Interview: Beth Paretta, Team Principal of Paretta Autosport, on Women in IndyCar Racing

In this episode, Brenda Elsey talks with Beth Paretta, CEO and Team Principal of Paretta Autosport about forming the first woman-owned, woman-driven, women-forward team in IndyCar series history when the team successfully qualified for and ran in the Indianapolis 500-Mile race in 2021. They discuss the origins of Beth's passion for the sport, the history of women being kept out of racing and her goals for Paretta Autosport this season.

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Brenda: Welcome to Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Brenda Elsey, and I'm so excited to be interviewing Beth Paretta today. Beth is a remarkable leader in auto racing. She worked for Fiat Chrysler as the director of marketing and operations for their performance division – one of the first women to have such a position. And her teams earned three national titles, including the factory Viper team's championship in the IMSA series, and the NASCAR 2012 title with team Penske. So, she has so much experience in this field. In 2021, Paretta launched Paretta Autosport. This is a racing organization that is dedicated to leading diversity initiatives across professional racing disciplines, and that includes the Indy 500, IndyCar, NASCAR and beyond. So, we are so excited then to have Beth Paretta with us. Welcome to Burn It All Down.

Beth: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Brenda: I want to just start, you know, let's come in hot, like you do. We talk a lot on this show about starting independent sports organizations, different types of governing bodies. You know, you have launched this major organization. I can't imagine it as an undertaking. Can you tell us a little bit about how does one just decide to start this type of endeavor? 

Beth: Well, it's funny. Somebody asked me, like, well, what made you think that you could do this? Which is sort of a funny thing. So, I have an IndyCar team, a professional IndyCar team. So, what is unique about us is that we're majority women, and it had never been done before. The impetus behind it is I was working for car companies and saw how car companies used racing…I mean, I've been a racing fan my whole life, like, started as a kid, was literally watching it on TV. I was like a fan in the stands. I'd begged my parents to take me to the track, and they did. I grew up in New England and so, you know, we'd go to the local tracks. I played with Barbies and matchbox cars, right? But I never necessarily thought that it was something that I would do for a living, probably because I think my parents just thought, I was like, oh, this is not a phase, but like, this is just a hobby, right? It never was like, translating hobby into career.

So I went a completely different path and then eventually in a roundabout way found myself working in the automotive business, working for car companies. And then eventually, probably even subconsciously, elbowed my way towards racing. Because I would still go to races as a fan on weekends, even when I had other jobs. So it's no surprise that I still do this. People that have known me my whole life, you know, are completely unsurprised by what I do. But the reason I wanted to start this team that's majority women was, working for car companies, there is a shortage of talent, of engineering talent. I wasn't an engineer, but I was in enough meetings to hear, you know, to see the hand-wringing and the worry and hear them kind of lamenting that talent was sort of retiring at a faster rate than it was being back-filled, regardless of gender, being obviously mostly men. And then I was in a lot of meetings where I was the only woman in the room. 

And, you know, at first that seems cool. And I think a lot of people have that experience that are in, you know, historically male businesses, male dominated things. And we all have that story of like, oh, you know, at first you kind of think like, wow, look at me, I've made it. And then you realize there should be more of us. [laughs] And then you make that pivot and realize, oh god, let me pull people up the ladder. So, in a very acute way, I saw what car companies were using racing for. They're using it to attract talent. They use it for employee morale, company morale. Like, you know, if you're in a big NASCAR championship and you're Chevy versus Ford and you win, you know, that's something that's echoed through the halls of General Motors, genuinely – as it should be. It's like this weird thing where your company can be participating in sports.

So, I saw all of that firsthand in what I did, and I thought, okay, this is a magical platform in a lot of ways, let's do something with it. Let's do more with it. And so that was the idea of, okay, let’s maybe put a team together of a bunch of women. I knew that there are women in racing; we tend to all know each other. And my light bulb moment was like, well, if we grab those women that are scattered about and put them on one team, it makes a pretty compelling visual when you see, you know, 15 women in matching uniforms. You know, you look at major league soccer and you see those women and you know that they're all together on one team. Cool thing about racing is it's co-ed today. We don't need to have our own league. And we can be working side-by-side on teams. It really is for everybody and can be for everybody and should be for everybody because, yes, you have the drivers who can even start literally as five-year-olds and kind of come up the path.

But for all the other roles on the team, engineers and mechanics and crew and the business side and all of that, that's men and women working together. So that was the light bulb. But then why did I think I could do it? The answer is it never occurred to me that I couldn’t. [laughs] Maybe it should have. That question sort of gives me pause, but it never occurred to me that I couldn't. And I started thinking about it in the end of 2014, resigned from Fiat Chrysler in 2015, to do this. Worked a lot behind the scenes, tried to make a run at it in 2016, kind of in the Indy 500 at the 11th hour. Pulled the plug and took some time, stepped away, you know, kind of regrouped, and took a running start at it middle of 2020, and here we are. And it worked. 

Brenda: What's been the biggest challenge? I mean, when you say, oh, I'm going to put together these incredibly talented women, and okay, this is a sport that men and women, and whatever spectrum of gender we have, genders, can participate in, but then why aren't more people doing it? What is that obstacle that you face?

Beth: I think the very easy obstacle is just awareness. People didn't even know. I mean, and if you look historically…S, here's like these two little funny nuggets. So, the Indy 500 started 110 years ago. The first one was 1911. So, it took 110 years to get a majority women's team. So, 110 sounds like kind of abstract, right? Because it's such a big number. But at the same time, you think about 1911, and things were so, so different. Okay. Fine. But the other nugget that I just kind of did the math last week, and it was like a lightning bolt. So, women didn't used to be allowed in the, paddock, in the garage area. That's where we work on the cars and where the teams are prepping the cars to get them ready to roll them out on the track. And for something like the Indy 500, it was always referred to as the month of May. There's just like days and days and weeks of practice and then qualifying. And then ultimately the race is usually Memorial Day weekend, this Sunday, Memorial Day.

So this is kind of like where the teams are camped out and they're working. Women were not allowed in that area until 1971. And the first women who were allowed were actually media, because there was like, you know, this pressure. And so you'll talk to people that will remember having been to the Speedway and said, oh yeah, I'd be with a group of friends and we’d go right up to the fence and they could continue through, and then there we were, the women, like hanging by the fence because we weren't allowed in. Okay. But I did the math and 1971, which doesn't feel like it's that long ago, to when our team was – it's 50 years. So for all of the people who probably, when they were letting ladies in, were like, oh, here goes the neighborhood, like, you know, we're going to let us in the paddock, what next?

Brenda: [laughs] Right. 

Beth: It took 50 years. [laughs]

Brenda: Yeah. Informal sexism is incredibly effective that way. 

Beth: Right. Didn’t even know it’s there.

Brenda: Yeah. You can tear down the law and that's just the beginning, you know? That's just a brick in the wall. Yeah.

Beth: Exactly. Slippery slope. So the funny thing though is the first woman winning team owner with 1929, and her name was Maude Yagle, but because she couldn't let on that she was a woman, she she used her initials. So she kinda like snuck in, and she's just this wealthy woman from Philadelphia, and not much is known about her. But in her entry, she put ‘M.A. Yagle.’ And it happened that her car won the Indy 500 in 1929. So then the cat was out of the bag and it was a woman.

Brenda: That's incredible.

Beth: Blaspheme! 

Brenda: Yeah. That's pretty cool! 

Beth: And we need to learn more about her. Like, I think they've tried to do some research and there's not a lot of information about her, but like, you know, that's one of those things that you'd love to see somebody make a documentary.

Brenda: Yeah. I always think to myself…And I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not a US historian. I am an historian, but Latin American, right? And so I think of Indy 500, I think it's like a way to convert these like moonshine runners into like legitimate athletes?

Beth: That's literally that's how NASCAR started. So, NASCAR, stock car, that was literally that. Yeah, because they were souping up their cars, stock cars, you know, national stock car auto racing is what NASCAR is. So, “stock car” referred to that they were showroom stock. But what the secret was is they were souping them up to run moonshine.

Brenda: Right. To outrun police.

Beth: Right. Exactly. 

Brenda: Yeah. 

Beth: They were hooligans.

Brenda: Yeah. So, I had always thought, you know, I'm surprised they didn't try to get women around to sort of like safen up the sport, like in soccer, when they want hooliganism to stop way back in the 1920s, they were like, let's let women in for free! Because it'll kind of like chill men out. 

Beth: Oh. To like settle it down. Interesting. But so, cool thing about racing too, is it's good and bad. The way that race teams make money as sponsorship. The way that drivers progress through their career up the ladder, it’s kind of like our equivalent of AAA, AA, A, like, the way that they kind of move along is funding. They need to have sponsors. Sometimes it's a local business. Sometimes it's their parents, because their parents might be entrepreneurs and have some expendable income. And so that's one of the barriers for sure. And for that reason, I think because drivers have always been so visible, if you're not a person of means, you might just think like, oh, well, those are the only jobs available. But if you love racing, there’s so many other jobs, even running a race track or being an official or all these other things. And so I think, you know, the biggest thing is just that there has been this lack of storytelling about anything beyond the driver. I mean, imagine if football teams were just focusing on the quarterback all the time. I mean, yes, they're important. Yes, they’re critical, but there's so many other roles. 

And the only people who were at fault was everybody in racing. [laughter] They were just putting the driver forward. And yes, that's a compelling story, but like, again, not to take away from them and with all due to the drivers, there's more, you know? Like my team last year is 30 people. One of them's a driver and 29 are not. The driver knows that all those people are important. So I think part of it was that, just the awareness. Let’s lift the veil and tell everybody else how all this magic happens. But money has been a barrier, for sure, because whether you're a driver coming up or then when you're a team. So, we're always fundraising, unlike stick and ball sports, where you have an arena. You know, if you're the Boston Red Sox, you've got Fenway Park and you're getting draw from the tickets, the people coming in the door, or the concessions, or, you know, the merchandise. And that's one of the big revenue streams for the Boston Red Sox. And then they can put signs, you know, a Dunkin Donuts sign out in the outfield. 

We don't have that as a race team. We don't have an arena. So, the good thing though is our sport, we go city to city altogether. So our entire audience is watching all of us. And so that's kind of nice that we have this nice concentrated fan base. I will say, one thing that's kind of cool is motorsport fans, like diehard fans, they totally know that we run on sponsorship. They're absolutely very loyal and patronize whatever the sponsor is. So if you did have Dunkin Donuts across your chest and your rival team had Starbucks and ,you know, they are a fan of you, they're going to go to Dunkin Donuts. And there's something really cool about that because they know, like, that's kinda the – pardon the pun – but like the fuel that keeps us rolling. And so, yeah, we do actually have very…Sponsorship is not seen as like a crass add-on. It's like, oh yeah, no, no, this is kind of what makes this happen.

Brenda: I want a Burn It All Down car. 

Beth: Right! 

Brenda: I think that would be so great, right? 

Beth: Right? We could talk. We could put a little sticker. 

Brenda: Yeah. 

Beth: But with that said, so, now when you watch racing – and this is the same, whether it's NASCAR or Formula 1, IndyCar – now when you look, look a little closer and see who's the big logo and who's the little logo. The size of the logo will tell you how much they're likely paying. 

Brenda: Interesting.

Beth: It's all relative.

Brenda: But it seems like a pretty difficult space to just break into throughout the 20th century, for women. I mean, the bar seems to have been set very, very high, from everything I'm reading. Do you find that the women you're bringing onto your team, that they're sort of…They just are like you? Like, they just have a kind of personality where they're sort of like, I forgot to ask permission to do this. Like, I just sort of like headlong, or is there a variety of experiences from different countries? I mean, how do you look at the landscape?

Beth: I think across the team, there's a variety of experiences based on the variety of roles, because historically the women that have been in the paddock for instance have been like in marketing and PR. But you know, for us to have a tire specialist who's a woman, people that then started to learn pit training to go over the wall to change tires for pit stops. A couple of them were interested in it and went to this pit school that NASCAR put together, went through the school, did well. And then ultimately, you know, then applied to be hired by teams, and then were never hired. 

Brenda: Interesting. So they basically had a mentorship program that had a really tight ceiling, like a very low ceiling. There, that’s it, that’s as far as they went.  

Beth: Yeah. And a handful of them went through and then kind of then of course got discouraged by not getting any traction and so they kind of pivoted and said, okay, I'm going to give up on this dream, and literally went on with their lives. And so when we were putting the team together last year, it was…My goal was always to have this whole, again, this majority. As I like to say, I don't want to have a hundred percent women's team because that's just unrealistic because I, you know, respectfully, the way that I have to get there and the way that I did it last year and continue to is there aren't women at the highest level to make a complete pro team right now, there just aren't enough experienced women. I should say, there are, but many of them are spoken for and are on other teams. And so I can't poach them. I can't steal them. And because I'm trying to grow and be a team that runs a full season, what you have to then do is build the talent. And so, I'm grabbing, I'm hiring women who are rookies or maybe early career. 

And so the way that I'm going to then make that happen is I've got to have them paired up with seasoned veterans. And so those seasoned veterans are guys. So my team is co-ed very much on purpose, but I also like what that says, because that's the only way that…I mean, we're basically like a metaphor for society in a lot of ways. Like, we're better together and we have to work together. The coolest thing about racing is you can't fake it. You know, you're there. I always say, you know, we're all training and they're all working hard, but on race day, if you saw like the women that were on our team last year in the 2021 Indy 500, everyone that was there on race day earned their spot. You know, number one is safety. Number two is competition, and number three is ego. You know, if we make that race stage decision that you're going to be “on the bench,” because you have to be at a hundred percent. To put it in perspective, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, our drivers, Simona de Silvestro is hitting speeds of 230 miles an hour. Everything has to be perfect on the car.

We can't second guess if the wheel nut is tight, you know? If we release her back into traffic and a wheel pops off, now, respectfully, can other teams make that mistake? Yeah, totally. And they did. And in fact that happened this past year and that can happen. It does happen. But if it happened with us, you know that there's going to be a little bit like, well, of course the lady team didn't do it right. And so, you know, we were aware of that pressure because we had a little bit of extra, you know…We had people watching us and extra attention, and either people were expecting a lot or expecting nothing. And so when you look at how hard these women worked last year, so yeah, we've figured, okay, how do we get this group of people? We talked to a gentleman who actually had coordinated a lot of that NASCAR training school and knew these women that had gone through it and then kind of never were able to go any further because they just weren't getting hired. And it wasn't for a lack of their effort or talent. And so he called one or two of them and then they kind of, you know, then they called two people, and they called two people. And we actually started with nine last year, kind of almost like a combine.

And after two weeks whittled it down to six, and then those six…We started this February 1st to make the race May 30th. So it's a very short timeline, like, no joke. That's a short timeline. And these women, what was amazing, I hired all six of them, and they went and trained…So, they lived in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, and my partner team, Team Penske – all teams kind of have a workout area in the shop, and they have basically a mock up of the pit area, right? So they have the walls that they can like learn what it's like to jump over the wall and then have the equipment and the wheel gun. And then, you know, they first practice on a static car, and then they have a car that rolls in, it's like an electric car that rolls in because it's indoors. And they do it over and over and over again. We videotaped the pit stop and then they watch it back. I mean, it's like a ballet, because it's all about doing it quickly, doing it efficiently, doing it consistently. And to put it in perspective, an IndyCar pit stop has gotta be less than 6.2 seconds. So, that's how long it takes to fuel a car.

Brenda: [laughs] Oh my god. How do we even use pitstop metaphorically for what my kids do on road trips? That is amazing. 6.2 seconds! 

Beth: Right, oh yeah. No, no. They can't do anything in 6.2 seconds. No, no, no, no. You're doing an engine change when you pull over. You're doing a gearbox change or an engine change if we want to keep the metaphor running. So, here's the crazy thing. The reason it's 6.2 seconds, or why that's like the benchmark, is that's how long it takes to fuel the car. So when the car comes in, that's like the constraint. So why that number matters is if my team practices and they can do a pit stop in 5.5 seconds, and then the Andretti team next to us can do it in 5.2 and the Ganassi people can do it in 5.8, it doesn't matter. We’re kind of even steven. So that's the number that you want to hit. So we hire these women – and remember, these women have all like gone on with their…And some of them were also brand new rookies that hadn't gone through that school. So one of them was a recent college graduate. So she had played lacrosse. So it's like, okay, we know she has a certain amount of physicality and dexterity. Let's see if she'd be up for it. And she was like a friend of a friend of one of the ladies and, and like, hey, would you want to try out to be on an IndyCar pit crew? She's like, sure.

They determined, among the six of them, that the best time for them that they had in common was 5:00am. It was before their work day. A couple of them are moms. So they would go in at 4:30 and they would do the pit stop practice and then they would also have like 45 minutes in the gym there with the trainer working on the specific strength that they need to do. They worked four days a week for three and a half months. To put in perspective, their first pit stop they did in 18 seconds, which honestly, I think is still fast to me. That still sounds fast to me, right? Four tires, fueling, a windshield tear off. They did it in 18 seconds. So that was their starting point. And they just did it over and over and over again, and then introduced another variable, another variable. So, as we're leading up to race day, everybody was asking, like, how many women are you going to have over the wall? Because it's seven positions. 

And I knew no matter what a couple of those positions have to be some of those veterans, because like the car chief, respectfully, you don't even get to be a car chief until you've been doing this for several years. Like, you climb up into that. So, that's the most seasoned of the guys. Nobody would have a rookie. No rookies are ever in that role. So, people kept asking, like, how many women are going to be over the wall? Now, historically, there'd been one on this team or one on that team. There'd never been even two on one team. So my goal was four. But I wouldn't tell anybody that – meaning the media, because I kept getting asked, “You're gonna have women over the wall? That’s crazy, they're gonna…” You know, what do you say? “You're going to have ladies go over…” you know? [laughter] I can do voices, right?

Brenda: Well, there is a universal patriarchy voice. [laughter] There is like a, you know, which is both like uninformed and quizzical.

Beth: And it sounds like the Monopoly guy. 

Brenda: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.

Beth: So, people were asking, and I wouldn't give the answer, and the reason…I mean, obviously I wouldn't give it like I was being like cagey. I just would deflect the question. And the reason for that was very specific and deliberate. It was because I wanted to protect the plan, because if for some reason on race day…So, I should say that these ladies had never worked in IndyCar. They had never been to an IndyCar race. They've never been at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So we had these practice days in April getting ready where all the teams are there for two days in April. And then we come back the last two weeks of May. And when we turned up in April, I knew that they hadn't been to IMS, but there was that moment of watching them, because they all came in together from the airport, and watching just the look on their face...Because Indianapolis Motor Speedway is enormous. It's bigger than it looks on television. There's 350,000 people there on a normal race day. Like, it's the still to this day the largest single day sporting event in the world. So, this day in April, it's empty. The stands are empty. But it's such this massive place that when you're walking in, it still has this energy, empty. And I'm watching these women walking in for the first time, and you could just see them looking around in awe, as anyone would be the first time. And if you're lucky to be there when it's empty, right?

So, we get there a couple of days in April, and then we come back in May. And now those days, those two weeks in May, those are open to the public. And, as is typical, every day that you're getting closer to the race, the crowds get bigger and bigger. And so I'm keeping an eye on these ladies. Like, how are they handling it? How are they handling the scrutiny and the attention? Because usually when you're a mechanic or an engineer, you’re kind of hoping that people don't even notice that you're a woman. You're just like, I'm just doing my job! But because we were so forward and obvious with it, we were a curiosity. And even when I hired all the women, I reminded them, like, we're going to get a lot of attention, and you need to be up for that. So like, consider that as I'm hiring you, if you want to accept this job or not. One thing that I did say to reassure them is that, you know, we're doing this together, so you're not going to be alone. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, come to me. Even putting people forward and making sure that we had people of color who were already working on the team, but making sure they were visible, because respectfully, like, our team photographer is a Black woman and she's been a motorsport photographer for 25 years. We all know her, everyone in racing knows her. She's normally behind the camera. And I was making sure that like, okay, when we did the team photo, I want her in the photo, because she was there the whole time, but let's make sure that you see it, because those little things I think have value and those things matter for somebody watching from home.

So, the verdict is, on race day, race day morning, I made the call that we're going to have four go over the wall. And so that day when the press asked me before the race, I said four are going to go over the wall, and we named them, and they did. And so it was the most amazing thing. The first pit stop happened like 30 laps in. Simona comes into the pit stall and I'm standing there on the timing stand and we always, you know, we’re wearing the radios. And so with the radios, I'm hearing her, I'm hearing the engineers, we have a spotter that's up above the stands that kind of helps to talk to the drivers so that, you know, to let them know what's ahead or behind them. There's a lot going on. So she pulls into the pit box. Pitstop happens. She tears out of the pit box, zooms down pit lane, and I could hear this noise. And I was like, what is that? And I lift my radio off my ears, and I could hear the crowd just completely cheering. And I was like, what is that? Our pit stop was on the jumbotron. 

Brenda: Aww!

Beth: So all of Indianapolis Motor Speedway saw it. And so as she pulled in, it was our first pit stop. Everyone was on the edge of their seats. And I think it was that moment of like, here it is, it's going to make or break. And all we wanted to do is look like any other pitstop. And so it was this moment of, are we going to succeed or is it going to be this abject failure? And our pit stop was less than five seconds.

Brenda: Woo hoo!

Beth: Right? It was in that moment, I think it was like the first time I actually exhaled. And you only have to do it once, because it proves that you can do it. And the coolest thing, like I say, is you can't fake it. These women learned, and they learned from scratch. And what a cool thing that is to, to just show that with the right…If you have people that are interested and have the interest and the aptitude, if you give them the training and the support and the tools, you can kind of create some magic.

Brenda: It's amazing when you don't just tug on them to keep them behind. [laughs]

Beth: Right. Please stay behind this fence, this chain link fence. You can look through – for your safety! It's for your safety, ma'am.

Brenda: [laughs] Just wear these, you know, light weights on your back for a while. Carry this luggage.

Beth: Exactly. Right.

Brenda: That's an amazing story. And it must've been an amazing feeling. You have said that you hope to, you know, show young girls and people of color that the sport is open to them. What do you love about it? You know, I hate driving. I hate driving. It's hard. I schlep my kids around. It's terrifying. I respect and am in awe of it. What do you love about it?

Beth: You know, I think if I really peel back the layers, I started watching racing on TV as a kid. Like, as a five-year-old. And my childhood household was a bit chaotic. I had a brother who was suffering from cancer and so, you know, it was like a heavy household at times – a very loving household, but that's just like that circumstance, that kind of life throws you a curve ball. And for whatever reason, as a three-year-old, four-year-old, five-year-old, if I was flipping through the channels, if it landed on racing, I would leave it. And I think, especially as a young kid, because you're not…I don't come from a racing family. You know, I'm not from Indianapolis or Charlotte or any of the obvious places where it's kind of like the cottage industry. But I think when I would see it on TV, I found it soothing. Which I know sounds really crazy because yes, if you think about it, like, the noise and the smell and this…But on TV, it presents differently. There's like this smoothness and this cadence and the colors. And so when you're that young too, you're seeing like the colors and the numbers. 

And I think it's something also, you can start to even connect as a young person of that you're following a certain car, and then you feel almost like…It might've been one of the earliest things where I was like an engaged viewer, right? In the most basic, primal sense. And it clicked for me in that way. And to this day, at its most chaotic – and I mean, I've had teams that are in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona. And I mean NASCAR championships and whatever. And it's noisy and it smells of, you know, rubber and gas and oil. But no matter what, I think it just still is like my happy place.

Brenda: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that's going to strike a cord for a lot of our listeners who find solace and energy in sport, no matter what it is. As I read, Paretta racing is not doing the Indy 500 this year. Can you tell our listeners where they're gonna find you all this summer?

Beth: So, what's unique about the Indy 500 is you can actually do it as a one-off race. You don't have to necessarily be in the whole season. So, way long story short, I made the decision a couple months ago not to do the Indy 500 again as a one-off. And you know, I had the option to do that again and maybe do one other race, and it didn’t…Like everyone else, we’re having some challenges with getting good talent and who's available like on the engineering and mechanics side. And I said, you know what? I don't want to do anything by halves, because I'm very protective of our program and I want us to grow and I want us to gain more experience. So we're going to do three races. We might do more as our schedules allow. But our first race is June 12th at Road America, which is in Wisconsin, a gorgeous track about an hour north of Milwaukee. Our second race is 4th of July weekend. It's actually the 3rd, the Sunday, at Mid-Ohio. And then August 7th on the streets of Nashville, which last year was the first year we had that race. I think there were over a million people there over the course of the weekend. 

It was just insane and fantastic because like what a city to put on an event. And it's on the streets. So, when we have a track like that, we do that in Long Beach, we did in St. Pete, Florida, we have Detroit and now Nashville. Those are the four ones that are on the streets, where they're like downtown in a city. Totally different vibe, totally different fan base. You kind of get the casual fan that’s like, something's going on in town, we'll check it out. Which is great, because that's kind of how you maybe introduce new people to the sport in general. But Nashville is such a hospitality-driven place that it was like we'd been there for 10 years, even in year one, because you didn't have the hotels saying like, okay, who are you guys? And why are you here? They were more like, welcome! And like, the welcome race fans and all the checkered flags, you know, outside the hotels, which make you feel like, okay, that's cute. And then listen, because it's also the bachelorette apparently headquarters of the world now, which…Oh my god, with the party buses. 

Brenda: Yeah. Oh yeah, the pedaling. 

Beth: If you haven't been to Nashville in a while, holy cow. It's shocking how much it’s just like ladies walking around with sashes that say ride.

Brenda: [laughs] Well, I hope that I take some time out and check you all out August 7th. 

Beth: Right! We can have all the bridal parties, like, we can probably just have like one grandstand filled with like bridal parties.

Brenda: I think that would be like the funnest bachelorette party ever. I mean, how early can you really just started partying. You know what I mean? 

Beth: Thank you. You need to pace yourself, it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. So one thing that is cool this year, which has been missing for the past several years…So, like I say, what's cool about racing and why I would encourage anyone to just check it out, is it's co-ed right now. Like, so we have women on the grid this year for IndyCar. Actually, it'll be the first time in almost 10 years or more than 10 years where, at Road America…There’s another woman in the series called Tatiana Calderón, who drives for AJ Foyt racing. And when we're at Road America and Mid-Ohio and Nashville, there's going to be two women on the grid as drivers. And that is really good. And we should see more of that. And there are other teams who have women on as engineers and mechanics, so look closely and you'll see them. And hopefully it's just opening the door a little bit, and maybe in 50 years from now, we’ll have more. [laughs]

Brenda: And it's amazingly international, right? You've got Simona. 

Beth: She's Swiss. Tatiana's from Colombia. Yep. We have Brazilian drivers. I mean, that's one thing. IndyCar from the beginning has always had international drivers. For sure. In fact, the IndyCar series used to have some international races. We would go race in Brazil, would race in Japan, race in Europe. We may do more of that in the coming years. They've talked about maybe adding Mexico City. We do go to Toronto, which is international for the US, but yeah. What’s great though, is even when, you know, I've friends in the UK, in Europe, and they absolutely follow IndyCar. In fact, this past weekend I was in London and I was watching qualifying in my hotel in London. And it was kind of cool that it wasn't hard to find it.

Brenda: That's awesome. Well, at Burn It All Down, we wish you the best of luck, and we're excited to see what happens this summer. Everybody go and follow Paretta Autosport. Best of luck to you June 12th. Check out their website for their schedule, parettaautosport.com. We wish you the best of luck and we're so excited to see what happens. 

Beth: Thanks so much. Hope to see you guys at the track. 

Brenda: So that's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. You can follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find links to our merch at our Bonfire store. And thank you to our patrons. Your support means the world. If you want to become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. I'm Brenda Elsey, and on behalf of all of my wonderful co-hosts, burn on and not out.