Decades make a Difference

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Brake Fix’s History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.

Crew Chief Eric: The Gene S. Argettsinger keynote address. Decades Make a Difference, by Lynn St. James. We’re all on a path to somewhere, and then something comes along that brings clarity into our life, and often takes us in an unexpected direction. We ask, did we manifest that? Or did it just happen? Lynn believes it’s likely a combination of things, but she also believes things don’t just happen.

The more difficult the challenge, the more difficult the climb, and the more important we need to pay attention to the things that influence our choices. It’s often upon reflection where we can see and learn how those influences impacted our lives, and depending on what decade we’re living in, and what decade of our life we’re reflecting on those choices, it can help shape our lives and the lives of those around us.

An important piece of advice, pay [00:01:00] attention to your influences and how they impact your decisions and always think about the bigger picture because everything we invite to enter our sphere of awareness impacts what we do and what we do has an impact on others. This presentation is a recap of how Lynn’s five decades in motor sports has taken her down the path of racing around the world and provided her with an incredible opportunity to be someone she never dreamed she could be.

Lynn St. James is the co founder and president of Women in Motorsports North America. She’s a legendary race car driver, author, mentor, and motivational speaker. Named one of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, Lynn St. James has set 21 national and international speed records and was a seven time competitor in the world’s largest sporting event, the Indianapolis 500.

earning Rookie of the Year honors in 1992. She has competed all over the world, including twice at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1989 and 91, with victories at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, Watkins Glen, Road [00:02:00] America, and the Nurburgring. Most recently, Lynn was announced as an inductee into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame and has been inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

The Sebring Hall of Fame, the Florida Sports Hall of Fame. She was also the 2022 Amelia Island Concours honoree and is the recipient of the prestigious Spirit of Ford Award, the Guiding Women in Sports Award, the Office Depot Visionary Sportsman of the Year, and was named on the automotive news list of the top 100 women in the automotive industry.

She is in demand as a speaker on women’s issues, gender equality, and diversity. She serves on the board of ACUS, the Automobile Competition Committee of the United States, and on the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. She has authored two books, Lynn St. James, An Incredible Journey, and Oh, By the Way, and is former president of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

Lynn is passionate about mentoring drivers in the sport of auto racing, as well as women in the automotive and motorsports fields.

Kip Zeiter: Lynn St. James racing career was as diverse and noteworthy as any driver, male or female. Two [00:03:00] time winner, class winner at the Daytona 24 hour, class winner at Sebring, class winner at the Nürburgring 24 hours, two time competitor at Le Mans, first woman to run over 200 miles an hour, seven time qualifier for the Indy 500, including in 1994, she out qualified Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti, pretty impressive, elected into the Automotive Hall of Fame, the SCCA Hall of Fame, the Western Stock Car Hall of Fame, and the Sebring Hall of Fame.

She’s a member of ACUS, member of the FIA Women in Racing Foundation. She started the Women’s Winner’s Circle Foundation in 1994, and she is a co founder of the Women in Motorsports North America. To come back to the Hall of Fame, I did this earlier in the week, so it’s conceivable she’s been elected into several other Hall of Fames since I, since I did this.

If so, I’m very sorry, Lynn. My apologies. And to think it all started behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto. It is my sincere pleasure and we are honored to have Lynn St. James here as our keynote [00:04:00] speaker. So please welcome.

Lyn St. James: Thank you very much. Very much. No new halls of fame, please. But I have to share. I did just come from Daytona. John Saunders was there, but I was very honored to celebrate my 50th year in motorsports and did so by inviting many of my friends that were positive contributions and part of that, those 50 years.

So we had a number of people come into the Motorsports Hall of Fame, which I’m not in that Hall of Fame, but come into the Hall of Fame, and we had a lovely, lovely evening. John Doonan, president of IMSA, was the host, along with Frank Kelleher, who was the president of Daytona International Speedway, and they surprised me with a lot of things, being three cars.

that were part of my winning history at IMSA. They had the car from Watkins Glen that I won here in 1985. They had the Ford Probe that I set records with in 1985 as well. And then they had my first IMSA win was at a 1985 Ford Mustang at Road America. [00:05:00] So those were On display, which was unbelievable. And then, one of the things I wanted to do was turn my last laps in anger in a Ford GT that Kevin Doran had built from the 2007 chassis of the Ford GTs.

And I had raced it in a number of vintage races, including here at Watkins Glen. And it is the sweetest race car that I’d ever driven, and the most current from that era. And so I got to turn some laps in anger during the HSR. So I’m still on a high from all of that. And woke up this morning at the Harbor Hotel.

Thank you. Took pictures of the beautiful Lake Seneca. Told everybody, good morning from Watkins Glen, New York. So this is one of my favorite places in the entire country, if not the world. I came here in 1966. to the Formula One race from Ohio, drove over here with a boyfriend and never got out of the parking lot.

We didn’t have tickets, but it was a case of I’ve never seen so many exotic cars in my life. You know, and all I did was walk around the parking lot, having him take pictures of me in the parking lot would get some Maseratis and [00:06:00] Lamborghinis and things I’d never seen. And of course, just the sounds alone, it was extraordinary.

So it was cold and windy, but it was one of the little tastes that you get in motorsports. So James, where are you? I am so glad that I have never seen a presentation like that because I just thought about it because I encourage all of the drivers, male or female, understand a little bit more about the history of the sport.

Most race car drivers show up, male or female, and they think they’re God’s gift to the world, right? That they are the best race car driver in the world. And when I heard that presentation just sitting there, I was like, Oh my God, that is the first time I felt Discriminated against because I’m not a sporting gentleman.

It just hit me so weird, you know, and I never saw it that way when I went to the races, but this was an S. C. C. A. The decade a little bit decade later in the seventies. I mean, that’s what I loved about it was the fact that it wasn’t like when you go to a country club or you go someplace where there are the halves.

And if you aren’t a have that, that means you’re a have not. And in racing, it’s like whether you you’re [00:07:00] on a gas station or you work as a plumber, you have your race car and next to maybe somebody that has a motorhome and you know, but we’re all the same at the racetrack. And that’s something that just absolutely stuck with me.

So I kind of never felt discriminated against or not welcomed or whatever. So the sport meant something different to me than it did, I guess, to others. Decades make a difference. I’ve, you know, I’ve thought about it. I’m actually really glad, again, that I kind of hit the sport in the decade of the 70s. Not the summer jam decade of the 70s.

But I did go to the Indy 500 as a spectator. Didn’t say, oh, I’m going to do this. These were superstars. These were superheroes. These were super people. They weren’t real humans. And then I went to the 24 Hours of Daytona for the first time in 1972. I went, oh my God, real people drive race cars. You get to walk around the pits, you get to walk around the garages, you get to see people.

They’re human beings. Mark Donio, Joe Rodriguez, Mario Andretti, they were the super guys too. But at the same time, there were Corvettes and Camaros and Porsches. So it just [00:08:00] sent me a different message. And I sat outside of Turn 1 for the whole 24 hours, while either in the pits walking around or outside Turn 1.

Watching the glow of the brakes when they went down and break over into turn one. I mean, it was just an extraordinary experience. But at the same time, the decades make a difference, depending on your decade, when you’re watching what’s happening. I realized what a difference it was when I saw the Ruth Ginsburg film.

And saw what the 70s was like from her standpoint going to college. I didn’t go to college. Becoming a lawyer. I sat there and I’m like, I don’t remember it that way. So my point of reference was different. So this whole decades make a difference has kind of become a theme that I think really makes a difference of how you reflect on the world and what’s happening.

And I’m really honored to be amongst Well educated people, this is a symposium. This isn’t just where I get to inspire people, you know. Usually, I’m an inspirational speaker that most of the audience know nothing about racing, and so I have full command because whenever I tell them they got to believe, right?

Well, [00:09:00] you guys know a lot about racing. I’m hoping that I can still reflect on a few different things. But I’m also a real believer that timing is everything. Then things happen, and the timing, and this is what I’m experiencing, is a woman in racing who never felt that I should have been there. I’m the happiest when I’m at a racetrack.

I have felt that way since 1974 when I started racing. At the same time, I said, I don’t represent all women. I just, I’m me. There may be betters. Hopefully there are betters. I mean, but at the same time, I just kept focused. And then, of course, in the 90s, I did start to become a little more proactive, and I’ll explain that.

In the 2000s as well, but it didn’t necessarily resonate, but today it’s resonating. And so it’s the same story, the same message, but it makes a difference when you are delivering that message. And leadership is key. It’s great to be a doer. I always wanted to do it. But at the same time, how can you be a leader?

And that’s what, it also makes a big difference. Because the influences that we have also can make a difference. So for me in the seventies [00:10:00] again, I wasn’t paying attention to what Ruth Ginsburg was going through and others, but there was this thing called the Virginia Slims Tennis Tournament. And because in 1973 I, like some of you are old enough, probably remember watching Billie Jean King.

beat Bobby Riggs on television and I was a tennis player, not a great tennis player. So I went out, I didn’t smoke, but I bought two packs of cigarettes and took the tails off the bottom and put my 5 in and I still have that sweatshirt because I thought, you know, there’s something going on here. It’s relating to me.

If she can do that on television in front of billions of people, I think I can try to get in a race car. So what if it’s all guys racing out there? I think I can do that. So the things that influence us really make a difference. And that, again, when, with an influence issue, and it was after I’d seen the 24 Hours of Daytona, so I see real people do this.

She did this on television. Get out of your way, Lynn, and go do this if you could figure it out. So, how I found out. SCCA started a new class called showroom stock. She went out and bought a car. [00:11:00] There were about 2 or 3 cars eligible. The Pinto was the cheapest. I went out and ordered a Pinto at my local Ford dealer, put a roll bar in it, a 5 point seat belt, a 5 pound fire extinguisher, which was required for all Pintos, I mean all race cars, not just Pintos.

Boy, I blew that one. All race cars, not just Pintos. And, that car is how I started. I say, this is how I found racing and racing found me. I mean, literally when I went to school, my first driver instructor wouldn’t talk to me. It was like I was invisible. I wasn’t there with this other three or four students and I was complaining and my husband said, well, why don’t you just go to the chief instructor and ask for a different instructor?

That’s a good idea, so I did, and I got Joe Castellato, who was unbelievable, he’s Italian. He rode with me, I rode with him, drawing the racetrack on the sand and, you know, giving me about apexes. I mean, it was unbelievable how much I learned in that. I was hooked. I was in. My very first race, the X’s on the side of the car to let everybody know that this was a rookie.

Stay away from them because [00:12:00] they don’t know what they’re doing. They have past instructed doing really well. I thought for a while, and then as I’m going into turn two, they put a bunch of cars, different groups out at the same time, the overall leader came around to pass me. And I was not watching my mirrors, lost control of the car.

I spun out and I ended in, I thought it was the pond because in South Florida, Palm beach, international raceway. If you’ve all been there, it’s waters all over and the car hit the water. I opened the door and got out, hustled to the side, stood there, turned around, and watched my car go, blub, blub. It was like in quicksand and totally submerged.

It was gone. And I remember standing there going, if I could just beam myself out like Scotty, you know, from the TV or the movie. The evidence was gone, and maybe this didn’t really happen. So it was a really embarrassing way. I remember the entertainment of the evening was to go down and watch the divers pull the car out and Everybody’s standing there with their shorts and t shirt on and I was as well drinking a beer and the guy standing me says, So who’s driving that car?

And I said, I don’t [00:13:00] know. Did not put my name on the car because this was my street car that I drove back and forth to work as well. But I also remember thinking, wow, my dream. I’m gonna become a race car driver. Oh, baby. I’m not meant to be. To be a race car driver. It was incredibly embarrassing. And I remember a telling my husband.

I do not want to be that woman driver out there because that’s what everybody would talk about. If a woman driver screws up, it’s a woman driver. She doesn’t belong on the track. If a guy screws up, he’s a wanker. You know, I mean, it’s like it’s okay, just a wanker. And I just said, I’m not gonna do that. I’m not validating that terrible image of being the woman driver.

And he said, Lynn, two things. How bad you want it and how are you willing to work? And that’s been my mantra ever since. So the 70s for me was, I found my passion, and then I think when you’re blessed to do that, I don’t know if any of you actually race, I do know you know the sport of it, but when you get behind the wheel of a race car, I mean, it’s a hybrid.

It takes people. To help you to put a car on a racetrack, but then that point is you strap yourself in and now you’re all by yourself. You can’t, hey, ask a [00:14:00] question. You know, we didn’t have radios and things like that back then, particularly when you’re learning. You’re on your own, and so you have to really become this confidence and you have to believe in yourself.

You have to know you can do this. And once you really believe that, you carry that with you when you get out of the car. I mean, it transformed me as a person as well. You know, the whole 70s was just this incredible learning process. Which, of course, I’ve now learned never stops. The 80s. Okay. I think I’m getting important.

I think I’m really going to become a professional race car driver because I can’t afford to be able to race the way I want to race and win races. And so, you know, reality starts to set in. And it’s one thing to have a commitment, a goal, but I actually learned this from the motivational speaker who’s on TV all the time, whose name I can’t remember right now, it doesn’t matter, was that you have to make a declaration.

If you declare something, that’s different than an intention, different than a goal, it’s different than a wish, it’s different than a dream. A declaration is you’re going to [00:15:00] do it. You are declaring it. And so I made this declaration I was going to be a professional race car driver. That’s great. But that means how are you going to do that?

And so in 1978, there was an article in Car and Driver magazine entitled Ford and Feminism. 1978. They were a bit ahead of their time. And it was just a sidebar. And it talked about Ford wanting to provide equal employment opportunities for women in non traditional areas. Jim Olson was one of the people that quoted, I remember.

I thought, hey, I win on Sunday. I’m going to demonstrate Ford’s commitment. I need to be in a Ford. That way I’m telling, I’m telling everybody that Ford is really backing that. Well, I wrote him letters, and I wrote him a lot of letters, and I got a lot of, We’re not into racing, very nice, but keep us informed of your progress.

I bugged the heck out of him. I wrote him every time I raced anywhere, any article that was ever done, I just continued to pursue it. In 1981, I got Ford as a sponsor. It was not their idea. I’m convinced they said we have to do something and so we’ll just hire her because she won’t go away. Persistence [00:16:00] helps.

And then that’s when I got Ford as a sponsor and I became a factory driver for Ford Motor Company. It gave me credibility with the media. It gave me credibility with anybody in the industry. And yes, it was to fulfill their commitment. I spent the whole decade of the 80s racing different cars for Ford, setting records, winning here.

I mean, it was unbelievable. So then towards the end of the 80s, I was Also getting a little older. If you do the math, I was like, okay, I want to drive an IndyCar. I just want to drive an IndyCar. It is like, to me, the ultimate race car. I actually worked as a pit reporter for ESPN so that I could learn more about the cars.

Because I could talk to the crew chiefs. I could talk to the team managers. I talked to people about, tell me about the car so that I could talk about it online. Well, I got a lot more information than I needed that I was going to be able to talk about online. I started to learn a lot about the cars because it gave me an inside track.

And then I started talking to team owners. They were doing a test day. I’d love to drive an IndyCar. Long story short, I got a chance. Dick Simon finally, I think again, said [00:17:00] this woman keeps coming at me talking about wanting to drive an IndyCar. And he called me on a Monday after the Tamiami race, the last race of the season.

Hey kid, you want to drive an IndyCar? Be at Memphis tomorrow. That’s the way Dick talks. I was on the plane, went to Memphis. Didn’t even know there was a racetrack in Memphis, but that’s where I used to do a lot of testing. He was doing a rookie test for another driver. He pulled out Raul Bozell’s. Car, I got to turn laps in an Indy car, this track in Memphis, which is a drag strip with a little return route.

And talk about things are supposed to happen when they’re supposed to happen. This kid, they’re all kids to me, this kid had to work on that car that day. If I hadn’t shown up, he would have had the day off, because the car was on the trailer. Now, I figured he’s probably really happy to see me. And he’s trying to fit me in the car and we’re literally putting jackets and anything because I wasn’t able to pour a seat or anything.

And then he looks at me at one point and he goes, Were you ever at Snedderton? Which is a racetrack in England. I said, Yeah, I was there one day. This was in 1988. [00:18:00] So I was at Snedderton in 1984, four years prior to that, testing a Ford Argo GTP car that I ended up running. He said, I was there that day. He said, you ran good.

I had a crew guy that day. I had somebody who wanted me to do well. You know what I mean? Who was glad that he was able to work that day. Changed the whole thing. I end up driving an IndyCar that day. At the end of the day, I did fairly well. Dick, he left actually, then he came back. And at the end of the day, he said to me, we can do this.

He didn’t say you can do this. He said we can do this. And that meant, ah, I have an IndyCar team owner who’s willing to do this. So it only took us four years, 150 companies that said no in sponsorship searches, and JCPenney was the 151st company that I went after in sponsorship, which I got in 1992. So the 80s and the 90s were creating partnerships.

Ford Motor Company, who brought in Motorcraft. That’s good at Watkins Glen, that’s what I [00:19:00] want at Watkins Glen here in 1985. And then, J. C. Penney came along, and when they came along in 1992, they brought in Nike. One of the sweetest things was I found out that Phil Knight said, there will never be a Nike swoosh on a race car, because race car drivers are not athletes.

Guess what? There was a swoosh out of my car at Nike because it was a JCPenney sponsorship and Nike came along with the package. You know, sometimes there’s a little um that you get when you get to do something besides what you’re trying to get out of it. But creating partnerships, relationships are everything.

But you have to get results. It isn’t about just being intentional, making declarations, you have to get results. So obviously the victories that I’ve had, and then being at Indy in 1992. Winning Rookie of the Year. They had eight rookies that year. The last thing in the world I figured that I was going to be selected or earn Rookie of the Year, but I was the highest finishing rookie.

Another record that I held, talking about results that sometimes you [00:20:00] inherit, I guess. Is that I held the record until two years ago being the oldest rookie in the history of the Indianapolis 500. 796 drivers had raced in the area at that time. And the first time you race it into your rookie, no matter what your background is, none of them had been 45 years old until Jimmy Johnson two years ago.

Not seven time NASCAR champion beats 76. So results count. Teamwork, the value of teamwork. I told the story about the crew guy from, that had been at Snedderton. So many of these people, you know, they’re not just the team, but they’re there with you. They want it for you. They care about you. You learn their names.

You learn what they eat for lunch. You learn what they want for dinner, how much sleep they need. Some of them do, some of them don’t. But you become, not just a family, but it’s about teamwork. And then the team expands beyond just having the people that work on your car. And it never ends because, and that’s why it’s so much about relationships.

I was on this mission, very personal mission, [00:21:00] of just wanting to win races, beat Scott Pruitt, beat Tom Gloy. Then I started realizing, this is bigger than me. One of the people that helped me realize it was Billie Jean King. I got to meet my shero. I got to go to the Women’s Sports Foundation that she founded, that she puts dinner on every year, and I got to meet her and all of these other Olympic athletes and accomplished athletes.

And if you’ve been in the room or in the presence of Billie Jean King for, Five minutes, and you don’t walk away knowing that it’s your responsibility to change the world. This is the point, because she pounds on the table. While you are competing, you are the most powerful. It’s not about you, it’s about the future generation.

I’m like, what do you mean it’s not about me? If I don’t win, nobody gives a shit. You know, I mean, it’s like, it’s about me. But no, I mean, she really just gets you to get it. I kind of was processing that a lot in the 80s, that it wasn’t until I had the platform of Indie. When I got all this fan mail and people wanting advice, and I’m like, I just can’t send them an autograph.

So that’s when the common and when things happen to [00:22:00] you, the decades of how old you are, I’m now in my 40s, probably a little more of a mother mentality than 20s and 30s kick ass take names. And so, you know, I’m starting to care more than about me, and I realize it’s not just about me. And that whole that, and you know, on top of that, it gave me a new sense of power.

It’s tiring when all you do is care about yourself. And, and you have to be self centered. I had to learn, I created a new word with my coach called selfing. How you help yourself, but help others. So it’s selfing. It was a really powerful word for me. So, values of teamwork were getting me where I was going to go.

Communication, obviously getting results, but then communicating them, and they’re hard. They’re easier today because they’re everywhere, but they’re harder because you harder to manage, you know, you got to make sure you manage your communication. So setting the records at Talladega, Ford talking about safety and using motorsports as a message for safety.

And then to celebrate with your partners. Told you I just came from Daytona. All of these people that came that I invited, not everybody [00:23:00] that I, that I invited and John Doonan invited were able to come. But I wanted to give them something. I found out the importance of these little coins that you have made, the, the, uh, and I had a coin made celebrating my 50th year, but then I put a note in there.

Because I realized without those people, without the people that were in that room and got invited who will get theirs in the mail. I wouldn’t have made it. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did. You know, you’ve got to tell people what you’re going to do. You’ve got to go do it. But you’ve got to tell them that you did it, because just because you told them you were doesn’t mean they’re paying attention, or that they really give a hoot.

So then you’ve got to tell them you did it, and then you’ve got to thank them. I mean, I was known during the 80s when I had sponsors, I would always at the end of the year send a thank you gift. And then sometimes, I mean, I didn’t know what they did with it, and I didn’t care, but I wanted them to know.

What this season represented and how they made a difference. And so you’ve got to really sell it. You’re in a hall of fame, that isn’t about you. You’re just being recognized for all the people that made you, enabled you to be able to do what you’re doing. So one of my tips to, when [00:24:00] I am mentoring, just always be authentic.

Don’t try to be something that you’re not. Don’t try to be what somebody else is. Yes, I’m old. I did try to pay the PR guy at Indy in 1992. I actually had 500 in my pocket. So will you quit putting my age next to my name? Because I didn’t want to draw attention to it, you know, and he said it doesn’t work that way, Lynn.

So my age is my age, you can look it up, but I’m a mother. Yes, I took piano lessons for 13 years, taught piano for 6 weeks and got fired. It’s good to know, it’s good to know what you’re not good at. I’m a race car driver, I try to be a speaker, I’ve tried to represent the sport well, but just be authentic. I don’t feel dressed unless I wear fingernail polish, and I’ve had some people literally fancy me when I’m not at the track.

You can’t be a race car driver. You’ve got fingernail polish on. I’m like, get over it, you know? So, you’ve just got to be who you are. And then, the leadership comes in. That Billie Jean King moment by Shiro, she was the honorary starter on qualifying day at Indy, and the year we had four women going to qualify at [00:25:00] the Indy 500.

So I was like, Billy, I did my work! Here they are! There’s Danica, there’s Sarah, and she was a hoot. She was the honorary starter, so she waved the flag to start the day. And you don’t do that up in the starter stand, you do it literally on pit lane. And so she’s down there, and she’s got the, she’s got the flag.

And she thinks she’s a deterbing servant, right? I mean, she’s got that crouch. And she’s waving the flag and the cars go by. And she’s waving the flag and the cars go by. She’s only supposed to wave the flag when the cars go by once, you know what I mean? I said, Billy, they’re done. It’s okay, because they want to go fast now.

You know, they were just warming it up. She absolutely loved it. They said most of the time, honorary starters jump back because they just hear the cars and they see them go by and, you know, they couldn’t get away. So she was fabulous. So I saw the quote, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens Can change the world.

It’s the only thing that ever has made me think. Actually, as I read this, I’m Gene Arkansinger, who started the IMRRC. It’s not about you, but it’s about getting a community [00:26:00] together. So that has led me to also look at the future. But then I decided, Ooh, I need to look at the past. I read a book called the Bugatti Queen, and there was so much in there, not just about her, not about just about Holy Deeds, but about other women.

This was a time when there were a lot of gentlemen racers, but these gals were out there kicking butt. So I did end up talking to the Henry Ford Museum about this book. And this was about, I don’t know, 2000 something that I was chatting with them. He said, oh, you ought to do a traveling exhibit. I said, I don’t know how to do that.

These are one of the partners because I was helping them design their Driven to Win exhibit. They said we’ll help you. So I ended up creating a traveling exhibit, which is now retired, but on the history of women in racing. This is just a big banner that was on display starting from Camille de Gaeste that took us through the early 1900s up to 1933.

You mentioned Louis Chiron, the driver that was in the Bugatti. It’s [00:27:00] because of him that Helene Nice ended up, this is just my summation of the information, she ended up dying in destitute because he accused her. of being a spy because she was having affairs with some generals, giving trade secrets and stuff like that, and she was ostracized.

Ended up, you know, living actually, I think to like her 80s, but ended up, you know, living on nothing, you know, and it was just because he basically ruined her entire reputation and career, which was just Anyway, so the history to me was like, I knew about Janet Guthrie, I knew about Shirley Mildowney, you know, when I started racing.

That was about it, and I didn’t learn all this until I was already out of the seat professionally. But it was so inspiring for me and so important for me to be able to share the fact that there were very successful women that were going very, very fast and doing these great things at a time when it just wasn’t known and considered.

Another era from the 2000s to the 2010s of here we are. So, I mean, again, [00:28:00] it’s not just Shirley Muldowney or just Sarah Fisher or Danica Patrick. I mean, it’s kind of like There are decades here, this is just like, you know, capturing moments, periods, the modern era from 1980 to the 2000s of just capturing Desiree Wilson, who won an Aurora Series Formula One race, a year old Formula One cars at Brands Hatch, Michelle Mouton, who won Pikes Peak, and who went on to then show her leadership, and she was the founder and the creator, the FIA, Women in Motorsports Commission, and led it for over 10 years.

But then Robin McCall, maybe they didn’t hit the headlines, she didn’t beat Richard Petty or whatever, but it’s just hard because we want to be known as winners and competitors and get that at the same time. If you’re out there and you are competitive, if you were running in the top five or the top ten, they were just lost, we call it left behind, you know, that they weren’t always given the recognition at the time they were actually competing.

Kara Hendrick. Who was a contemporary of [00:29:00] Jeff Gordon, who ended up dying in a Sprint car midget, setting a track record, leading the race, and was absolutely considered an equal to Jeff Gordon at that time in beating him, and Jeff Gordon would admit, has said that, I mean, he just She was tough and she was good.

And I used to talk all the time and I can say, I’ll try to help you all I can, but I’m still trying to figure mine out, you know, and I still would do as much as I can to introduce her to people in this whole era. There were just so many racers and then the future. I really wanted to send the message that yes, we had a history, another Billie Jean quote, if you don’t know your history.

I really wanted the people that saw this exhibit to know that there was a future out there. When I first saw this, to share this with you, I thought, oh wow, that’s cool. I remember all those gals. And then I went, oh dear, are any of them still racing? And I got very sad. There weren’t many, but there were ten.

So 10 of those are continuing to race and still accomplishing something. But at first, when I read it, I was like, Oh [00:30:00] my God, that’s not a very good story. If you can’t say that this exhibit launched at the Toronto International Speedway in 2014 ran for five years. And then eventually the panels got kind of beat up from up and down, you know, and all that.

And then it went away. So these were young drivers that were all over the country racing in different forms of racing. And the race car drivers, one of the things I try to explain to people, we’re the ambassadors, we’re the messengers. We’re the people, we, meaning male, female, yeah, the stars, we’re the people that the media write about, that probably most of the research people refer to.

We are the messengers. Well, there aren’t enough women to be, as race car drivers, to show the depth of what the talent pool that has been and is out there. But what is really different now, which I’m loving, Is the fact that we now have women engineers, we have women mechanics, you know, we have women that are in all different, they’ve always been there, they’ve always been grid marshals or marketing [00:31:00] people, but it’s a little bit more behind the scenes.

So we’re now seeing more and more women in different areas, which led myself and Beth Perretta, I don’t know if you remember in 2000, when she had the female forward team at the Indy 500, I read about it, knew about it, excited about it. And at the Indy 500 that year, I walked down Pit Lane, which is what I do every year to wish people that are still there that I remember and all that the good luck.

And I walked down and I come upon her team and Simona, who I know is her driver, Beth, who I do a little bit. So, you know, okay, great. We had a woman driver and a woman owner and I turned and here’s like eight gals all in their race suits ready to go over the wall. The six of them are going to go over the wall.

I’m like that female presence, tears came to my eyes and I had a moment because I said I never knew I never felt alone, but I never knew how alone I was because I generally I was the only woman in a race suit ready to go to work [00:32:00] essentially in the race and I turned to Beth with those tears in my eyes and we hugged each other and I said, I had no idea how alone I was.

I did. I just never felt that way. Now I realize I probably was. She said, this is for all of us. And I mean, that was all she could get out at that moment because she was probably preoccupied getting ready to go lead the team for the N 500 when they did finish, actually. With that, and it was right after, it was during COVID and, you know, COVID had hit.

And so we started having these Zoom calls with other people that we knew that we thought were like minded, men and women. We ended up having 40 people on our list combined. We would meet every month and have a Zoom call and just talk about it. What can we do? What are you doing? What do you see? Just brainstorming.

And out of the result of that, you know, we got a lot going on here. There’s a lot of meat here. We created women in motor sports, North America. We now have a board. We’re two and a half years old. This year will be fourth annual summit. We actually had a summit before we existed, because we just got an opportunity to [00:33:00] pull some people together, and we had a great summit in Nashville at a Honky Tonk bar before the IndyCar race.

And we had over 100 people there, and then we went on to Charlotte, and we were at Phoenix last year, and we’ll be in Indianapolis this year. We’ll have over 500 men and women gathered for two days to talk about the opportunities, the challenges, the successes. How do we get over the failures? All of the discussions.

Crisis communication. What do you do when the shit hits the fan? All these different topics that are relevant to your career and to the sport. See, we’re a community to advance opportunities, to celebrate the ones that are there. And because it’s a community doing it. It’s so cool, because it’s not just Lynn trying to hammer everybody to, you know, come on, you got to do something.

But because so many people are doing things, we’ve got Shift Up Now, who’s helping with the women drivers. We’ve got Accelerate Her, that’s helping in young NASCAR drivers. We’ve got Jostens, who’s supporting our, guess who came up with this name? The SheRo Award. [00:34:00] We all have our heroes, but we need our SheRo’s, and those are the people that work above and beyond.

We want people to get a little trophy that says you’ve done a great job. You know, we can’t all get a promotion cause there’s not as many layers. Sometimes in motorsports, you have five different job titles, right? Cause you work at motorsports and you can’t always get a bonus. But what about a nice trophy that says you’ve worked hard?

We really appreciate how hard you’ve worked. So. You know, we’ve just got different alliances with different racetracks. If everybody does something that feels right for them, all ships rise. We’re only a little over two years old. We’ve got a great executive director, Cindy Sisson, who’s got 10 times more energy than I do.

And it’s just been great ideas. The community is working. And so it’s really this evolution. This is our summit, our Women’s Civic Drive. Men and women, 20 percent at least of our attendees are men. So this is not just us versus them. It’s not, we’re living in that mantra, but there will always be that by the way.

I remember working with Raul Sanchez in the development of the Miami Grand Prix [00:35:00] downtown Miami. I mean, when you’re trying to do something different, there’s those, no way that’s going to happen. And there are those, come on, you know, come with us. We’ll replant that tree. Sometimes it’s that kind of stuff that gets in the way.

So this is our Women With Drive Summit. And if you do all that, you create a new future with horsepower.

Kip Zeiter: Lynn, that was really great. Thank you so much. I have a question. I’d like to take you back to the 80s. I’m just curious as to what it was like to drive for Jack Roush.

Lyn St. James: Oh, this is a story. I met Jack before he got Ford as this big sponsor and I knew he was a racer and I knew he loved his engines and I’m like, man, this is going to be such a great team to work with.

And I was so excited. It didn’t work out that way. I raced for Jack Roush, 83 off and [00:36:00] on to 91. I mean, I’m not going to go into one year I was somebody else and all that, but most of those years. Had most of my success, actually. My wins. But it was in spite of Jack. So Jack, he was the toughest, meanest, treated drivers, but me in particular, unfairly.

And so, I had to find a way to try to be successful. I felt in spite of. So, if you read my book, which is called An Incredible Journey, I remember the publisher saying, Do you really want to say this? I’m like, hey, it’s the truth. And so, I was not a fan of Jack Roush, even though I admired his passion, but we just never could get on the same page.

I actually hired a basketball coach, the only coach I could find. And I say this, and I honestly say this, that if I hadn’t had that basketball coach, you wouldn’t be hearing from me, because I’d be in prison. I would have killed the guy. I was, I was that, I’m serious, I was that angry. I mean, Leo Mill has the story where I actually, because Jack’s a short guy, I actually had him by the collar with his feet going like this, because he wouldn’t give me qualifying tires.

And so, you know, I just [00:37:00] had a really, really tough time. So, as I was preparing for my 50th, I really took a lot of time to reflect, and I said, I can honestly say, and I will probably get the guts, maybe, because he’s still alive at some point, I might say this to his face, I have to thank Jack Roush, because he made it so tough on me.

That it made me work harder, dig deeper, want it more. That prepared me for the sustaining career and to stay in it long enough that I got to do Indy. And I got to go a whole frickin decade at Indy. From 1992 to 2000. And I mean even, and I got to work with a team owner who was a dream. This guy believed in his drivers.

He gave every driver everything he could possibly have to make this so successful. I had a completely It’s a 180 degree experience. I wouldn’t have had that if I let Jack defeat me. I mean, at one point, when Jack wouldn’t let me in the car at 24 hours at Daytona, at 2 o’clock in the morning, I called my friend Don Courtney in Miami and I said, I’ve had it.

I’m done. I am calling [00:38:00] a, I’m calling a press conference. I’m going to, this is in 1987. I’m going to retire from racing. I’m going to retire from racing. I am angry. This man is, I just can’t do it. I can’t deal with it. And he goes, Lynn, are you going to let somebody. Take and rob your passion. Not only that, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning.

And nobody cares. Nobody’s gonna show up. Get some sleep. Come in the first thing in the morning and get fixed. And I did. I ended up calling Lee Morris from Ford Motor Company. And I said, I’ll meet you at the track at 7. If I don’t get 4 hours in this car, I will not get credit for this race. The 24 Hours of Daytona is the very first race of the season.

You’re paying for the whole season? You can’t let this happen. We had a meeting in Pitts. I got four hours in. Twelve hours from when I was going to retire from racing and call you a press conference, I was on victory podium. That was my first win at the 24 Hours of Daytona. So, I mean, so Jack challenged every fiber of my body [00:39:00] and brain and I have to thank him now.

It took me literally until reflecting to get ready to realize how many people I want to thank for being in this sport. I have to thank him.

Kip Zeiter: So, so was Dick Simon the best? Oh my

Lyn St. James: god, he was the best.

Kip Zeiter: Okay.

Lyn St. James: Not just for me, but if you talk to Raul, you talk to, um, Ari Lyondon, you talk to any driver that’s ever raced for Dick.

He gave you everything, he, he didn’t have everything to give you, but everything he had he gave you. You know, he didn’t have the big money, the sponsors that a lot of the others had. I mean, he’s dope for putting two primary sponsors on the car. He puts one of them on the outside of the car and the other on the inside.

Because at Indy He has all of his sponsors from that company sitting outside the track, all the ones that are inside the track. They all think they’re the only sponsor. I mean, the guy creates it all. But he works with everything he can, yes. Dick was the absolute best team.

Kip Zeiter: That’s great. We have questions, I’m sure.

Audience Q&A: With the success of WNBA, Billie Jean King is like a hero of mine as well. Oh my gosh. [00:40:00] Has there been discussion or a vision of just a women’s only NASCAR level race taking place where it’s just women drivers?

Lyn St. James: I know that Chris is going to talk a little bit about it and probably know about the W Series and now the F1 Academy.

But first of all, we have a blessing, wonderful story to tell an opportunity. We, meaning motorsports, Not the only, but one of the very few. Equestrian is the other, and sailing is the other. Where women and men compete at an equal level. And that, to me, represents society. If we can actually get to the pinnacle, we don’t have to just be the CEO of Google, or the CEO of General Motors.

I mean, I know Mary Barra, and I respect her greatly. But, if you’re smart enough, and you hang in there long enough, you can become the CEO of a company, right, if a female. We have lots of demonstrations of that. But if we could accomplish that in motorsports, we are going to send a very powerful message about our sport.

And I am determined that that’s going to happen. But it isn’t going to be happening by separating women. Because then the whole story changes. The whole opportunity changes. It can’t be a [00:41:00] division and then conquer. It’s united and conquer. But the sanctioning bodies, the racetracks, the OEMs, the tire companies, the stakeholders in the sport need to Wake up and invest so that they can support, have a proper ladder system, have a proper way of these gals getting enough opportunities to be able to be as good as they could be at 18 like the kids, you know, the guys and then putting them in the proper team have teams who really wanted.

We’ve got a ways to go. But that’s where the effort needs to be made, not creating a whole women’s only thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Lynn, we’ve got one from the internet here. It’s actually a great clarifying question to what you were just talking about. Terry Johnson writes, Your opinion on the former W Series that was dominated by Jamie Chadwick, and should that be revived?

Lyn St. James: I happened to be there the year that they did the selection process for the W Series. So, you know, that was a bit of a hiccup for a lot of us women drivers, because a lot of people want to know what we thought. And, you know, there were days That I thought, oh, this is really terrible because it’s what I just answered, you know, [00:42:00] it’s going to separate it.

And then the other day, I was like, yeah, but it’s an opportunity to put somebody in a race car, in a really good race car. So then when I went and actually got to, they had over 50 drivers try out for that series. And I went to Austria and was part of the selection process. And then when I saw how the series was launched and what they provided.

I mean, they provided physical trainers, they provided coaches, they provided engineering support. So it gave not only a chance to just race in a race car, but they were A, proper race cars, and B, they learned all of the resources you really need to have to be a professional race car driver. So it was actually a very great experience that got out of hand from a business standpoint.

It doesn’t need to be resurrected because the F1 Academy is kind of replacing it. And Susie, I know Susie, it used to be Susie Stoddard, now Susie Wolf, you know, she’s really going to run it as a business and try to make that work. So I think it’s serving a purpose. Wouldn’t be bad if we had something over here maybe, but I’m not sure what category and I don’t want, I haven’t figured that [00:43:00] out yet, so.

We don’t need to replace it, or revive it. It’s got its own place.

Audience Q&A: One thing you did not have to deal with was the social media. And the cruelty that can come the way of drivers and be a severe distraction. So I’m just wondering, how would you advise young women now to put that out of their heads when it’s right in their face?

Lyn St. James: You’re so right. I’m so glad I didn’t have to deal with it in my career. It’s part of the business now, so you have to understand it. I go back to my being authentic. Don’t try to be to be something you’re not. Most of the top drivers have other people that manage their social media, which to a certain degree is probably not a bad idea.

As long as you’ve got An authentic relationship with whoever’s doing that. And then I think the other fearful that I have is because so many of the drivers are young, because our sport wants young. I worry about the safety of them. I mean, I had a stalker that ended up incarcerated. I mean, it’s frightening.

And that was before social media, you know. So, when you have [00:44:00] access like that, I advise them to have layers of protection, whether it’s parents or some other, but find layers of separation and protection. And my bottom line is, ignore it. Do not respond to the crap. Don’t let it affect you. I didn’t know like till I saw Willie T’s movie, Uppity, that I didn’t know he had death threats.

Depending on how serious it can get, again, I had a sucker, but just ignore it. Once you feed it. By responding and or let it impact how you think about yourself. If they’re really a race car driver to me and they’ve got their butt in the car and they believe in themselves as strongly as they need to, then they shouldn’t let anything penetrate that.

You know, and, and so I hope they have good family or good. They all have coaches and trainers and managers. I hope the people they surround them continues to instill the self-confidence so that they can deflect all of that and not let it affect them.

Crew Chief Eric: Vicente from Spain asks, what has been the best racing car you have ever driven?

Lyn St. James: Oh, that’s a toughie to say that I’ve ever driven. Obviously [00:45:00] this Ford GT was the best. I mean, it had sequential power steering. I could do 1, or 5 on the amount of power steering I wanted. I never had power steering, you know. It was like, it’s the first race car I didn’t have to wrestle around the racetrack.

So, you know, I’d have to say that Ford GT was the sweetest sports car that I’ve driven. I also got to drive this. 1976 Chevron B39 Formula Atlantic car that I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I mean, it was the same car. Fast little, you know, so I’ve had so many wonderful race cars. I could not just pick one sports car.

There’s the Indy cars There’s the prototype cars. I mean, there’s just so many different categories that I can’t just pick one out of all of that That’s like try to pick your favorite child or something. You can’t do that.

Kip Zeiter: How about the most diabolical car you ever? Oh,

Lyn St. James: yeah, it was the Kelly American Challenge Mustang.

Oh, it was awful. It was so funny I had to make a presentation in Sacramento at the auto museum there, and they were so excited. This owner has one of your old cars, and we brought it, it’s on display. It was like this big surprise. They kept it [00:46:00] under wraps. And they opened it, and I’m like, oh my

Kip Zeiter: god, I

Lyn St. James: hate that car.

And I couldn’t react. I mean, I had, oh, how nice, you know, inside. I’m like, ugh. And I went up, looked at it, and the guy was vintage racing it. And I said, so how’s it going? You know. Oh, it’s pretty good. And then he made a lot of changes and all that. So that was. It was my Kelly concert in 1982.

Audience Q&A: I was originally going to ask you about your thoughts on the women’s series, but obviously F1 Academy has kind of been the next step, I think, beyond that for a lot of young female drivers.

Do you think that in the foreseeable future we may see a woman seated back in an F1 car?

Lyn St. James: I hope so. I can’t predict that it will happen out of this. I wish I could. Because it’s as much political as, and also my sense of my experience and my sense of observing. I’m a very good observer. There’s still a very strong anti.

Attitude over there. There’s anti american for one thing and then there’s it’s just not as likely to happen. I but I would hope so I mean the car Yeah, it is. Well, it’s it’s just this [00:47:00] elitist. I’m gonna get myself in trouble here, but i’m authentic I am not a huge formula one fan a race fan of formula one Because I love racing but i’m not a fan of their elitist attitude about everything You know, everything is more expensive ticket go into a race.

I remember when they came to indy And even though I had a frickin credential, they have all these, they put all of these gates up and all of these fences up, I’m like Hey, this is our turf here. What are you doing? Couldn’t go in this garage. You couldn’t go here. You have to go through these turnstiles.

When I talk to people from other cultures who say to me, you know, there’s fences around racetrack. I never thought about this that they immediately feel excluded. If they don’t see a black person or a hispanic person or somebody even on the other side of the fence, but the fact that there’s a fence there, the message, I mean, you have to have some, but in formula one, you add that with spades.

I mean, you just add it because it’s 10 layers of and all the different places you can’t go. And it’s like, come on. So I just have a, you know, an attitude about formula one. And I don’t know, I guess, yeah. I just want a [00:48:00] woman to win the Indy 500 and to win the NASCAR championship. Sorry, you know, let the Formula One figure out their own issues, but I’m more, that’s doable.

And I think it’s doable that we could have a woman, you know, literally win and be in contention for the NASCAR championship. We got to make a number of changes culturally, because we have to have teams that really want to make that happen. We don’t yet. The right teams, you know, like the existing strong, I’m working on Penske.

At the same time, and I definitely can see it happening in sports cars, and I definitely can see it happening in Indy cars. I

Kip Zeiter: just want to thank you for the important safety hint about fire extinguishers in cars, for the one car. Oh, yes, yes.

Lyn St. James: Well, that was required for all cars.

Audience Q&A: Those discouraging times when you went off track, what was it about your personality that you didn’t quit and that you got back on track?

Lyn St. James: Well, I mean, seriously, it was, the Pinto taught me this immediately, you know. I mean, if anything was going to stop me in my tracks. That would have been it. I mean, it was so awful [00:49:00] and laughable to everybody, as I said. But my husband said, how bad do you want and how hard are you willing to work? So, you know, the crash at Riverside probably caused.

the most concern for me because physically I walked away from it. I mean, I had more injuries that I realized, but I thought that was gonna end my career because I figured I hadn’t seen the film yet. You know, I mean, I just got hit out of nowhere and then I hit another car and the next thing were three missiles.

I mean, it was like, what the shit happened? I don’t know what happened, you know, until I saw the footage and men knew that it wasn’t my fault. But I thought, you know, I’m afraid, on the weak link, and maybe in the eyes of others, that this could end my career. And as it turned out, the exact opposite happened.

I was afraid Ford Motor Company would pull the sponsorship, because there is a concern, and I get this, there is a concern for people who make a decision to sponsor somebody. That if somebody gets killed, or seriously injured, that they feel a little sense of responsibility. If it’s a woman, there’s, you know what, the world was built this way.

The world was built for you guys to protect us. That’s a cultural [00:50:00] ingrained feeling that men have, and now sometimes women have as mothers. They have to get over that. We know this. We know we can die in a race car. Otherwise you wouldn’t let, balk at yourself in. But there’s that line of, how do we get over that?

And so when you’ve challenged that, then it’s so easy for them to fall back, the decision maker to fall back. I don’t want to go there again. She walked away from that one, but maybe not the next. And instead, the response from the executives I found out at Ford Motor Company was she really does race just like the guys.

And that was like my fourth year racing for Ford, you know. And yet, so it solidified their belief in me that because I’m tough enough. And she didn’t cry. That was the other comment. I’m like, you’re kidding me. But, you know, and then I came back for more, you know. So, I mean, we have to dispel the myth, but not defy it because it’s ingrained in most of us.

But that’s kind of. Two

Dan Simone: years ago I oversaw a roundtable on women in motor sport and I floated the [00:51:00] idea of International Motor Racing Women’s Hall of Fame at Whatcom Glen. That’s something I’d like to ask you to maybe bring back to Cindy and see if that’s maybe in the near future, but something that is worthy of a discussion at some point because your traveling exhibit.

It’s just a small piece of that very rich history and I think at some point it’s worth exploring the idea of a full hall of fame for women in racing, both on the track and off the track.

Lyn St. James: Definitely worth considering. I mean, I, I’m about inclusivity and, you know, and at the same time, yeah, we’ll talk about it.

Thank you for the idea though, for caring enough to bring it up.

Crew Chief Eric: First of all, I have to say thank you for allowing us to work with you so many times over the last couple of years, and we’re an ally of WMNA for sure. But one of my favorite questions, every time we’ve gotten together, and I’m not going to ask about Lamont, I’m not going to ask about this and that, it’s a one word question, and that is, Quatro.

Could you tell us a little bit [00:52:00] about racing against Hurley and Hans back in the days of Trans Am? Oh, I was going to

Lyn St. James: say, where are we going with that? Um, Well, when you have And you’re racing against all wheel drive. In other words, when you don’t have all wheel drive, and you’re racing against all wheel drive.

And that’s what we did for the season that Hanstuck and Hurley Haywood had the Audi Quattros against us with our Big engines, lots of power, but we only had two driving wheels rather than four. It’s just really frustrating because certain tracks we were okay, because we wore horse like gear and we were fine.

The one that was the worst was New Jersey, you know, when we raced around the stadium there in, uh, Meadowlands, Meadowlands, thank you. You know, I still have memories and visions of that, where that car would would be going places where we couldn’t do it, you know, and it was just like, how do you, how do you beat that?

There’s times when you just have to, you know, bite your lip and you got to deal with it. So, and then obviously the officials took care of that and that didn’t go forward the next season. So, it’s just really hard. [00:53:00] I mean, I would not want to be a technical inspection person or somebody writing the rules for, for trying.

I mean, I, I just bless, I can’t understand John Doonan and his team of how you can have 18 OEMs. With all of these different technologies, and now with all of the advanced technologies you’re trying to deal with, and somehow put them on a racetrack and make them at least somewhat equal, and then actually keep them in the game.

You know, it is incredibly challenging. We are in a challenging time with all this technology. All I can say is that I’m glad I drove when I drove, because we still have shifts here, we’re not doing this, we’ve got power steering that works, I mean, but there’s, I’m just glad I did what I did when I did. You know, there’s some things you just have to accept.

Somebody’s got advantage, and sometimes you just have to accept it. Suffer through the season and hope they fix that for, you know, the next season and you can go racing. But, but thank you for, for having me. Um, thank you for doing this. I didn’t quite understand it completely, to be honest, until I’ve now been able to, you know, there’s nothing like actually being in the space of when something is happening.

It’s hard to read about it and understand it. But [00:54:00] I think we need to do deeper dives of our sport. This is one way to do that. Maybe get a way of getting that out to the world a little more and communicating it. But. You know, our sport has a great history. It’s changing more rapidly now than it probably ever has.

And I just think keep doing what you’re doing and figure out how to maybe do it better. So thank you very much.

IMRRC/SAH Promo: This episode is brought to you in part. by the International Motor Racing Research Center. Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history of motorsports spanning continents, eras, and race series. The Center’s collection embodies the speed, drama, and camaraderie of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world.

The Center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike. To share stories of race drivers, race series, and race cars captured on their shelves [00:55:00] and walls and brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special events. To learn more about the Center, visit www. racingarchives.

org. This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians. They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history. The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers, organizational records, Print ephemera and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through the modern age and into the future.

For more information about the SAH, visit www. sah. gov.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast brought to you by [00:56:00] Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at Grand Touring Motorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at gtmotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gumby Bears, and Monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. And remember, without you, none of this would be [00:57:00] possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Lyn St. James: A Legendary Career
• 03:51 Early Inspirations and Challenges
• 05:42 Finding Passion in Racing
• 09:09 Breaking Barriers in Motorsports
• 13:52 The Importance of Teamwork and Persistence
• 18:52 Creating Partnerships and Achieving Success
• 25:53 Reflecting on History and Legacy
• 27:35 Reflecting on Women in Motorsports
• 29:24 The Evolution of Female Representation
• 30:39 Women in Various Roles in Motorsports
• 32:20 The Birth of Women in Motorsports North America
• 35:35 Challenges and Triumphs in Racing
• 40:07 The Future of Women in Racing
• 43:04 Social Media and Safety Concerns
• 44:51 Memorable Cars and Racing Experiences
• 50:51 Final Thoughts and Acknowledgements

Consider becoming a Patreon VIP and get behind the scenes content and schwag from the Motoring Podcast Network