You don’t have to spend much time around motorsports to realize that it’s a male-dominated arena, and that this imbalance is largely cultural in nature.
It’s the result of generations that discouraged girls from pursuing the types of education and work experience that would take them to the highest levels of auto racing. As racing driver Danica Patrick famously said after claiming the pole position in the 2013 Daytona 500, “The car doesn’t know the difference” between a male or female driver.
Yet a gender gap persists in all areas of motorsports. However, there is an ongoing effort to hasten change.
Focusing on women in racing
Until recently, what’s been lacking has been a concerted effort to recruit qualified women onto racing teams and sanctioning bodies, and to encourage younger women and girls to pursue the education and experiences that will prepare them for a career in racing.
Women in Motorsports North America (WIMNA) formed to get more women involved in racing professionally, whether that’s behind the wheel, in the pits, in the front office, or as officials with race organizers.
“Motorsports is open to men and women to compete equally,” said WIMNA founder and retired IndyCar driver Lyn St. James. “However, I believe motorsports as a whole has missed the opportunity to show the world our sport is gender neutral. Now is the time to do that!”
St. James, recently inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, wasn’t alone.
“I saw firsthand that there weren’t a lot of women involved, but also that women are capable because there are a handful of us,” said Beth Paretta, co-founder and owner of the Paretta Autosport IndyCar team.
“If you have that passion and that love for racing, there’s a place for you in this sport. This is why Lyn and I started this Women in Motorsports North America, to try to profile all the jobs. We don’t talk about the layers of racing, like being an official or being safety personnel. All of those things make the show happen and all of those people love racing as much as we do.”
Getting hired is the biggest step
St. James and Paretta founded WIMNA to encourage more female participation in all levels of racing, and the organization works toward that goal through a number of initiatives. For example, WIMNA has published a code of conduct for hiring and creating a favorable environment for success, as well as a jobs board on the organization’s website.
“If you’re hiring, let us know,” Paretta said. “We’re going to build up this website so that we become this resource. Mentoring, too. If we ask you if someone within your organization can do a mentor session, please say yes because what we’re trying to do is talk to the high school students that are considering the sport, young people who are maybe just finishing university or early in their career who might want to make a pivot.”
Benefits to the automotive industry as a whole
The benefits from Women in Motorsports are not limited to racing teams and series. By encouraging women to get involved in racing, they’re also growing the next generation of visionary engineers, designers and executives for the automotive industry as a whole. Paretta’s past experience as head of Fiat-Chrysler’s SRT racing program informs her point of view.
“I saw the car companies wringing their hands because they have a talent shortage,” she said. “What’s happening is engineers are retiring at a faster rate than they are being backfilled. A lot of institutional knowledge is going out the door. That’s why I say we should use racing to do more. We need to get more people to want to do this for a living.”
Among the women now working in racing is Angela Ashmore. Earlier this year she became the first female crew member on a team that won the Indianapolis 500 when Marcus Ericsson crossed the bricks in first place.
“My role is assistant engineer,” Ashmore says. “I’ve been with Chip Ganassi Racing for three years, and I came here after five years in NASCAR. Before that, I was in Detroit working in the automotive industry. My job is all about the data acquisition on the car, all the electronics and collecting data from hundreds of sensors on the car.”
Ashmore worked her way into racing, but now she’s holding the door open for others as a mentor.
“To get into motorsports you had to know somebody, and I didn’t know anyone,” she said. “Eventually I forced myself in! It’s a really niche market and it’s really hard to get a foot in the door. I’ve been helping out where I can as a mentor to these ladies who are coming in.”
Building a longer table
The effort to bring women into racing in an organized way has enjoyed enthusiastic support from many teams and leaders in the industry. Chip Ganassi Racing partnered with its sponsor to create a campaign to build awareness for Women in Racing and to hire five female interns to work with the Ganassi team.
“It’s important to encourage more women to get into motor racing,” said Ganassi driver Scott Dixon. “We always strive to find better people in general, but diversity is also key. Creating new thought is very important, especially in a business that moves quickly. But the home run this year for me was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I’m a girl dad and we have 10-year-old and 13-year-old girls. They asked me who the woman was on the stand and that was really cool. They weren’t used to seeing it and asked me what they were doing. For me, that’s the biggest thing, creating awareness.”
Applications are now open for Ganassi’s Women in Motorsports 2023 internship program. Paretta is adamant about her ultimate goal of equity.
“This isn’t about women at the expense of men,” she insisted. “It’s not about taking someone else’s seat at the table. It’s about building a longer table. We’re better together. I always say, I don’t want my team to be 100% women. I want women on 100% of the teams. I want to see more women on all of the teams, more people of color on all of the teams. It literally just makes everything healthier because it changes your perspective.”