Behind The Scenes With Professional Women Racers
Whether you’re racing yourself or just watching, motorsports can be intimidating and seem inaccessible. This is especially true for women. There just aren’t as many female racers, team owners, pit crew, media representatives or even female fans in the stands. Whether you like to drive or spectate, learning from the people that are out there doing it in real life, makes a big difference.
That’s hard to do without access. For me, I get this through being a member of Shift Up Now. This allows me to be able to get into a physical or virtual room with these athletes hear their stories, ask them questions and learn from their mistakes. You see them at their most human and they will tell you, with breathtaking and heartbreaking honesty, the best and worst parts of competition. Once you realize that they aren’t that different from you, it gives you the permission to dream a little bigger for yourself -learning from their experience is priceless whether you want to ever compete yourself or not.
If you aren’t familiar with Shift Up Now, this is an organization that exists to help pro level women racers achieve equal footing in motorsports. Run by the formidable Indycar racer Pippa Mann, these ladies are helping racers address what is sometimes the most difficult aspect of chasing their dreams- coming up with the capital to race. By helping these racers with sponsorship introductions, social media deals, paid appearances, writing Grants for racers through their 501c3 Foundation, and spot-lighting their efforts on their website and social media, Shift Up Now is working to help level the playing field. In a world where only 10% of all available sponsorship and sports marketing money goes to women, this is a big deal.
One of my favorite things is getting to hear from women racers first hand what their experience is like and things you need to know at their level. It really challenges my thinking on and off the track- the details matter so so much.
Last month Shift Up Now hosted a series of online iRacing events where Members could race virtually with pro racers in various cars at race tracks across the US. In February, they hosted one of my favorite events, their “Fan Forums”. This is an opportunity to hop on a zoom call and listen to panelists answer questions, tell stories and offer advice to members.
Ashlyn Speed talking about what it was like to be able to stay on track after that monster Mazda MX-5 Cup crash in Daytona is still stuck in my mind. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like but it seems I don’t have to because she posted her dash cam footage. Taylor Ferns talked about what it was racing on dirt and pavement and moving between Silver Crown/Sprint Car Racing and Indy nxt was fascinating. These ladies likened moving between series to being a pro rugby player and trying to play in the NFL. Yes, the game is similar but if you don’t pay attention to the details, you’re getting crushed.
Speaking of the NFL, Taylor Ferns mentioned her sponsor, Motorsports Safety Group and the work they’re doing to protect athletes from brain damage. This product called the Q Collar is currently being used football, soccer and lacrosse players to protect their brains as they play. They’re testing out a use case for motorsports. A simple, inexpensive device that prevents brain injury could be a huge help for those of us that are non professionals that like to do track days, drift or autocross occasionally.
There was a lot of talk about what specifically is different for these women athletes. Facilities come up a lot – race tracks are not built for women and don’t always have a place to use the bathroom or change that makes sense for women drivers. While that’s true and inconvenient, what is more alarming is hearing that women find that other (male) drivers sometimes express annoyance to even have to share the track with women. Female drivers can be judged negatively with the assumption that we are less experienced and therefore more dangerous on the track. A connotation Shift Up Now also fights with their line of “Mantra” merchandise, with wearers proudly sporting the statements “Drive Live A Girl, Race Like A Girl, WIN Like A Girl”. (check out the store here)
The most interesting revelation came when these women drivers talked about the avoidance of conversations that may appear to be confrontational with male drivers. If a mistake is made on track or there is an incident and you’d normally go talk to the other driver to sort it out, don’t skip that step just because the other driver is a woman. Go work it out.
For those of you wondering what these ladies would say to someone who is doing track days, amateur racing and/or trying to break into the sport, they all had this to say: the secret is seat time. It doesn’t matter what it is, karting, track days or picking up stints or seats- what matters most is seat time.
Also I’ve learned that, Mobil1 supports a lot of these women. Just something to think about when you’re doing your next oil change.
Even though I don’t have any aspirations to be a professional racer, I would love to have more women to track with, to watch motorsports with and to cheer on. This is why I became a member of Shift Up Now in 2020. Since then, I’ve been able to participate in events and make connections that I can’t imagine making otherwise. I also know that I’m helping make a difference by directly supporting the work they do to help elevate female racers in one of my favorite sports.
If you don’t want to miss out on opportunities or being a part of conversations like these, I’d love for you to join me as a Shift Up Now member. At $10 per month or $100 per year, it’s the most inexpensive way to support women racers and help level the playing field.
If you’re curious to learn more here’s a link to their website, or you can read this article that was recently published on Forbes. You can join them (and myself) online at 7pm Eastern on Tuesday evening (4/22/25) for their first ever Membership Open House. Here’s the link to register for the event: Open House Registration– all you need is your email address, and a laptop or phone with zoom and an internet connection to attend!
I hope to see you online with me on Tuesday evening!
All images courtesy of ShiftUpNow.
