Katherine the Brand with Davis Adams-Smith

Katherine explains how she’s preparing for the Daytona 200 ARCA race, from the process of car fitting to what she pays attention to while watching tape. Davis Adams-Smith, Director of Public Relations for Bridgestone West, joins to discuss the importance of working with brands you align with, and what that means for your personal brand as a driver. 

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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. Hey you guys, and welcome

(00:23):
to this episode of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine Legg.
So it's been a crazy few weeks. I've been at
Seabring for Racing Prodigy, which I will tell of you
guys about later. I've been at Daytona testing the Arka NASCAR,
which was so fun, best test ever. And then I
was at the Chili Bowl and obviously that was an

(00:47):
intense week of my life too. So now we've got
a couple of weeks to do some more Racing Prodigy stuff,
do a little bit of coaching, catch up with you guys,
and then we head straight to Daytona for what is
the ARCA race at the Daytona five hundred. Obviously it's
not the main event, but we are learning stock car
racing in the hopes of doing more of that. So

(01:10):
stock car racing has been on my radar since I
moved to America. It's a very American sport and I
love it so much. It's obviously one of the great
It's like football and baseball and basketball, and you got NASCAR. Obviously,
everybody knows about NASCAR, and I've watched it in awe
for decades now, and I very much wanted to be

(01:32):
part of it. I've dipped my toe in the water
and done a few Exfinity races and loved every minute
of it. I have a few good friends who race
NASCAR and stock cars, and so the next part of
my career, the next journey, is becoming a better stock
car driver and getting the opportunity to do more stock
car races and hopefully climbing my way through the ranks

(01:55):
of NASCAR and proving my metal there. So in my
this year to drive all of the cool things and
do all of the cool races, I'm training like a
crazy person because I want to be strong enough and
fit enough for anything that gets thrown at me. But
also I want to learn and become the best driver
and version of myself that I can be, which means

(02:15):
a lot of studying too. It means a lot of
watching old races. So I have been studying old ARCA
races at Daytona. I've been looking at drafting, I've been
asking questions, and I've basically been going back to school.
So I have been trying to take on board from
everybody's opinion that I respect, and there's a lot of
them in stock car racing. I've been asking so many

(02:39):
questions and I've basically been given a masterclass in how
to be a stock car racer. So as long as
I can put all of that advice and information and
learning into practice, I should be in good shape. But
it's always easier to see it and to talk about
it than it is to actually do it. A lot

(03:00):
of it depends on how good the car is, how
good the team is, how good your spotter is, because
your spotter basically helps you drive the car, and so
it really is the epitome of team sport, and it
really is experience pays off. But it's a culmination of
not only the driver. I mean, a good driver in
a good car becomes great, but a great driver in

(03:23):
a bad car doesn't even get to be good. So
it's very much the equipment that you're in, the people
that you're surrounded with, the partners that you have. Obviously,
I'm super lucky to be partnered with ELF. They have
opened doors for me that were not opened before, and
so I get better equipment. So then the architect that
I just did in Daytona is the car I will

(03:44):
be racing Daytona five hundred a weekend. And it is
a phenomenal team. I was so thrilled with the way
the team helped me. It even from the moment that
I showed up to the shop and did a seat fitting.
So over the holidays, I went up to Charlotte and
I went to visit the team and meet them and

(04:05):
make a seat. Now, for those of you who don't know,
a seat is basically molded to you so that if
you're in an accident, it protects you, it stops you
moving around so you don't hurt yourself in a normal race,
and you basically sit in this massive trash bag in
a shell of a seat, and that shell can be

(04:26):
either a carbon fiber or metal or whatever, and they
place that shell where they think it should be based
on your size and your weight. And then you sit
in this trash bag with some foam blocks to support you,
and they fill it in with these little beads and
a bunch of resin or a two part foam. There's

(04:48):
two ways of doing it, and very rarely do you
do that and think straight away, Okay, that's the best
seat I've ever made. It's molded to you so you
can't lose weight or put on weight during the seat,
which is easier said than done, because it's easier to
train at the beginning of the season when you've got
time and do all the right things, and then as
you get into the body of the season and you're

(05:09):
traveling all the time, it's way easier to.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Put on a couple of pounds.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
And so I've been very conscious this past so I
have eight ten months of being the same size and
the same weight, and the lighter you are, the better,
but the stronger you are the better. So I went
and I made the seat, and I met the team
and they were all phenomenal, and I was honestly a refreshing,
mind blowing experience to be able to turn up make

(05:34):
the seat. Two hours later, I was done, and I'm like,
that is the best seat I've ever made.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
So I was thinking, oh, this bodes well.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
So I went there with Addie Lallely, who's one of
my best friends, and he's also got a bunch of
stock car experience, and so I was trying to pick
his brains on the way there and on the way
back and try and learn from his experience as well.
And so I felt like that was a really successful trip,
and I was very much likeoing forward to go into
Daytona to do this architest. There's supposed to be a

(06:04):
two day test, but the weather had other plans for us.
And there's a big storm in the South, as you've
all probably heard, and it put the carbosh on it
and made it only one day, and it was actually
very chilly. But I again, it was like a seamless experience.
We turned up. I had a lot of support and
a lot of help. The car was great. We did

(06:24):
a few setup changes made the car even better.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
We ran in.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Traffic, so everybody was like, it'll be really boring for
you to just drive around on the oval doing single
car runs, like with the speed and everything else, it'll
be easy. So I went out and they said you
have to go flat out of the pits around the
apron and join after ten two. And I'm thinking, okay,
but that's actually a big deal in a car that

(06:49):
you've never driven before. It's on edge, you're on cold tires,
and there's a lot of gravel and loose stuff on
the apron. And I left the pit lane and these
things are fast, right, so leave pit line and you're like, okay,
I know I've got to go flat, but this.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Is daunting the first time that you do it. After
that it becomes easy.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
But I obviously in that situation, I don't want to
put a foot wrong and I don't want to embarrass
myself or the team, and I want to learn. So
I got up to speed and the first run was
not as easy as they said it was going to
be because I had to pinch the car down on
the exits. So I made a couple of changes that
made that a lot easier, and then it was relatively

(07:28):
simple driving around on the yellow line. My spotter was great.
He gave me great advice. He could see what I
was doing from the eyes from the sky. And then
I got to I got to play a little bit
in traffic, as my mum always used to tell me
to do, and we did some drafting, and to start
off with, it was just like one car draft and

(07:49):
you see how close you can get to that car,
and if you can push through the bubble, and how
the car feels in the draft, because obviously when you're
doing one hundred and sixty miles an hour. I'm not
sure what speed we do in there, but probably in
that range. The car behaves differently when you're sat on
another car's bumper because that car in front of you

(08:10):
disrupts the air and it creates what they call the
bubble behind the car.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
So can you push through that? Can you suck up?

Speaker 1 (08:16):
How far can you drop back before you get the
draft again? So all of these things were new to me,
and I was learning. I haven't been pushed what they
call pushed yet, which is when the car actually attaches
itself to your rear bumper, and I've done no pushing.
But we drafted with one car. We then drafted with
like four cars. We were moving out of the way

(08:36):
and like getting to the back of the draft, and
at one point we were at the top of the timesheets,
which was great. We had Grant Effinger, a phenomenal truck
driver NASCAR driver in general, and he was kind of
coaching me, helping me set up the car, and so
he was teaching me about drafting too.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
I was watching the videos, I.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Got comfortable being uncomfortable in a brand new situation like
this year is the year of doing new things for Catherine,
and so every step of the way, everything that I'm
learning and I'm taking off is making me better, It's
making me more confident, and it's definitely a learning process,
a bit like the Chili Bowl.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
So in every sport, I think.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
People study videos and study tapes of what the others
are doing, how they can be better, what they can learn,
and racing is no different. I think in every form
of racing we watch video. Sometimes we have overlayers of
video where we can see where the other cars are.
I know in NASCAR, for example, they have what's called
dartfish and that is basically an overlay of your car

(09:40):
on track from like a satellite position to the other
different lines that the other cars do. Now I hadn't
tested until this recent Daytona test, so I didn't have
any of that.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
All I can do is.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Go back and watch on board videos, which are very
limited in NASCAR because they want to keep the media lockdown.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
So they have to go through NASCAR.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
So all you can do is watch in car videos,
which are very limited in NASCAR because of the permissions
that you have to gain and videos of old races.
So thank goodness for YouTube, and thank goodness for people's advice,
because there's a lot you can watch and not realize
that you're taking anything on. But if you're looking for specifics,

(10:24):
like if I'm looking to go into my first ever
stock car race, when I over at Daytona, I'm looking
at how the people are drafting when they hit each other.
They only seem to be hitting each other square or
slightly off to the right, because otherwise they send that
car into the wall. I'm looking at the line. I'm
looking at whether they're lifting, whether they're dragging the brake,

(10:45):
whether they're doing both. I'm trying to see whether there's
any strategy as to when they make a move, looking
at which lane is going faster, looking at a whole
bunch of other things, like when they make the move
in the race, like what causes the carnage and the
accidents early on, who you need to avoid, who's who
the good drivers are. And I think a lot of

(11:06):
it is subconscious learning effort as well, because the more
you watch, the more you learn. And it wasn't things
that you were consciously looking for either, and so then
when you're having conversations with people, you think, Okay, I'll
make a mental note of that, and I'll look next time,
like where they're coming into pit lane, how they're doing
the falling back into line. So I'll give you an example.

(11:30):
I had no idea that it was a thing that
you have to wait for your buddy. So in NASCAR racing,
you have to make friends.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
And.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
With those friends you do drafting and you help each
other out because as a single car which I am
single car team, you are basically like a brick going
through the air. If you have teammates or friends, buddies,
then you can draft and it's way quicker, and the
more friends you have the better. If you have a
big team like Venturini, who are really the flagship ARCA team,

(12:04):
then they can all work together. They're four drivers or
eight drivers or whoever many it is in the year,
all work together to push each other to the front.
So you have to figure you've got a buddy behind you,
buddy in front of you wherever, however, you're helping that person,
but you can't leave that person.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Out to dry. So I just assumed that once you've
done the move, you just fall back in. But that's
not the case if you watch the videos.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
They stay out high in the second lane and they
wait until their buddy is clear too, so you can
both move down, which makes total sense. But most people
would have no idea that that was a thing until
you either get told or you watch the video. So
there's lots of nuances like that. It seems like there's
only two lanes normally, and it seems like there's only

(12:53):
really ten to fifteen really good cars, so I've tried
to study those. But also you learn from the mistakes
that people I'm making, and you hope that you don't
make the same mistakes. And you see it's not necessarily
the fastest car on track that wins.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
It's the smartest car. And that's the.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Driver being smart, the car being good, the team being good,
them executing well in pit lane when you come down
for pit lane and do tires and fuel, and then
you're spotter being really good at telling you in language
that is clear and concise what you have to do
because he sees it from the sky because you don't
see anything out of those cars. You have mirrors obviously,

(13:32):
and you can sense by sound and vibration what's going
on around you, but you really don't know how much
of a run they've got. You're concentrating on your driving,
keeping the distance from the car in front, keeping up close,
and keeping on the yellow line. And so it's really
a team effort. And if you've got a good spotter
that's planning that for you, and you're waiting until two

(13:53):
thirds of the way through the race and you're just
kind of riding around trying to keep out of trouble,
then I think that sounds like a good strategy. So
we were just trying to implement that at the test
and now I feel a little bit more of a
level of comfort. Then when I come back from the race,
there are some things that I need to practice and
polish up on, and I need to run in the
draft of more than four cars, and I need to

(14:14):
learn how to push and be pushed. I also need
to make friends. So if anybody's out there doing the
ARCA race and wants to be my friend, Hi, I'm Catherine,
would love that, and yeah, we can go.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
We can go draft together.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I promise not to hang you out now that I
know not to, and I think we'll be in good shape.
I joke about making friends, but what that means in
oval terms, in stock caut terms, is that you have
agreed to play nice in draft and help somebody else.
And that's probably multiple people. So it's either your teammates

(14:49):
because you're forced to be nice, or it's your manufacturer friend.
So I'm driving a Chevrolet, you know, do the other
Chevrolet drivers team up with me and we try and
and buddy up and do some drafting together?

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Or is it people that you know and trust?

Speaker 1 (15:04):
And so the way I look at it is how
fast is your car?

Speaker 2 (15:08):
How get a driver?

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Are you?

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Are you going to do anything crazy? And can I
trust you?

Speaker 1 (15:12):
So if you tick all of the boxes, then I'm
happy to go draft with you. You don't want to
just draft with anybody because there are some cars that
are are not as fast, there are some drivers that
are not as predictable.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I think.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
You just have to be smart about who you align
with to go to the front because you need to
all trust each other and work together to get there.
And then the last five laps of the race or
what have you. I think it's anybody's racing. You can
be friends and you can be friends off the track,
but on track you're no longer friends. But up until
that point, you've all got to give each other a

(15:48):
fighting chance. And so there is a lot of trust there,
and there's a lot of respect there.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
And there's also a lot.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Of unknowns because a lot of these drivers have been
racing against each other in lower formula and made their
way up through the ranks with each other.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
They know each other, they know what to expect, just
like I would in sports cars.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
You know, you give me an entry list of a
sports car race, and I can tell you good, bad,
or indifferent how I perceive the fairness and raceability of
that driver to be. And so I think it's the
same deal and stock car, only I'm brand new and
I don't know everybody, so I'm going off of everybody
else's opinion. I like, Hey, what do you think of Andy? Hey,

(16:28):
what do you think of so and so? What do
you think of the sixty seven car? What do you
think of this car? And so I'm kind of shooting
in the dark a little bit as to who I
make my alliances with. But I haven't started that yet,
so that will be a whole other process. And honestly,
I'm going to rely on the team a lot. I'm
going to rely on my friends a lot, and the

(16:51):
few friends that I do have there that I know
to help me navigate that and how you go about it.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
And then obviously see.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
We have Chevrolet who will also dictate how much we
have to work together to I'm excited to share this
episode with you because one of my very best friends
in the entire universe, Davis Adam Smith. Now Davis and
I have been friends for a while, go way back,
and we met in racing. Obviously, I pretty much don't

(17:23):
have a life outside of racing. I jest, but kind
of kind of not. And Davis used to work for
Honda and Accura, and of course I have a long
history being a Honda Accurate driver. And when we first met,
apparently I was nutty to him, but we've become great
friends ever since, and since then he has climbed the

(17:45):
ranks of Bridgestone Firestone. Obviously I drive on his tires.
We have a lot of friends in common, we have
a lot of interest in common, and because with such
good friends, we also live literally just down the road
from each other, so there is a little bit of
insight coming as to our friendship.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
What we do living on the lake in the middle
of nowhere.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
How our puppies are best friends, and how my work
life literally butts up against my home life in so
many different ways, which I love. Hello, lovely listeners, and
welcome to an episode of Frotto Therapy with me Catherine Legg.

(18:31):
And we are super fortunate to be joined by one
of my best friends in the entire universe, my not
so distant neighbor, and a very well respected member of
the auto industry, a guru, one might say, Davis Adam Smith.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Welcome, Hi, Hi, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Oh, you're welcome. You are top of the list.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Obviously, we should probably start off with explaining a little
bit about who you are to our lovel listeners. So
I will I will let you start at the very
beginning into who you are and how we met.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Well. I was born in Orlando.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
One years old, oh.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Many times over, almost twice now, So Hi, thanks for
having me. My name is Davis Adam Smith, as you mentioned,
longtime fan, first time caller, happy to be on the podcast,
and where to start. I am, first of all a
native Georgian, so I grew up in Georgia, went to
university in Georgia at the University of Georgia, and have

(19:35):
had a career in automotive since the beginning. So grew
up this little car guy. My dad was a big
NASCAR fan and his dad loved cars for that, so
I kind of grew up with that kind of infused
in my life and have been really fortunate to have
several different kind of chapters of my career, from journalism
to public relations with automakers and now at Bridgestone and beyond.

(19:57):
I'm an outdoorsy type. I like to camp and hike
and go off roading. I live on Lake Lanier right
a few coves down the down to lake, yes, right
right near you, and so have become a boater, jet skier,
kind of swimmer in the lake all these things, and
that's totally Catherine's fault. Yeah, I'm responsible, yep, and very

(20:22):
fortunate to be able to say that you Cat are
one of my very best friends and also one of
the very best friends of my husband Baron, and your
dog is the absolute best friend of our dog Liam.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
So yeah, it's actually it's really neat sideline, sidetrack, squirrel,
whatever you want. To call it that we became friends,
but then our dogs became friends.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
And my dog does not.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Tolerate other dogs necessarily. That well, she's very standoffish. I
don't know where she got that from, but you know
what they say, one hundred percent, I want to say
she definitely she loves Liam.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Like they're besties.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
And I gave you Liam back after babysitting him last night,
and she has.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Been moping ever since. It's bizarre. Liam has been moping too.
He's tired. I can tell that you guys warm him out,
but but he's he's mopey every single time. I think
he prefers his time over at Camp Catherine quiet life
with us.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I am sure that they prefer being together, which is
actually fortunate with the amount of time that they do
spend together.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
To be honest, thank you for taking body.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
For me tomorrow. Yeah is yes, my dog is actually
not my dog.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
I think if we worked it out, I think she
would have spent at least as much time at your
and Baron's house this year as she has at my house.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yeah, I consider her my daughter, so this is yeah.
I have partial partial custody, have custody of her, but
she's yeah, we coparents. It's fine, it's perfect.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
I got to know you when we've had like a lot.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
It seems like a lifetime in between, but it's probably
only been a decade in all reality where I got
to know you because you were working with Honda Accurate
at the time that I was driving for Honda and Accurate.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
And IMSE.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
And we didn't necessarily click straight away.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
I will let you. I will let you tell the story.
Do I get too, Yes? Absolutely, take it from the top, buddy,
take it. Yeah. So our first introduction would have been
right ahead of the Long Beach Grand Prix and it
was on media day, And as you mentioned, I was
the pr guy for Honda Accurate at.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
The time in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
I want to I think so it's either twenty fifteen
or twenty sixteen. So essentially they said, hey, Davis, do
you want to do anything with media as part of
the Long Beach Grand Prix Local it's our local race,
big race for us, And I said, yeah, let's have
some media out. We're gonna have some of our race,
you know, our racers out. We're going to talk about

(23:06):
what it means to have in SX, you know, here
locally our new flagship supercar, and we'll have someone who
is like an actual authentic race car driver who could
speak to what it is to, you know, take our
streetcar and turn into a race car and campaign it.
And it was you. It was you. It was always
you and and that's always you. And so we put

(23:32):
together this rooftop luncheon for the media at a restaurant
in Long Beach called Bobo, and uh, you know, we
began the whole thing, and I came to introduce myself
and you were not having any of it, because that's
not true.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
I think you think I was super naughty. I think
I was just overwhelmed.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Good memory, by the way, I don't I don't know
how you remember the name of the place even, but
I I just remember being introduced to like hundreds of people, right,
probably tens of people, but it felt like hundreds of people.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
I know, and you have fans and I'm choosing to
live in victim here.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
So actually the time, the second time I think it
was probably that I met you was on pit Lane,
literally on the pitwall of Petit that same year, right.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, it was it was later that season, so you
were super busy during our first introduction, and you were
hanging out with your friend and mine, Ali Coulter, right now,
that's how that that's how that initial introduction happened. And
then it was, you know, a pause in our relationship
and then and then we get to petite, which was,
you know, you were in the middle of racing and.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
I was literally about to get in the race kind of.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
You were, yes, you were about to get into the car,
and I was down there in the pits, you know,
just because I had pr access and was like, oh, hey,
you know, nice to see you again. And then we
found out that we lived two blocks from each otherterly
two minutes before you were hopping in the car again
and said, let's pause on this for a second. We

(25:05):
don't have time to think about this. But like once,
once there's race is over, why don't we hang out.
And the first time that we actually hung out was
on the rooftop of the Claremont Hotel. You remember, Oh
that's right, Yeah, we went on a double date we
did with our respective boyfriends at the time, and went
and hung out at the rooftop of the bar. And
you know, that's so began what has.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Become exactly then we hit it off, and honestly, not
only did you become one of my best friends, you
became definitely a go to for me in a lot
of things business related. Like our listeners might not know, yeah,
but you you started off in PR and it I
can't remember that, Davis. It's been such an evolution, right,

(25:49):
Like you have transitioned into this, Like I don't like.
All I can say is gury because anything marketing, PR business.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Why I feel like.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
I'm going to call Davis, because you've been through all
these lives and you know all these things, and you've
worked so hard to climb the ladder that you climbed
so quickly. Let's be honest, like in a decade, you have.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Never done me wrong.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Like all the marketing advice and everything, especially surrounding Indie
and ELF and like this big ramp up that I've
had over the last two years from doing sports car
racing and just getting a manufacturer deal to you know,
having to think about all these things, having to think
about how my brand is portrayed to the outside world

(26:35):
and how I position myself.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
And what do I say and what do I do?

Speaker 1 (26:39):
And so I am extremely grateful that I have clever friends.
I suppose it's a good way opening it.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
I mean, if we're talking about jobs, right, Like, if
that's what we're talking about, I don't have another friend
who has a more interesting, colorful and badass career than you, right,
Like it's I mean, how do people people a race
car driver? That's wild. It's not even fair, Like you
have such a one up on everybody.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
So I mean it is a bonkus job when you
think about it like that, Like is it annoying though,
like I go away all the time.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Well, I mean it's annoying that you're not around as
much as I'd love for you to be around. But like,
how cool though, Like your your career is so interesting
to be anywhere near and to know what you've gone
through is fascinating and so diverse and such a journey,
and you've been so self made this whole time, and

(27:32):
your career is something that's just so transcendent that like
my little corporate job, you know, because it.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Is not, by the way, listeners, it is not a
little corporate job.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
He is a genius.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
But I will actually I'm going to butt in there
and I'm going to say, how much of your career
is your identity, Because as you're talking about my career,
I'm thinking that is my tire identity, right like I
I'm a rice driver, I go off and I do
all these things, and it is.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Who I am.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
How much is that the same for you or not?

Speaker 3 (28:07):
You know, it's it's interesting. So I would say that
number one, my perspective on what a career is has
changed even through the last couple of years. So so
so Part one is that the way that I see
a job today is very different than the way I
would have seen it when you and I first met.

(28:27):
When you and I first met, I was much I was.
I was younger, and I was also like in that
like full on hustle mode, you know, where all of
my free time was spent building my career. And you know,
I moved. I moved across the country to grow my
career faster, right like. So, so a little bit of
background real quick. You know, I knew I wanted to
do stuff with cars, And in college I even had

(28:50):
like a blog called Davis and the Driver's Seat. It
was terrible and I've archived it and you can't find it.
I got the skills no no by me too, and
I've hidden it, so.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
You know, I get him drunk and I'll put it
on my podcast one night.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Can I probably can find it. So I knew that
I wanted to do stuff with the automotive industry. And
I've always said that I am not really a PR person.
I'm a car guy, and I would rather scrub the
floors at a dealership than do PR for like cookies
or something like that. So I you know, at the
end of the day, I just knew I wanted to

(29:26):
be near this industry because it was such a passion
for me. I love to go fast, I love to
go off road. I love the complexity of the machines.
I love the lifestyles they enable. I love the escapism
that comes with automotive Like it's just awesome. I love
that you can just like hop in your car and
leave and go somewhere else and see completely different things.
It's just amazing to me. So I knew I wanted that,
and I've been able to do PR for Portia. I

(29:49):
was a journalist who got to review cars for a
living and write for Car and Driver and stuff like
that for a few years, and then be the PR
manager at Honda for almost a decade and now, as
you mentioned, kind of climb the ladder bridge stone to
be in a pretty interesting job now. But at this
point in my career, I would say that I really

(30:10):
value what having a job unlocks in my personal life.
And you and I are talking to each other from
our respective lake homes down the street from each other,
which is funny. And I am so protective of that
lifestyle that we've created for ourselves and the ability to
be near family and to be able to enjoy my afternoons,

(30:31):
you know, when I can close a laptop. That when
I would have said previously is that my identity is
very tied up in like I'm a car guy. I'm
the PR guy at Honda, I'm the PR guy at Bridgestone.
I'm a journalist for Car and Driver whatever, right, But
now that's not really how I would describe myself. I
would say that I am a Georgian, I'm a lake person,

(30:52):
I'm an outdoorsman. I'm really happy to live with my partner,
my husband, Baron, you know, and also I've I've got
a career that's an automotive if you want to talk
about it. So it depends, like today, less of my
identity than it was five years ago. I think COVID
and being grounded at home and really having to refocus
on what really truly matters about a life has reshaped

(31:16):
and rescope kind of how I see myself. Yeah, but
my career has been fully immersed in automotive the whole time,
so it's hard to separate those things sometimes.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, I can't separate those things. I mean, I don't
really have that much outside of racing that you know.
I look at you and your future, and you've just
bought this beautiful lake home and there's so many cool
things that we're going to do to it, and I'm
so excited, and you must be like super in the
trenches right now, getting the carpets in the paint and
doing all the things. By the way, side note, I

(31:48):
was just looking at saunas I went in five minutes beforehand, and.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
I was like, Ooh, that could go in your basement.
Do not tell Baron this. We have other things to
buy first. It's on the list.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
But I feel like maybe that will come for me
at some stage. But I also feel like, even though
I love doing all the things that you love doing
on the lake and being an outdoors girl. I still
feel like my entire career is my identity, and I
find it fascinating. I would say to figure out how

(32:21):
other people in racing, automotive cars, whatever it may be,
view that, because I know that it is like a
passion and an addiction to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
I think that's ping winging in the background.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
So it's and I know for you as well, barn
is also in the same industry, and you've got friends
like me who are in the same industry, So it
is kind of like a tightly interwoven piece of artwork.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
I guess it's such a small community, right, And I mean,
like two things. One is that I think you're selling
yourself short a little bit here, right, Like it's got
to be so complex to essentially have a fan base,
right you you have like this what would celebrity status? Right,
that people associate you with a certain craft. It's the

(33:09):
same thing like George Clooney is a movie star. You
just assume that, Like he's probably a lot of other
things too. But when you think of George Clooney, you
think of movie star. When you think of Catherine LaGG,
you think of race car driver. But you're also so
much more than that, and I love that because of
our friendship, I get to see all those other pieces, right,
Like a lot of people never get that. They get like,
you know, your you have to like market your image

(33:30):
online and that kind of thing, and that's very much
tied up in racing. But I know that you my
deep duck secrets. Well yeah, and like you, I'm not
the only one who bought a lake house, you know,
like you, you have a gorgeous home and an incredible lifestyle,
and frankly, you made the same choice that we did.

(33:51):
You chose to move a little bit further from the
city to embrace a life that you want outside of
your career. And I think that we're very similar in
this regard.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
And this is my sanctuary. It is absolutely my santuary
for a life that is so full on, go go
go travel, travel, travel like it's an adrenaline impact lifestyle,
riding a roller coaster of ups and downs and racing.
And then I get to come back here and I
have you guys, and I can really kind of decompress
and relax. And by the way, I know you say

(34:20):
that I am the reason that you bought your lake house,
which actually just it technically should be then that I
am the reason that I bought my lighthouse, but you
are the reason that I.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Bought my lakehouse. So I feel like a story.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I think we absolutely owe them the story of how
this will happen.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
So, you know, you're on a plane all the time.
I was on a plane all the time, and you know,
we were like, hey, we should like do some let's
we love hanging out. Let's like do like a little
lake mini vacation together. But oh my gosh, please, no planes.
Too many planes.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Ps. We both live in Atlanta and the largest lake
in the state is right above the city. It's called
Lake Lanier. Y'all can google it. It is, you know, haunted.
Yeah yeah, take everything you read with a grain of salt, please,
But it's a beautiful, gorgeous recreation lake that's also a
reservoir to the state. That's huge, huge, huge, And we said, hey,

(35:13):
what if we go rent a little lake house for
the weekend and we'll do like a couple's retreat and
we'll go spend time on the water and you can
try to teach me how to wake board and all
those things. And I mean, that's exactly What we did
is we rented this lakehouse you me and our boyfriends
at the time, and came up, spent the weekend of
the lake and said, oh wow, oh this is amazing.

(35:35):
Why haven't we been doing this more often? It is
in our backyard. But I mean it was your idea, right, Like,
this was you. You suggested it, You brought the boat up,
We went and rented the house, We spent the time
in the water, and then suddenly Baron and I both said,
oh my gosh, this is awesome. You already had a boat, right,
which is why this is your fault. And so we

(35:59):
started renting and then and then we started Then we
were like, wow, this is really cool. We should do
like more time up here. And then we went from
doing more time to suddenly looking for like, well, we
both owned condos. What if we sold one turned it
into an airbnb?

Speaker 1 (36:11):
So we both have our refuge and we both I
guess the point I'm getting to is is you're not
just a car guy though. I mean, you have been
in automotive your whole life, but you've taught me all
things motorized. I was going to say motorized, but then
I was like, oh, we go mountain biking through. But
is your passion for all things motorized or is it?

Speaker 3 (36:34):
I love the thrill of speed and the ability to
go out into the wilds and that kind of stuff,
and so I truly love like all the machines, right,
and it's.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Going for ust like jet skis and boats and four
wheelers and motorcycles and motorcycles.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Do we want to talk about motorcycles? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:55):
You were.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
You were the one responsible. So I'm just putting that
out here first in case my mom and dad listen
and I get into a bunch of trouble.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
It's Davis.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Okay, okay, you actually got me started on my love
of motorcycles, and you sent me to motorcycle Learning school
whatever that is actually technically known as.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'm going to say that you had the interest in motorcycles.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Did.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
But my philosophy is and has always been better to
have the skills and safety knowledge and then make a
choice on whether or not bikes are for you. Then
go buy a bike and figure out that they're not. First,
safety first, at least know how to use the machine safely,
and then you can decide you can't want to use

(37:49):
those skills, right, Well, and so, yeah, you you went
through the same motorcycle safety course that I went through
in calimn Pornia, but you did it here at Georgia
with with Honda, where Honda will teach you all the fundamentals.
Baron went to and decided very quickly that it was
not for him. I loved it.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
He did not love it as much.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
He came off the bike on his first big ride,
so it was just it was a very slow speed,
gentle landing in someone's garden. But decided quickly that he
didn't want that anymore, fair enough, which is fair and
I support that, and I need him to preserve himself.
So that's that. That makes sense to me. But yeah,

(38:34):
so now we now we ride together, which is funny
because I just have I sold my real motorcycle and
I just have a scooter now and I try really
hard to keep up with you.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
But we look the strangest, strangest motorcycle gang in the
history of motorcycle gangs. But I just saw do Kathy
that I sent you this morning that I want to
sell my bike, not that I own a bike, Mummy,
and get the do catty and maybe wrap it and
do cool stuff with it, and I just I love it.

(39:04):
It's again, it's a freeing experience from everything normal existence related.
And we have some of the best rides around here
in the North Georgia Mountains and we can just like
go let our hair down and go down all the
windy roads.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
I am so terrified of your mom and dad finding
out that the bike that has been living hot hiding
in my garage was actually yours the whole time. And
then I'm complicit and this it's very interesting or Christmas
or whatever it is. Whenever they visit next, they're not now,
they're gonna They're gonna not come over. No, no, they

(39:43):
they're breaking up with us. They're breaking up. You forget
one thing.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
They know me, probably better than anybody else in the
entire universe. And I'm sure that A it's not going
to come as a shock to them, and B they're
definitely not going to blame you because they'll know that
one hundred and ten percent of it is my fault and.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
I she twisted my arm, guys, she made me do it.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
To I also think that they will think maybe I'm
old enough, I'm responsible enough now to be sensible, and
I am sensible in a bike, am I not.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, I think that you're a great rider. You're very cautious,
and I think you're a Yeah, you have good safety fundamentals.
You're very smart about the way that you ride. You
don't ride too crazily. You can't go too crazy with
me trying to keep up with you on a scooter anyway.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
So this scooter is like a super power.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
And I mean it's seventy miles an hour and it
goes around the windy roads just as quickly as I
can on my bike.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
To be fair, I just love how nerdy it is.
That I can put like a trunk on it and
siddle bags and I can think and take it to
the grocery store. That's why I love it so much.
So it's very nerdy, but it makes me very happy.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
I want to say, go about for a second to
me being away all the time, getting old and annoying
and like me having a weird job and not being
able to relate to a lot of things. Like I
know that it's not the norm, but I never thought
that I had actually made sacrifices for racing because it's

(41:16):
what I wanted to do. So it didn't They didn't
seem like sacrifices to me. They seemed like just A
and B to get to where I wanted to go,
which was see the first time and the only time
I would say that I really thought I'd sacrifice something
was when I missed your wedding because the test ran

(41:39):
along and so it must get annoying, Like, oh, Catherine
called and said she can't make the wedding because the
test got.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Rained out and now it's running long.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Like were you just like ough whatever, or you like
bloody hell Catherine, Probably not in a British accent.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Bloody hell Catherine. No. So, I mean this is the thing, right, Like,
I freaking love you so much, and I also know
what your career is, and I know what it is
that you have to do each year to build your season, right, So,
and it changes throughout the year, right, there are new
opportunities that show up. There's uncertain tier in opportunities that

(42:17):
like manifest in the last minute. And when it comes
to Indy Car running the Indy five hundred, I mean,
how badass is that? Like I am I hate to
say this out love, Like I'm your biggest fan, right,
I'm always going to support what you want to do.
You are literally one of my very best friends that
I've ever had in my life, and so whatever you

(42:39):
need from me in order to like make your own
dreams come true, I'm down for You missed a party,
that's it, you know. Like the thing is that is
that we get Yeah, but we get so much time
together in person that even the other people that we
that came to that ceremony, like we don't see them
all the time, right, Like I would trade you racing
in the Indie five hundred, doing the testing and that

(43:00):
kind of stuff and getting to see you all the
time over you coming to a party and then only
seeing you twice a year, right like I would. I'd
rather have the life that we have now.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
So understanding you're so accommodating of my.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Crazy schedule, both with taking Barley for me, you and Barren,
and understanding when I bail on all these things because
I get cooled from.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Pillar to post. I know what I signed up for.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
We have a contract.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Yeah yeah, I signed up for it willingly. No one
trusted my arm, so's it's totally okay. Like we have
such a fun time and I love that, Like we
can go do crazy shit, you know, we can go
ride motorcycles, we can go wakeboarding, we can go whatever,
or we can just like hang out and watch TV
and have dinner and that kind of stuff. And I

(43:53):
truly literally love all of those pieces of our relationship.
And if you miss the occasion all family get together
or whatever, like, that's I think to be expected, and
that's totally fine. I mean, honestly, I don't really think
of you as my race car driving friend, right, I mean, like,
how you got to think about this?

Speaker 2 (44:12):
I'm just gathering.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I mean truly like you, you
go off of the weekend and you come back home
and I just think, like, oh, she went to work
this week, right, Like, I don't how many times do
we talk through lap by lap what your race looked
like that that specific race it never happened.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Do you like racing? Do you like my racing? I
mean I know that you do.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yes, of course I watch the races, right, I watch
the races because you're in them, And I'd watch the
races even if you weren't, right because I because I'm
into it.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Right.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
We watch F one every weekend and I follow that
very closely. I love IMSA racing. I love sports car racing.
I love all of it. I built a career and
an interest in motorsports on purpose, Like that's that's why
we know each other. But I think that's secondary to
like what our relationship is with each other.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Though, Yeah, I always thought that you loved cars.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
I didn't necessarily realize that you love racing as well,
because this is completely different.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Like I would say, I'm the opposite.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Like I love cars, I'm not that knowledgeable about them,
Like when I think about what car I would buy
or what you're the first person I call you and
Barron then helped me through all things automotive, Like I
love racing. I love the competition aspect of racing, not
necessarily the cars. Like I can't tell what car is
coming by the sound like you guys can.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
You know it's different. We come at it from the
opposite ends of the spectrum.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
I think I can't even imagine what it is to
build an entire life that starts with like a parent
who puts you in a go cart as a kid.
You know, like this is you. You kind of got
the racing stuff, really honestly from your dad, and it
started that way. I didn't I never had that right,
my parents didn't. I think it makes my mom nervous

(45:53):
in general, like and I think it makes sure I'm
not nervous too. But we just for for us. The
automotive thing happened because my dad liked mustangs, you.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Know, NASCAR, and I had no idea. So if I
do any NASCAR, you have to bring him to a NASCAR.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
He would love it. I mean, you know how much
I'm only love you so like this is this, this
would like make his year for sure, So.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
I think so doing it.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
No, hopefully I'll drag him to a NASCAR race. I'll
love it. It's we've got gone to one with him before.
It's not the only kind of racing that he cares
to see. We went down to Atlanta Motor Speedway and
you know, did that once. But yeah, I love cars,
You're right, but I also am a competitive person and
I love that you can take a car and then
especially like it's only like sports car racing so much

(46:40):
is that you can compare like a Mercedes AMG against
a Ferrari four eight eight against an Audi R eight
against an accurate n SX, and like it really like
forces the automakers to like see how competitive their stuff
really is, Like how badass of a sports car is it? Really?
The only way to really find out is size it
up against the others, And the only way to do

(47:00):
that is to find someone like you who is like
an expert who can extract all of the performance from
the car and squeeze it for everything and then win,
lose or otherwise. Right like that kind of paints the
picture for how good the automakers were at making the
car in the first place. And I think that's really fun.
That's kind of where my interest comes from.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
I hope to a certain extent as well, that we
help to develop those cars, you know, like we find
what would make them slightly better, and then you can
implement them when we put them on the road. I mean,
for sure that's the same with Bridge don Amatis, but
even with hunder Inaccura. Like, I think that some of
the things we've found on track then now end up

(47:38):
in everybody's everyday road car.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
I think the race to road narrative that you see
out there is such a common one in automakers and
with tire makers alike, and also an authentic one, right
Like this is like I said, like threshold testing is
something only a very very seasoned professional driver can do.
And that's something that only you're going to be able

(48:03):
to give them the kind of feedback on what's working
and what's not, because the average engineer is going to
get close to that probably, but you know, maybe not
the average like the performance engineers get close to it.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
But you mean, we beat the carap out of it.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Right, right, like truly for testing them, right like you're
you're really you are, you're driving them to failure in
some situations, right, And if that's happening consistently, that means
that the automaker has an opportunity to improve, especially if
it's not sizing up against other cars in the segment
that it naturally competes in. And you know, building the
kind of pride with the consumers and the customers around
the brand that they love so much, like they want

(48:36):
to see their car win, their brand win, and you know,
like that's you know, so to help like validate their
own love for what they've gone and spent money on.
And and you are that proof point and when it
doesn't work, you're also the improvement data point, right So,
and I think that's massive and we're all smarter for it,
and you know you contribute to making the cars as

(49:00):
fast as they are today. I think, like thirty years ago,
like a Ferrari only had like three inndred horse power,
and so does a camera now right like crazy over
that amount of time, like the vehicles have gotten better
and better and better and better and better, and the
drive trains have gotten better, the suspensions and the breaks,
and it takes an expert person with the experience to

(49:21):
understand what's happening to give that guidance. And that's that's
part of the magic of what you do.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
So going to like a working with Catherine kind of topic,
like what was I like representing your brand at the
time back then when I was driving for you and
doing pr for you, right like I had to whether win, lose,
or draw and we did all three? Was I somebody

(49:50):
that you could trust to say the right things and
do the right things and represented the brand well? Like?
Was I?

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Was I easy to work with?

Speaker 2 (49:57):
It was I difficult?

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Like?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
How was it?

Speaker 3 (50:00):
This feels like a trap? It's interesting, It's just like
a you. You you and I both know how I've
I've told you before how I feel with this right
like considering how introverted you naturally are, your ability to
flip that white light switch on is stunning to me.

(50:20):
And as someone who is a pr guy and a
publicist as a career and who works with people in
shoes like yours, to go and tell stories to the
media and to influencers on big, big channels like Sports
Center and stuff like that, that is not something that
everyone can do. And you are so good at delivering

(50:41):
the story, being gracious, you know, actively listening to what's
you know, to the conversation's happening, and then and then
responding throughout, you know, with a with true, authentic you know,
knowledge and your own point of view. I I think
that as a as an ambassador, this is a huge
strong suit for you, and honestly, I think it's something

(51:04):
that will carry your future careers also because I think
that you have a talent that you know isn't isn't
always present. Some people are just very fast and that
is their talent.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Right, Yeah, some people are roboting.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
When you look at some of the drivers, they're very
dry and summer more personality, and I'm sure that it
all goes into how successful they are as a complete
package in a way.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
You know, I have to believe and you can tell
me if I'm wrong, that a piece of this must
come from being a woman in racing, which is a
rarity and was rarer before than it is now, and
having to truly be on top of your game in
kind of every capacity to make sure that people not

(51:53):
only respected your speed because you're fast as shit, but
also to respect your seat at the table because you
deserve it and you come by it. You've earned it
the same way that everybody else has. But unfortunately, in
the situation of you know, all things related to diversity
and inclusion, sometimes it requires working a little harder to

(52:14):
prove the point, a little harder than people who just
come by it with the same natural privilege. And I
think with you, you probably have built this muscle over
time and maybe subconsciously, maybe out of necessity, maybe both.
But I'm not surprised that you're good at this because
I think that you've had to You've had to be

(52:36):
good right and that shows now because there are very
few people who I would just grab and say, hey, like,
let's we've got a pr opportunity. It's going to be
on a major news outlet right now. We need someone
who can who can talk the talk, walk the walk,
speak authentically and from heart and from mind. That list
of people is very short, and you were at the

(52:56):
top of it.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
I don't know what to do with that though.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Like when I stop racing in you know, like twenty
years time, when I'm thirty, right.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Like, I feel like it's been learned.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
I feel like you've helped me with it a lot, honestly,
because when you're a race card driver and you're making
your way up through the ranks, you just want to
be a driver and you don't want to have to
think about all those other things.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
But that's what pays the bills.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Right, You are representing brands, and it's much easier to
represent brands you believe in and brands that you have
in affinity with and that you've had good experiences with.
And I started with Bridgestone way back in the Alspire days.
So I love Bridgestone. I love Honda because I had
a very long relationship with them through Indy five hundreds
and sports cars and everything else, and like elf definite

(53:45):
affinity for them, very authentic, So I find it really
easy to be very enthusiastic and genuine and because it
is something that's like close to my heart. But I
also struggled for the long time, and this is where
you helped me. Was like my brand, Like how who

(54:05):
am I outside of just being Catherine the racing drip
because I didn't want to talk to anybody and do
all those things, and you know, it exhausts me in
a way. I'm getting better at it, but I also
like it more and more as as I do it,
even this podcast as an example, I'm learning so much
about myself. But like I didn't know, I didn't even
know why I was a brand right until you pointed out,

(54:27):
like I'm just a a racing driver. I just get
paid to drive really fast in circles. But you're like, no,
you are our spokesperson. You're the voice of this brand.
Like if you say X, Y and Z, people will
hang off that and it will be gospel. So you
have to be authentic and you have to look at
it from the other people's point of view. So I
feel like I've learned so much in that respect going

(54:47):
from the other sign.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
I think that it's great that you have the opportunity
to work with companies that have helped build your career.
When you were more of a fledgling driver. Because of course,
like those like that support earns love forever, right, And
so it's good that the people that you're working with
now and have worked with in the past are also
like natural contributors to what's made you who you are today,

(55:14):
because of course you're going to love them more. Right,
Like that's yeah, Like it's I think that's awesome. And
I think that adds to a level of authenticity where
you can really speak from a place of experience and
a place of heart, and and that's going to be easier, right,
that's for you to tell a story, it's going to
be always easier there. But I you know, I mean
you're in the car when I'm seeing this part of it.

(55:36):
But like they are little girls at these races who
are wearing shirts with your face on them.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
So isn't that crazy?

Speaker 3 (55:42):
It's so cool. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, oh, that's
my bestie. That's weird. Like it's but it's but truly, like,
I think that's what a brand is because you also
see people wearing a Honda shirt or Bridge Stone shirt
or whatever brand that they're they're cheering for, and they're
there to, you know, to support and and you're one
of those things, you know, and and that's so so

(56:02):
cool because you not only I think, you know, tell
a story of what it is to be fast and
have a dream job and that kind of stuff, but
you pave such a road for young women especially that
can look at you and say, oh, this can be
for me. Look at her, go like you see it.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
You can be in.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Yeah, exactly that and I and I think that's really
really cool because it's easy for them to love to
And I honestly think like the way that you've been
working recently with with companies like Elf, where it's brought
in kind of the they're natural. Of course the cosmetics
company is going to have a huge following dominantly absolutely right.
And this like blending of what can feel like a

(56:41):
boys club in racing, but isn't always because you've broken
that mold, and then what feels like a girls club
in cosmetics, but it isn't always either because of other
you know, other lifestyles that you are like weaving them together,
and it's really cool to see it all kind of
come together, like like Indie five Petter last year, right,
like when Elf has a line around the building, just

(57:02):
stop of it so much. It's just unexpected and awesome
and it's real. And I think it kind of proves
that like when you bring brands, whether it's Indie racing,
IndyCar racing, or a cosmetic something like ELF, or a
brand like your own, a celebrity brand, and they all
kind of come together like look at how it fits.
It just kind of like, yeah, it all plays so

(57:22):
nicely together. So I mean that's that's my professional perspective,
pal and personal perspective. Yeah, yeah, I think it's. Yeah,
it's like I said, like I live in awe of
you and I just think that you're so freaking cool
and thank you.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
I'll pay you late.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Yeah, yeah, I'll give you my venmo.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Speaking exactly anything I have it speaking of little girls
and futures and things like that, I struggle with it
a little bit, if I'm honest, to think of you
and Barron and what you guys are going to do
with your future and having children. And I know we've
spoken about it before, and I I have friends that

(58:02):
have still been my friend through having children and other
ones that have completely checked out and they're all about
their kids now. If you leave me. I know where
you live, right No, but I know I know you
won't and I love you. But when you do have
your family and Auntie Katherine is the crazy one who

(58:24):
goes off and drives at turner fifty miles an hour,
are you going to have to protect your children from
Auntie Katherine and the crazy ways or are you going
to be like, look at hair breaking barriers but also
don't do that? So two things, helmet or Tennis raggett.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
Since you are outing us as potential future parents, I
would say that it's okay. We told ourselves that twenty
twenty four was not going to be the year of
worrying about kids, that twenty twenty five could be that year.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
So we're twenty thirty five.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
You know, we've got so many more events to go
on there. I'm getting so silver and I feel it
so Number one, I think with kids for us, it's
somewhere between like zero and two. And we haven't decided
how many either, you know, because because we really like
the life that we have, and I think that some
of your apprehensions we share too, right, Like, we like
the life that we've created for ourselves. We love the

(59:16):
friends that we've created for ourselves. You know, I don't.
I don't have any friends or relatives at all who
have made the kid thing look easy and our life
is great. So we're still talking through that. You know.
It's really about like what we want our you know,
our living room, dining room table to look like twenty
years from now, and we're that's still up for debate, however,

(59:38):
that's the struggle I have with it, truly. Hypothetically. Yeah,
if if we do have kids, you know, like number one,
like we have to go through some sort of process, adoption, sergacy,
whatever it is, since we're gaying, and that means that
we will be essentially hands selecting a child. And I
think we both have more of an interest in having

(59:59):
a little girl for over a little boy though, open
minded there, and the expectation will be that you are
co parenting with us, not yeah yeah, because because we
that's cool because then I get the kitchen table in twenties.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
I love this idea.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
I'm in yeah, really, I mean you're part of our family,
so like that's that's the expectation anyway, that you're going
to be there for Christmas this year, and that you know,
like that's that's I'm hoping that's not ever going to change.
So but when it comes to kids stuff, like you
and I both know that we live twenty minutes in
either direction from a race track, whether it's Atlanta Motor
Sports Park or Road Atlanta. And if you think that

(01:00:36):
we're not trying to raise the next female F one driver,
we're going.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
To get her in F one. This is going to
be amazing. You guys heard it here first. This is
twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Yeah, she can set us all free, she can retire
us all early. So so yeah, you're going to have
to help teach her how to be a badass like
you because we don't know how to do that ourselves.
And yeah, I mean that's but again, like the kid
thing is, it's a probably maybe potentially kind of conversation.

(01:01:10):
We're still working through it because I like my freedom too,
and we have to make some choices, but not yet.
If it happens, please plan to be a part of
that because we're going to need your.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Help down the road. No racing pun intended. Now I'm
going to put you on the spot. Are you going
to come to Indy this year?

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
Oh? I hope. So it's certainly my aspiration together five
hundred this year. It's definitely high on my list.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
So I struggle though, because like you will have to
go and be representing Britton, I mean, I will be
also representing Firestone because I'll be driving on your product.
But it's tough because you're there also in that capacity
and I'm there representing Firestone, but I also want you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
There as my friend.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
So it's like a real fine line, real tightrope to
walk in a way for both of us.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I think officially, when it comes to Indy car drivers
that my official answers that I love all my children
equally because everybody's racing on Firestone tires. When it comes
to the NDY five hundred, Yeah, But when it comes
to like when I go to the race itself, you know,
if if I'm there to work, then I you know,
this is like one of the most joyful ways to

(01:02:15):
spend time working. So because I get to tell stories
about a company that I love, I get to watch,
you know, the competition that is racing in what is
one of the most interesting races kind of out there right,
you know, globally, the NDY five hundred is such a
well known thing and it's fascinating to watch you guys.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, like two hundred and

(01:02:36):
thirty plus miles an hour, just foot in it the
whole time, no lifting until you run out of gas,
and even go fill out it. It's wild. But you
should know, I mean, even even if I'm there as
a as a Firestone representative instead of just a you know,
citizen fan, I still am cheering for you the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
So em Barrak can outwardly hear for me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well if we get to go for this
for the you know, just for the fun of it
and that kind of thing, then I can, you know,
just bede on cooler and be I love that stuff. Yeah,
I am not opposed to camping, you know, in an infield.
I've always wanted to go to snake Pit actually, so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
I've never been Eire. It sounds crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
I think it sounds like a lot of fun. So yeah,
this is I hope to go to the five hundred
this year. May is always crazy for Firestone for sure
because of that race, and and you and I both
have a lot of friends who play a lot of
different roles in that race, and it's fun to go
and celebrate all of them, but of course I'd love
to watch you to go and compete and do your
thing that you do best. It's the same reason that

(01:03:38):
I've gone to other races to watch you in the past,
because it's just so cool and incredibly loud.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
It is incredibly loud, and on that night I will
say thank you very much for your invaluable insight, and
I will drop Barley off with you tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
That I cannot wait to see my doggie daughter bring
her on over. This has been a pleasure. Thank you
for having me. It's always always a nice time, and
I hope you have a fabulous feat.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next
week with more updates and overtakes. 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 me Katherine Legg.
Our executive producer is Jesse Katz. Our supervising producer is

(01:04:31):
Grace Fus. Listen to Throttle Therapy on America's number one
podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search
for throttle Therapy with Katherine legg And start listening