Pippa Mann: The One in the Pink Car

Pippa Mann grew up in Britain racing carts and then moved to open-wheel cars in Europe, becoming the first female driver to score points and start a race from pole position in the World Series by Renault. She moved to the United States in 2009 to race in Indy Lights, the feeder series to IndyCar, and in 2010 she became one of only two women to win a race in that series.

In addition, a statistic I know she's especially proud of, she became the only woman in any racing series to capture a pole position at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The same year, she finished fifth in the Indy Lights championship and was voted Most Popular Driver for the series.

She qualified for the Indy 500 for the first time in 2011, becoming the eighth woman in history, and the first British woman, to do so. Since 2011, she's started the race four more times (2013-2016), and this year, she'll make her sixth attempt. She's officially on record as the second-fastest female in history at IMS, with a top qualifying speed just under 230 mph.

The Indy 500 is the focus of Pippa's racing season, but she also makes the occasional appearance for Dale Coyne Racing on other ovals. In addition, in 2017, she's started racing Lamborghinis in the Super Trofeo series, and she helped found an all-female karting team, Team Empower.

In the interest of full disclosure, I know Pippa, and she's been invaluable to me as a source for my books. So I'm biased, for sure, but she's also a hell of an inspiration. You see, Pippa loves racing—loves racing in the Indy 500—so much that she works 50 weeks a year to pull together the money from sponsors to spend 2 weeks with her car on track. ALL YEAR. Plus, as if that level of fundraising wasn't enough, she's taken on more.

In 2014, she connected with the Susan G. Komen Foundation as an unpaid partner. Then she managed to convince her paying sponsors to make their logos really small, in order to have Komen on the car. Then she got partners and friends to donate goods that she could sell/auction to raise funds for Komen. In the past two years, the campaign has earned more than $135,000 for Komen.

What I find even more interesting is Pippa's experience with pink—because I went through the same transition in recent years. You see, as a female in a male world, growing up, Pippa eschewed pink, so as not to seem "girly" (we all know that usually means "weak," right?). And then along came Komen and the need for a pink car. So she took a deep breath and embraced it. And I think she came to love it (as I have). Now, she's finding that a lot of sponsors and fans LIKE to be associated with the female and the female cause on track...so the pink has turned into an asset.

"It's kind of cool that all those little girls who are fans now not only have a girl to cheer for in this year's Indy 500, but also can cheer for a girl in a pink car!"
(from my own interview with Pippa in 2015)

Most of all, what's inspiring about Pippa isn't just her struggle to get a car on track or to raise money for Komen or to proudly wear pink. It's not how well and much she interacts with fans on social media. It's not even the fact that she's an admitted book nerd! It's that she's unfailingly positive. She posts positive messages every morning, and I've never heard her say a bad word about anyone. She knows that positive attitudes attract people, and besides, she seems to truly take every day she gets to be involved with racecars as a gift and a privilege. We could all learn from her.

P.S. Go check out her eBay auction for the cool stuff and experiences on offer—especially the Turn the Cockpit Pink item!—and help her raise even more money for the Susan G. Komen foundation this year!

(Top photo from pippamann.com.)

Kiss The Bricks Release Week: Last Giveaway!

My 5th book, Kiss The Bricks, releases tomorrow, and with that, I'm wrapping up my 5 weeks of 5 giveaways each week!

This Week's Prizes

This week is all about my protagonist, Kate Reilly, and fellow female racing drivers.

• Grand prize: a Team Kate polo shirt (if I have your size!), a mini-helmet from the release of Avoidable Contact, a breast cancer awareness can koozie, a signed hero card from Indy 500 driver Pippa Mann, a copy of Sarah Fisher's Getting Behind the Wheel of Your Dream Job, and a Team Kate stuff sack to hold it all.
• Runner-up prizes: assorted caps and a commemorative tile from a race at the Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.

How to win? 
By 12 midnight on Wednesday, May 3, do one of the following:

• Comment on this post.
• Comment or share my Facebook or Twitter posts.

I'll announce and contact the winners by the end of the week. Thanks so much for entering this and other weeks. I hope you'll check out Kiss The Bricks!

What Do I Do at a Race?

Lots of people ask me that, and they're not usually too impressed when I say I wander around a lot. So, from my visit to the IndyCar race at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, last weekend, here's an explanation in photos. Here's me ...

Watching crews working on cars (this one is Josef Newgarden's).

Seeing cars roll up to the fuel truck to top off before qualifying.

Watching qualifying from Pit Lane means a lot of watching the photographer scrum around the driver who's just about to go out for three laps of fury.

Seeing and sometimes meeting a lot of different racers, including John Force, 16-time NHRA champion (that's drag racing, and he's a legend, maybe the greatest of all time).

Meeting other great people involved in the sport, including these two who run IndyCar's Holmatro Safety Team, responsible for attending to drivers in the case of an accident/injury. They do a lot of good work.

Getting a great view (into Turn 1, from the end of Pit Lane) of the start of the race. You can't quite see it, but the speed trap (red square on outside of track) says the cars are going 214 m.p.h. there.

Getting an up-close view of Pippa in the cockpit of the #18.

Getting incredible action shots of the Dayle Coyne Racing crew servicing Pippa's car during a pit stop. (Click on the photo to see the fuel flying and the intensity on the middle guy's face!)

And even seeing what happens after the race, as drivers debrief with crew and team owners.

Why I Donate

Twenty-five years ago, I gave a family friend a gift of a star named in her honor. She was particularly hard to buy for, and I wasn't sure if she'd like the gift or not. Turns out, she loved it. She hooted, with the distinctive laugh she had that I can still conjure in my memory. And she displayed the certificate proudly.

It was only a couple years later that cancer would take her from us.

That time it was lung cancer, not breast cancer. But the first time, back in 1980 or so, it was breast cancer. I was a kid at the time, so the magnitude of her battle was lost on me. But looking back, the 20 extra years we had her in our lives was a miracle.

Her name was Barbara, and she and her husband were good friends of my parents (we lost her husband to cancer also, five years before she died). Barbara was about 10 years older than my mother, and she wasn't related by blood, which was important. Because as I was wrapped up in the self-centered murkiness of my teen years, and as I tried to figure out who I was that was different from who my mother was, Barbara helped.

I thought of her as my fairy godmother of logic. (My logic godmother?) She was the one who'd talk sense to me, who'd straighten out my warped, irrational brain. Who'd help me see past the "I shoulds" and "I can'ts" to my own soul and happiness. In a way, for me, she really was magic.

I'm not telling you she was perfect. She wasn't, I know that. But she was a great friend, and I still miss her, deeply. I still think of her sometimes and cry because I miss her. I still get angry at cancer for taking her—and so many other wonderful people we've all known—from us.

And she's why I give anytime someone asks for a donation for a cancer organization. She's why I'm spreading the word as widely as possible about Pippa Mann's pink car for Susan G. Komen at the Indianapolis 500.

Twenty-five years after that named star, 16 years after I last saw her, and nowhere near Christmas or her birthday, I'm giving my friend Barbara another gift. I'm giving her a ride-along in Pippa's car for the entire Indy 500 race, by putting her name in Pippa's racecar. I think Barbara would like that a lot.

I hope you'll join me and #GetInvolved, so we can both celebrate the survivors (and fighters) and kick cancer's ass.

(photo from Pippa's Instagram)

An Unusual Request From Me

I'm pretty careful with all of my social media efforts. I never ask you all to spend money and buy my books. To me, that's not the point. The point is a good conversation and an exchange of ideas, not asking for dollars.

But I'm breaking my rule. I'm going to ask you to part with a little bit of money. Thing is, it's not for me.

If you've followed me at all, you know I'm a huge supporter of a female racecar driver named Pippa Mann. She's going to race in the Indianapolis 500 for the fourth time this year, and she'll be racing in support of the Susan G. Komen organization for the second year in a row.

She's determined to make an impact with her pink car—not only on the track, but also raising funds to donate to the Komen foundation. I'm determined to help her.

So I'm asking you to contribute to her #GetInvolved campaign, to buy just a pink rubber wristband for $5. Doing so means you'll add your voice to the crowd, supporting women and men dealing with breast cancer, and supporting Pippa reaching for her goals.

Mind you, if you want to contribute more money, there are other great perks up for grabs. There are can koozies, "Pippa races for ____" tee-shirts, and great looking posters (image above). You can even get your hands on her race-worn racing suit! But probably that's too rich for all of our blood (and Pippa won't be sorry to keep it), whereas a wristband is something we can probably all manage.

Because it's $5. A small amount of money to support a worthy cause—do you realize that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer? A small amount of money to show Pippa that we're behind her—do you realize that only two of 33 drivers in the Indy 500 this year are likely to be women? That only nine have ever qualified for the race?

This month, check my books out from a library, don't buy them. Please, instead, donate to Pippa's #GetInvolved campaign. Get behind the pink car in the Indy 500, and let's try to make breast cancer an afterthought.

5 Questions with Pippa Mann, Revisited

Racing driver Pippa Mann will return to the Indianapolis 500 this year for the fourth time, and it’ll be her second time “going pink.” That’s right, she’s returning with her pink racecar, supporting—and supported by—the Susan G. Komen foundation.

Pippa’s starting a big campaign aimed at rounding up more support … but not for her own funding, though she scrambles as much as any racecar driver for that. No, she’s aiming to get us all involved with the mission to end breast cancer forever. Along the way, she’ll celebrate the fighters and survivors by carrying their colors into battle on the racetrack.

I’m going to #GetInvolved, and I hope you will also. To kick things off, here are five questions Pippa answered last year before the “greatest spectacle in racing.”

Tammy: Why do you love to race?

Pippa: I love the adrenaline, the feeling of speed, of controlling that powerful car underneath me. I'm competitive, so I love beating the boys on their own terms, too. Much like the horse riding I started with, it's one of the few sports where we get to play together and compete as equals. I love that about motor sport.

What's your racing goal or dream?

Haha, this is easy! Winning the Indy 500 one day!

But I personally have a second goal, pertaining to the Indy 500, that I feel very strongly about. Currently I am the only female pole winner ever at IMS, which I achieved in Indy Lights in 2010. In a race, so much can go wrong, so much is dependent on everything else around you. In qualifying, it's just you and the car your engineer has managed to give you—there are still all sorts of factors that come into play, but so many fewer than on race day. One day I want to repeat my feat from Indy Lights in an IndyCar at IMS. I want to be on pole for the Indy 500.

Aren't racing and the fight against breast cancer a strange combination?

You might think, but here's a different perspective: The Indy 500 reaches millions of people. Literally, millions. Millions here in the U.S., millions across the world. There are around half a million at the track itself when you combine race day and carb day attendance together, before we even get into the people who come out for qualifying weekend. The parade through downtown Indy on the Saturday before the race is the third largest parade in the U.S., after the Rose Bowl parade and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, and it's also televised nationally.

The potential reach, to hopefully connect with people via this pink car—this entire pink program—and to raise awareness, is massive. Don't think of this as a motor race. Think of it as a national platform at one of the biggest, most prestigious sporting events of the year, with a female athlete to help spread the word. Then it's a campaign on this same, amazing national platform, to try and raise funding by those who want to get involved in a bigger way, too.

Why is this pink car so important this year?

When I was a teenager, who just started racing, I never wanted pink anywhere as a part of my racing program. I didn't want to be perceived as "the girl" on track, I wanted to be perceived as good, someone who the other drivers either respected—or given karting was, ahem, occasionally something of a contact sport—even someone they feared and knew not to mess with. Pink didn't really fit into that vibe.

That was an attitude that took me a long time to grow out of, and the first time my thoughts about it really changed was actually due to Sarah Fisher again. My first year in the U.S., in 2009, I vividly remember her car at Homestead, when they turned her entire program pink during breast cancer awareness month for Susan G. Komen. I had never seen that before, and it stuck with me.

Now here I am, five years later, with my own pink Susan G. Komen IndyCar. This time, instead of running it for breast cancer awareness month, we're running it at the Indy 500. It's a program I am incredibly proud to have put together, and I am proud to be associated with such a great organization and with a cause that means so much to me. We are using our program to raise awareness and funding [through #GetInvolved], and my helmet is changing color for the first time in over 10 years to match our program.

Then there's the completely secondary reason why this program is kind of cool, and this is something I have only grown into admitting over the past few years.

Let's face it, 99% of little girls do like pink. I have worked with so many young karters, and met so many little girls who are race fans out at the tracks over the previous five years. They are always so pleased to be able to cheer for me when I'm driving, and so sad when I'm not. Completely aside from the big reasons why I want to run this car, to me, it's kind of cool that all those little girls who are fans now not only have a girl to cheer for in this year's Indy 500, but also can cheer for a girl in a pink car!

Tell us how different it is to say "my race is no longer about me"?

I'm a racing driver, and we have a bad habit of thinking of ourselves first and foremost nearly all of the time. So yes, it is pretty weird not only to say that, but also to feel it, and to know it deep inside, too. I'm not out there racing for just me and my team this year, and this car means so much more than racing a car with just a standard logo on the side.

This isn't even really about racing anymore. It's about using this race, and the entire Indy 500 event, as a platform for a campaign to raise awareness and funding for a disease that one in eight women in the U.S. are diagnosed with. Every time I say “one in eight,” I am reminded how scary that statistic is. My family has been touched too, but we're not the anomaly, we're the rule. That's why this is not about me or my family personally. It's about everyone who has been affected or touched in whatever way. This is much, much bigger, and way more important than me.

_____________

Follow Pippa at @pippamann and find out more at PippaMann.com.

Photo credits: Chris Owens (more).

Finally Cooled Down

It was HOT last weekend during the run up to IndyCar's season finale race in Fontana, CA. Standing in the pits for qualifying on Friday afternoon (at 2 p.m., in August, 60 miles inland from the ocean), ambient temperature was 99F and the track temp was 137F. The heat radiating up from the concrete and asphalt was intense.

It made for an odd race weekend: practice at 10 a.m. Friday, qualifying at 2 p.m., and evening practice before sundown. All for a race that would take the green after the sun went down on Saturday—or at least after the sun dipped below the edge of the Speedway. The reason? Not the heat so much as the glare of the sun. Turns out, it's not a great idea to be blinded when you're flying down the back straight at 220 m.p.h.

Yes, you see that speed correctly. On the Auto Club Speedway's speed-billboard (standing in Turn 1 to catch top-speed on the front straight), I saw a high of 226 m.p.h., and the driver who took me around for a hot lap on Saturday (at noon, in a Camaro, with air conditioning going full blast) said the drivers in the race would easily hit 220. We topped out at 130 m.p.h.

After that Saturday hot lap, my friend @cogitoergobibo and I repaired to an air-conditioned restaurant for a late lunch, and then to our hotel rooms to cool off again. We ventured out again at 4 p.m. (still hot) to make the tweet-up with Pippa. (That's us, @cogitoergobibo, me, and Pippa; photo stolen from Pippa's photo album from the Fontana weekend.)

The sun started to go down, and we made our way to the temporary stage on the front straight where driver intros would happen. We had IndyCar Fan Nation access to be inside the rope line to watch drivers come out to the stage—and the first one down the line, working the crowd the whole way, was Mario Andretti.

And then it was nearly race time. We scrambled off the front grid and made it to our viewing spots in time for the green flag. I was lucky enough to be in a seat on the rooftop deck of the pit suites for most of the race—which was a perfect view and a perfect temperature. If you look closely at the photo below, you'll see the green flag was waving, and Helio Castroneves had taken the lead before the line.

After the race, we wandered between celebrations (Tony Kanaan's for winning the race, Will Power's for winning the championship) and finally made our way back to the car and the hotel. We passed In 'n' Out on the way, surprised at the enormous line at 11:30 p.m.—but maybe we shouldn't have been surprised, because according to Twitter, half of the paddock was there post-race.

Sunday was another adventure, as we headed into downtown LA for the IndyCar Championship Celebration. I got to handle Pippa's cell phone camera as she and her husband walked the red carpet, and then we chatted with new and old friends inside. It was a (mercifully) short ceremony, and then the season was over.

Thank goodness we had Monday, to recover, is all I have to say.

Once again, the "trip" to the race proved hugely valuable. I finished connecting with IndyCar last weekend—literally and figuratively. I've made some great new friends (all thanks to social media) who've been incredibly supportive and helpful about connecting me to more readers and resources: I put my first book in Sarah Fisher's hands on Friday, thanks to one friend (info on her, for my non-race-fan readers), and on Sunday I connected with the Director of Communications for IndyCar, who offered to help me with whatever I needed to write about IndyCar accurately (and forever!).

The business of racing really does happen at the race, but the family of racing is also vibrant and present every race weekend. I'm starting to really feel like one of the family, and it's a pretty neat feeling.

If you want to follow great racing writers, fans, and racers, check out @cogitoergobibo, @stevewittich, @tonydizinno, @nasarcasm, and @pippamann. They're good people.

Win Pippa's Helmet!

I went to the Indy 500 this year in part to see Pippa Mann and her pink car, racing for the Susan G. Komen Foundation and breast cancer awareness. One of the coolest sights was Pippa's pink helmet.

Her helmet is what started the whole journey of #PippaGoesPink, when Pippa thought to turn her normal red and yellow helmet pink for the race—and the pink kept spooling out from there! But the idea all along was to auction that race-worn, autographed helmet off to benefit Komen's efforts.

And now it's time. Pippa's helmet is up for auction this week (closing next Sunday, July 20, at 8 p.m. EST). All funds received will go to Komen Central Indiana to support local and national breast cancer research, as well as breast health services for underinsured and uninsured women in the Central Indiana community.

I'm sure the helmet is going to go for more than the small amount I could bid, but I can't be too upset because it's going to benefit such a great cause. We'll just have to hope we'll see Pippa in pink again ... maybe next year?!

Bid in the auction!

(photo from pippamann.com)

The Epic Indy 500: Race Day

I got up stupid early. Let's just get that out of the way. Stupid. Early.

Still, I succeeded in my two goals: avoid traffic and crowds trying to enter the track and feel the racetrack come to life. Here's dawn breaking behind the pagoda as I entered.

My first stop was coffee, and after that, I headed for pit lane and the front straight. As the sun rose over the stands and the campfire haze drifted away, I wandered from one end of pit lane to the other, and out onto the racing surface. Teams cruised around at an unhurried but deliberate pace, hauling scores of tires out to their pit spaces. And local news shows competed for the best location for a standup shot.

Here I was standing at the first position on the grid, looking back up the track toward Turn 4.

I got another look at the Borg-Warner trophy, being maneuvered into view for media. I also saw Pippa doing a quick interview for a local news show, and learned from her PR person that they'd just arrived (around 8 a.m.), having gotten a police escort from Pippa's home to the track. 

That was something I couldn't get over: the ubiquity of police escorts going on during race weekend. Teams, drivers, special shuttles any fan can pay for, and who knows who else, all got police escorts through and past backed-up traffic, straight to the track. I'm used to that happening only for the President.

I spent a long time loitering in pit lane, simply because I could. But then it was time for the Indy Fans Tweet Up, where I met at least a dozen people I "know" from Twitter face-to-face and became new friends and social-media pals with a dozen more. Here are all my new friends (photo by Doug Patterson of OpenPaddock.net).

My last adventure inside the racetrack was going out to the grid to see the cars lined up. I ran around with a new buddy and fellow member of the #CrazyHairColorClub, and we took photos of cars, crowds, and each other. Here's Pippa's car on the grid, and a sense of the chaos around it.

Also, one of my favorites from the weekend: me and the bricks, about an hour pre-race. (Honestly, it was hard to find a space on the bricks that clear, since at least half of the people out on the grid had the same idea.)

And then all of a sudden, it was time to clear the grid, and I had to hustle (through the gridlocked crowds on the other side of the track—really, it's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic) to make it to my seat in the Southwest Vista, looking at Turns 1 and 2. But I made it there in time to hear Martina McBride sing America the Beautiful, Florence Henderson sing God Bless America, LeAnn Rimes sing the national anthem, and—most poignantly—Jim Nabors sing Back Home in Indiana, for the final time. (There's me in my seat, the yellow/purple star!)

Then, finally, after all that buildup, the green flag! Greg had a shared scanner for us, set to the radio broadcast and Pippa's transmissions, so we really had an inside perspective. And it all went by in a blur, really. When it was over, we slipped out of the stands, walked 100 yards to the shuttle pickup, and I got back to my hotel in half an hour. Still reeling from everything I'd experienced.

It's going to take a long time to decide how to use what I've seen, and it'll take a couple more trips to feel like I know enough to write about it. But there's time. I'm familiar with the place, the race, and the feeling now, and that's what's important.

Thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome and involved! (And thanks again to Greg of Glass Hammer Racing for the guidance and this photo, taken mid-race.)

The Indescribable: Indy 500, Day 1

I always stop myself before ever saying, "I can't describe it" or "I don't have the words." I'm a writer, I have words! But it's taking me a long time to come up with the right ones to describe my trip to the Indy 500.

So photos it is! And I'm going to have to break these posts up into each day, because there's a lot to tell.

My whole adventure started with having incredible access to the pits, the garages, and pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. (Thanks bunches to Brie Rentz, for hooking me up!)

Actually, everything started with meeting some new friends at The Yellow Party (a cancer charity fundraising event Thursday night), offering up a new character name for the silent auction (Jimmy and Nikki Gray got the winning bid ... and they're still deciding on a name!), and getting the "2 TKs" photo I'd wanted. As I said on Facebook: Two TKs. Only one of us is an Indy 500 winner.

Friday started with securing the credential and walking into the infield, right by the famous pagoda. I climbed up into the stands with Greg from Glass Hammer Racing, my first and best Indy race-buddy, for the hour of practice. And then we hit the plaza, where I got proof I was there (in pink) on the strip of bricks behind the pagoda. (These are remnants of when the entire speedway was bricked—hence "the Brickyard." When the track was paved, some of the original bricks were saved and set into a strip that runs across the track, pit lane, and through the pagoda plaza at the start/finish line.)

Then I had my chance to see Pippa Mann and get a peek at her garage—and truly, this was one of the best experiences of the weekend. I spent just a couple minutes with Pippa (all she had to spare), but most of an hour hanging out in her garage (doing that "research" thing that looks a lot like staring wide-eyed and trying to take it all in). You can see Pippa's car behind us, as well as the other two cars Dale Coyne Racing fielded.

After that, I headed to pit lane and the front straight for the pit stop competition that took place Friday afternoon. Here's a view of the crowd on the ground and in the stands:

When I found Brie and Heidi, representing Dreyer and Reinbold Racing (fielding incredibly rookie Sage Karam), I had this view for Sage's semi-final run in the competition (yes, it was loud!).

And I swapped phones with other excited visitors to take the obligatory "on the front straight in front of the pagoda" photo.

With the festivities pretty much done for the day (I skipped the evening concerts), I headed back to my hotel for a rest before the Burger Bash that night. I'll leave you with an exterior shot of the track. Yes, those really are the main grandstands, right next to the track, and right next to a regular, two-lane-each-way city street.

This is a speedway that grew big. It wasn't built that way, as some monument to the glory of racing (think Daytona). Indy is old, an oval scratched out in a field that was so great it kept getting used and used, even as the city grew up next to it and around it. Now, the top edge of the stands are right above the city street. Houses, grass or gravel lots, and strip malls ring the speedway. And it feels historic. It feels like it's been there for all of its 105 years.

Posts about days two and three coming soon!

Tammy's Big Adventure

Later this week, I'll hop on an airplane headed for my next big racing adventure. This year, finally (according to some of my racing friends), I'll experience the pomp, circumstance, and glory of "the greatest spectacle in racing." That's right, I'm off to the Indy 500—and I'll be wearing a lot of pink. Let me explain....

There are a whole lot of races on my list to attend—Monaco, Le Mans, Spa, Bristol, Sonoma for NASCAR, something at COTA, and Indy—but I'm trying to get to them in a reasonable order, based on what I'm planning to write about. I know that usually I need at least two visits to a race before the published book comes out (though I may have to cram those European tracks into just one), and I want to focus on where I need the research at the moment. Or where it makes sense to go for promotion purposes.

All that said, don't get too excited, readers who are Indy or IndyCar fans (Bill, I'm talking to you!). Setting a book at the Indy 500 isn't on my radar yet. But starting to transition Kate from sportscars to IndyCars is. Somehow or other, that transition will happen (start to happen?) in book four (Hot Lap), at the Long Beach Grand Prix.

I can hear non-race fans saying, "But that doesn't have anything to do with the Indy 500." And I can hear racing fans saying, "So what, go see the 500!"

And they're both right. Going to Indy doesn't help writing about Long Beach. But it will help writing about the vibe, culture, appeal, and process of racing an IndyCar.

But there are two even more important reasons for going. One is that I've now made quite a few friends in the racing world, and a few of them have repeatedly urged me to get there (Greg, thank you!), offering help showing me around and chortling via email about the fun I'll have.

The second reason is Pippa Mann. Pippa just qualified for her third Indy 500 over the weekend, and she'll be the only woman in the field. Pippa's read my books and offered any kind of help I need in writing future ones. And she urged me to go to the 500, promising to spend a little time with me and get me next to the car.

And then there's her cause. I've always been a supporter of breast cancer charities, and because of that, I hooked Kate up with a real one in Braking Points. Well, Pippa's gone me and Kate one better, partnering with the biggest charity on the planet dedicated to finding a cure and providing support for people with breast cancer. Pippa's going pink (#PippaGoesPink), from her helmet to her racesuit to her car. She's got a site up (www.racewithpippa.com) where supporters can pledge donations to Komen for every lap Pippa runs.

The bottom line for me? I want to be there, in person, to see that car racing for that cause.

So I'll be donating money for Pippa's laps. I'll be wearing pink. And I'll be cheering from the stands as Pippa takes the green flag. Who's with me?

(Screenshots/images taken from www.racewithpippa.com.)

Going to the Source

The story of my ride with Mario Andretti behind the wheel is only half the story of my incredible Long Beach Grand Prix experience. The other half has to do with going to the source for information about the racing world. Or maybe it's partly being immersed in the source and partly talking to the source. The being immersed int he world is the easy part: go to a race, walk around, and see what teams, drivers, and fans are engaged in.

Talking to the source seems like it'd be a little more difficult—until being at the races reminds me how nice people in the racing world are and how willing they are to talk about what they do for a living. (Usually the only catch is if they have the time to do so.)

The first person to sit and chat with us was Martin Plowman, or Plowey, a young driver who's racing anything he can get his hands on—including the Indy 500 this year with Foyt Racing. Plowey's long been a favorite of my friends Barb and Mary, and to Barb's delight, he was the driver for her two-seater ride! (That's the two of them pictured.) He was gracious enough to chat with us after our rides and tell us a bit about the difference between open-wheel cars and sportscars, since he's driven both. And he was kind enough to say he'd answer questions down the line for me, when I'm ready to transition Kate.

But the most amazing and incredible conversation was the hour I got to spend with Pippa Mann. A real-life, honest-to-goodness female racecar driver. The first female driver I've actually gotten to talk to who's a current competitor in the highest ranks. (It's kind of embarrassing to admit it's taken me this long to be able to get to one.)

The best compliment she paid me was telling me I'd gotten a lot of what it's like to be a female in the world correct (yes, I about fell over with relief).

Of course, what I learned from her is how much of the story I'm missing, primarily about the struggle for current drivers (of either gender; Plowey had similar stories) to put together deals to get themselves in a racecar. It's not what we might think, most pros don't sit at home waiting for the phone to ring, a team on the other end waiting to pay them to drive a car. No. Most pros are out hustling, pitching deals to multiple sponsors (and probably dozens of potential sponsors) and working with teams and corporations to assemble funding for a season. For a partial season. For a race.

I've sidestepped those issues for Kate so far. But I might need to reflect reality a bit more in a future book ... we might have to see Kate struggle with being assertive (but not aggressive) and direct (without being a bitch). To see her try to balance being tough, pushy about her needs and wants, and businesslike, while still being feminine. (To be clear, those weren't Pippa's words. That's my evaluation based on the role of women in the business world in general and from watching what seems like the tightrope that all female racers walk.)

Pippa is a lovely, warm human being. She's incredibly savvy about marketing herself, especially through social media, where she's built an enormous following—something she's done because she's genuine and personal with her fans. I'm enormously grateful for the time she spent with me, as well as for her offer to help me in the future. I'm really hoping that her absence (so far) this year from IndyCar's lineup is just a minor blip in her resume. I believe it will be.

Because of her (and others who are strongly encouraging me), I'm seriously considering two actions: heading to Indy for the 500 this year to see what that whirlwind of awesomeness is all about and getting Kate into open-wheel cars sooner, rather than later. I'll keep you all posted....

In the meantime, thank you to Pippa for the time, encouragement, and information (past and future). As much as we see and hear and talk about more and more women in the racing world, Pippa is one of the few who's working hard to make it happen. I'm always moved by someone working to fulfill a dream, and to see a woman doing so in a world populated mostly by men (drivers, at least) makes me want to support and cheer her on with everything I've got. 

Part of why I created Kate was to provide another instance of "racecar driver" as a normal, possible occupation for a female. So you go, girl. All of you, and Pippa in particular.