September 23, 2025 • 11 mins
On this episode of Throttle Therapy, Katherine delves into the day-to-day business aspects of being a race car driver, from sponsorship relationships to merchandise. She checks in following her trip to Nashville and looks ahead to her next race in Vegas.
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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):
episode of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine, and I have
been a busy young lady. So I don't know how
many of you know what race car drivers actually do
on a daily basis, and I'm guessing that everybody is
totally different. For me, I think the unseen side of
(00:44):
racing is the business aspect, and a number of drivers
have management teams, management companies, managers, agents, etc. Etc. So
in order to race successfully, you need a business behind
you basically, and what I mean by that is think
(01:06):
about all of the things that you need to do
or the team contracts, the merchandise, the accounting, the invoicing,
finding sponsors, the keeping sponsors happy, the posting on social media,
and so. Depending on how big your race card driver
(01:26):
brand is, you may be a one man bad or
you may have a number of different people doing all
these things. I'm incredibly lucky that I have drop Light,
not only as a awesome sponsor, but also I have
the benefit of using them like any business would, in
that they help me with the marketing and the day
(01:47):
to day and the accounting and the legal stuff and
all the things that small businesses need. So a lot
of drivers signed to a team, and then the team
takes care of a lot of it, and a lot
of drivers don't they take care of some or all
of it themselves. I have been very proactive since my
last race, trying to put together deals for next year.
(02:11):
Now I don't have a manager per se I have
had in the past, and I'm talking to talking to
a couple of people about maybe doing it in the future,
because it's really hard to do those negotiations yourself. So
it's really difficult to work with the manufacturer and the
team and the sponsors and try and tie it all
(02:32):
together to get yourself in the best position that you
can for the following season. And that time is now,
So I'm obviously committed to GM and trying to make
a successful diversity program with them as well, where we're
going to support some young women coming up through the
(02:53):
ranks so that when I'm old and decrepit and cut
race anymore, or I get slow that I can hand
them and over to next the next generation, and feel
like I've left a legacy. So back to the business side.
You have to speak to the manufacturers and the teams
and then you have to negotiate, Okay, what do they
have available, what does that look like, how would that work.
(03:16):
Sometimes it's not just as simple as saying hey, I
want to drive for you, or a team saying hey,
we want you to drive for us. Sometimes that means
mixing and matching sponsors, like hey, I've got so and
so and they want to be on the car, but
that does not drive with the sponsors that you have,
so we need to do X, Y and Z. It's
(03:38):
also a lot of work to get merchandised up and
running for you guys next year, with all the figuring
out how the licensing works and who the vendors are
and who will do something that's kind of genuinely aligned
with what I think looks cool, and also have my
(03:58):
team design cool stuff again through drop Light, and so
there's all of that going on, and then you've got
to think about that over two series. So trying to
do the eighty five hundred next year, trying to have
ELF back on board and trying to do NASCAR. So
with all that to be said, you've got different sponsors,
different series, different teams, and everybody that you're trying to
(04:21):
trying to do a deal with, trying to juggle and
get in the best situation that you can, and then
you kind of work your way down the list. Okay,
Team A is my preference along with this sponsor in
this car. Yeah, yeah, Yeather. So it's a lot of
work alongside that. I have totally neglected anything at home,
(04:43):
So I've done a little bit around here. I needed
to chop down some trees and put some stones down
on my driveway and just random stuff that needed to
be tidied up around here before my house gets dilapidated
and starts falling into the lake. So I'm enjoyed doing
the last few weeks of summer in North Georgia and
(05:03):
trying to get everything sorted for next year. Lots of paperwork,
lots of emails to respond to, lots of things have
been pushed to the side while I focused on a
lot of work racing this year. And now I've got
one or two more races coming up in a few
weeks and then we roll into twenty twenty six, which
(05:24):
will be awesome, I hope, if everything goes according to plan.
So we're looking forward to Vegas right now. Vegas will
be my next race and it will be with lift
Us in the seventy acre. It will be sponsored by
Disney to Tequila because we have done a deal with
the Venetian Hotel where we will be proudly staying and
(05:45):
hopefully we can get lots of lots of you guys
out to Vegas to drink some tequila some Desnuda with
us at the Venetian and we will have a great
finish to my season. I want to do as many
more races as I can this year, but at the moment,
my focus has to be on next year and doing
the best that I can to put everything together for
(06:08):
next year and what that looks like in which series
with who, et cetera, et cetera. So in the spirit
of shaking hands and kissing babies, we did a Droplight
(06:31):
event in Nashville for the last race of the IndyCar
season and we had a lot of fun promoting does
Nuda there. So we relaunched Desnuda, which, as you all know,
is a amazing tequila brand. It's totally organic and clean
and it tastes so good. It's just better quality than
(06:53):
a lot of more expensive tequila's out there. So I'm
proud to represent them. And we did a unch in
Nashville and we had a lot of fun. Like the
Droplight folks are amazing to work with. And what Droplight
does is they're like a private equity company for small companies. Basically,
(07:14):
when you're a small company, you have needs and wants
and if you want to grow, you have to do
certain things. And there's, as I spoke about me being
a small company, there's a lot of different facets to that,
like the marketing and the accounting and the legal side,
and the planning side, and the B to B side
(07:36):
and sales and all the different things. And normally it's
a small group of people. So what Droplight do is
in return for equity, they support them with all that.
So Droplight will do the marketing for Desnuda, for example,
And so we did a bunch. We launched it at
(07:58):
the Bobby Hotel in Nashville. We had a fantastic race
with with the Indy Car and Louie Foster and Ray
horse Team Roll. We did so many different events. I
am tired just thinking about it because normally I'm racing
and I don't get exposed to any of that. But
it was a lot of introducing people to different people,
(08:20):
and we got to have so much fun. We got
to make our own cowboy hats. I got to make
my favorite English food and film it with a famous chef.
We were at a party on the rooftop and I
got to meet some really cool people in the industry
and outside of the industry as well. Actually we had
an after party. I mean we were full on for
(08:41):
three days, at least three days, and I needed to
leap for like twenty four hours when I got back.
But no hangovers with There's Nuda, which was nice. That's
kind of just like the business side of racing is
sometimes you have to do the to be and sometimes
you have to be a social butterfly and it doesn't
(09:03):
come naturally to me. I'm much more introverted normally, much
happier walking through the woods with my dog. But I'm
really lucky that I get supported by all these wonderful people.
The other thing that we've done a few of is
school visits. Started in Nashville and got to read excerpts
of my book to a big class of hundreds of children.
(09:27):
And then we did the same thing here with a
school in North Georgia. It's kind of near where I live,
and it's Miss Smallwood is the teacher, and she has
a Nascar themed classroom. And so I went to that
school and did the same, red some of my book
and signed the students, literally signed the students. So I
(09:51):
honestly thought I was going to get in so much
trouble with the parents because they're like, hey, can you
sign my arm? Can you sign my arm? One kid
asked me to sign his forehead, and I'm like, I'm
not gonna do that. Your mum will call me up
and say, why did you sign my kid's forehead? And
bearing in mind, they asked if it was permanent marker
and I told them yes, so they thought that it
wasn't washing off. So all these kids were literally signing
(10:12):
up for tattoos, which I mean, it was just so
much fun. It was awesome to see how inspired they
were to find out about something completely out of the
realm of their normal lives. So I had a lot
of fun bringing my passion to them and encouraging them
(10:34):
to follow their dreams like I had the opportunity to.
And also to introduce them to Cat's Magic Helmet, obviously,
because it's a book that I'm very proud of and
I think had I read it when I was a kid,
it would have had an impact on me too, So
that was very cool. All that being said, that's what's
going on this week. I will be going to Charlotte
(10:56):
soon to drive this sim and meet with a lot
of NASCAR people, but meanwhile still have some jobs to
do around the house. My dog is enjoying me being home,
and I will speak to your next week. Thanks for
listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next week with
(11:16):
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 Legg. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz, and
our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen to Throttle Therapy
(11:36):
on America's number one podcast network, iHeart, open your free
iHeart app and search Throttle therapy with Catherine Legg and
start listening
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):
episode of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine, and I have
been a busy young lady. So I don't know how
many of you know what race car drivers actually do
on a daily basis, and I'm guessing that everybody is
totally different. For me, I think the unseen side of
(00:44):
racing is the business aspect, and a number of drivers
have management teams, management companies, managers, agents, etc. Etc. So
in order to race successfully, you need a business behind
you basically, and what I mean by that is think
(01:06):
about all of the things that you need to do
or the team contracts, the merchandise, the accounting, the invoicing,
finding sponsors, the keeping sponsors happy, the posting on social media,
and so. Depending on how big your race card driver
(01:26):
brand is, you may be a one man bad or
you may have a number of different people doing all
these things. I'm incredibly lucky that I have drop Light,
not only as a awesome sponsor, but also I have
the benefit of using them like any business would, in
that they help me with the marketing and the day
(01:47):
to day and the accounting and the legal stuff and
all the things that small businesses need. So a lot
of drivers signed to a team, and then the team
takes care of a lot of it, and a lot
of drivers don't they take care of some or all
of it themselves. I have been very proactive since my
last race, trying to put together deals for next year.
(02:11):
Now I don't have a manager per se I have
had in the past, and I'm talking to talking to
a couple of people about maybe doing it in the future,
because it's really hard to do those negotiations yourself. So
it's really difficult to work with the manufacturer and the
team and the sponsors and try and tie it all
(02:32):
together to get yourself in the best position that you
can for the following season. And that time is now,
So I'm obviously committed to GM and trying to make
a successful diversity program with them as well, where we're
going to support some young women coming up through the
(02:53):
ranks so that when I'm old and decrepit and cut
race anymore, or I get slow that I can hand
them and over to next the next generation, and feel
like I've left a legacy. So back to the business side.
You have to speak to the manufacturers and the teams
and then you have to negotiate, Okay, what do they
have available, what does that look like, how would that work.
(03:16):
Sometimes it's not just as simple as saying hey, I
want to drive for you, or a team saying hey,
we want you to drive for us. Sometimes that means
mixing and matching sponsors, like hey, I've got so and
so and they want to be on the car, but
that does not drive with the sponsors that you have,
so we need to do X, Y and Z. It's
(03:38):
also a lot of work to get merchandised up and
running for you guys next year, with all the figuring
out how the licensing works and who the vendors are
and who will do something that's kind of genuinely aligned
with what I think looks cool, and also have my
(03:58):
team design cool stuff again through drop Light, and so
there's all of that going on, and then you've got
to think about that over two series. So trying to
do the eighty five hundred next year, trying to have
ELF back on board and trying to do NASCAR. So
with all that to be said, you've got different sponsors,
different series, different teams, and everybody that you're trying to
(04:21):
trying to do a deal with, trying to juggle and
get in the best situation that you can, and then
you kind of work your way down the list. Okay,
Team A is my preference along with this sponsor in
this car. Yeah, yeah, Yeather. So it's a lot of
work alongside that. I have totally neglected anything at home,
(04:43):
So I've done a little bit around here. I needed
to chop down some trees and put some stones down
on my driveway and just random stuff that needed to
be tidied up around here before my house gets dilapidated
and starts falling into the lake. So I'm enjoyed doing
the last few weeks of summer in North Georgia and
(05:03):
trying to get everything sorted for next year. Lots of paperwork,
lots of emails to respond to, lots of things have
been pushed to the side while I focused on a
lot of work racing this year. And now I've got
one or two more races coming up in a few
weeks and then we roll into twenty twenty six, which
(05:24):
will be awesome, I hope, if everything goes according to plan.
So we're looking forward to Vegas right now. Vegas will
be my next race and it will be with lift
Us in the seventy acre. It will be sponsored by
Disney to Tequila because we have done a deal with
the Venetian Hotel where we will be proudly staying and
(05:45):
hopefully we can get lots of lots of you guys
out to Vegas to drink some tequila some Desnuda with
us at the Venetian and we will have a great
finish to my season. I want to do as many
more races as I can this year, but at the moment,
my focus has to be on next year and doing
the best that I can to put everything together for
(06:08):
next year and what that looks like in which series
with who, et cetera, et cetera. So in the spirit
of shaking hands and kissing babies, we did a Droplight
(06:31):
event in Nashville for the last race of the IndyCar
season and we had a lot of fun promoting does
Nuda there. So we relaunched Desnuda, which, as you all know,
is a amazing tequila brand. It's totally organic and clean
and it tastes so good. It's just better quality than
(06:53):
a lot of more expensive tequila's out there. So I'm
proud to represent them. And we did a unch in
Nashville and we had a lot of fun. Like the
Droplight folks are amazing to work with. And what Droplight
does is they're like a private equity company for small companies. Basically,
(07:14):
when you're a small company, you have needs and wants
and if you want to grow, you have to do
certain things. And there's, as I spoke about me being
a small company, there's a lot of different facets to that,
like the marketing and the accounting and the legal side,
and the planning side, and the B to B side
(07:36):
and sales and all the different things. And normally it's
a small group of people. So what Droplight do is
in return for equity, they support them with all that.
So Droplight will do the marketing for Desnuda, for example,
And so we did a bunch. We launched it at
(07:58):
the Bobby Hotel in Nashville. We had a fantastic race
with with the Indy Car and Louie Foster and Ray
horse Team Roll. We did so many different events. I
am tired just thinking about it because normally I'm racing
and I don't get exposed to any of that. But
it was a lot of introducing people to different people,
(08:20):
and we got to have so much fun. We got
to make our own cowboy hats. I got to make
my favorite English food and film it with a famous chef.
We were at a party on the rooftop and I
got to meet some really cool people in the industry
and outside of the industry as well. Actually we had
an after party. I mean we were full on for
(08:41):
three days, at least three days, and I needed to
leap for like twenty four hours when I got back.
But no hangovers with There's Nuda, which was nice. That's
kind of just like the business side of racing is
sometimes you have to do the to be and sometimes
you have to be a social butterfly and it doesn't
(09:03):
come naturally to me. I'm much more introverted normally, much
happier walking through the woods with my dog. But I'm
really lucky that I get supported by all these wonderful people.
The other thing that we've done a few of is
school visits. Started in Nashville and got to read excerpts
of my book to a big class of hundreds of children.
(09:27):
And then we did the same thing here with a
school in North Georgia. It's kind of near where I live,
and it's Miss Smallwood is the teacher, and she has
a Nascar themed classroom. And so I went to that
school and did the same, red some of my book
and signed the students, literally signed the students. So I
(09:51):
honestly thought I was going to get in so much
trouble with the parents because they're like, hey, can you
sign my arm? Can you sign my arm? One kid
asked me to sign his forehead, and I'm like, I'm
not gonna do that. Your mum will call me up
and say, why did you sign my kid's forehead? And
bearing in mind, they asked if it was permanent marker
and I told them yes, so they thought that it
wasn't washing off. So all these kids were literally signing
(10:12):
up for tattoos, which I mean, it was just so
much fun. It was awesome to see how inspired they
were to find out about something completely out of the
realm of their normal lives. So I had a lot
of fun bringing my passion to them and encouraging them
(10:34):
to follow their dreams like I had the opportunity to.
And also to introduce them to Cat's Magic Helmet, obviously,
because it's a book that I'm very proud of and
I think had I read it when I was a kid,
it would have had an impact on me too, So
that was very cool. All that being said, that's what's
going on this week. I will be going to Charlotte
(10:56):
soon to drive this sim and meet with a lot
of NASCAR people, but meanwhile still have some jobs to
do around the house. My dog is enjoying me being home,
and I will speak to your next week. Thanks for
listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next week with
(11:16):
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 Legg. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz, and
our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen to Throttle Therapy
(11:36):
on America's number one podcast network, iHeart, open your free
iHeart app and search Throttle therapy with Catherine Legg and
start listening
Host
Katherine Legge
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