we
wanted to touch on, which means.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
We had to have a party, Dawn. But I am
very grateful for you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Oh seeing girls, Sam, and we are going.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
To go and float on the lake maybe decent week
surfing and enjoy the time that we have together because
it is very rare that we get a day off,
Yes it really is. And so we are going to
leave you with Ikey guy and we will speak to
you soon. Thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be

(01:03:37):
back next week with more updates and more overtakes. We
want to hear from you. Leave us a review in
Apple Podcasts and tell us what you want to talk about.
It might just be the topic for our next show.
Throttle Therapy is hosted by Katherine Lay. Our executive producer
is Jesse Katz, and our supervising producer is Grace Fuse.

(01:03:57):
Listen to Throttle Therapy on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
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