LY N S T J A M E S
RENOWNED DRIVER LYN ST JAMES recently provided an illuminating talk detailing her pioneering career in motor sport, as part of M1 Concourse’s Off The Grid speaker series. One of only nine women to have ever qualified for the Indianapolis 500, Lyn went on to compete in America’s great race no fewer than seven times – becoming the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award along the way. An early love of driving soon led her to the racetrack as a safe, legal place to indulge her passion for speed. After staying up all night to watch the Daytona 24 Hours in 1973, she found herself inexorably drawn to competition, and signed up for a new class in the SCCA called Showroom Stock. “You go to a dealer, buy a car, put a roll bar, five-point seatbelt and fire extinguisher in it, and go racing,” Lyn recalled. “I bought a Ford Pinto – it was the cheapest eligible car at the time – and went to driver school.” While her first race didn’t go well – her Pinto took an excursion to the bottom of Moroso’s swamp – Lyn dug deep and would eventually win the Florida Regional Championship with the Pinto. Pretty soon she was competing at 32
EVENT REPORT
Lyn St James Fascinating Off The Grid talk saw the pioneering driver speaking about the thrills and spills of her racing career
FROM TOP LEFT Former racing driver Lyn spoke about her life, from her first foray into motor sport via a Ford Pinto to her many drives in some of the world’s top series. Pixar Creative Director Jay Ward has also been interviewed for Off The Grid.
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the Sebring 12 Hours in a Chevrolet Corvette in the GTO class, the first of eight entries at the event. Alongside Robby Gordon and Calvin Fish, she eventually finished in first place in the GTO class in Roush Racing’s Mercury Cougar XR-7. In Off The Grid, speaker Lyn provided great insight into not only her career, but also the life lessons that she learned on the racetrack – such as making the most of teamwork, and bouncing back from setbacks like her horrific Riverside crash. “It’s those failures that you learn the most from,” she explained. Lyn also detailed her successes and the drive required to maintain her performance, digging deep in the face of many challenges from ineffectual co-drivers to a lack of funds. She remembered, too, some of her favorite cars, such as the Spice-Cosworth she drove at Le Mans, and told the story of how she came to be the first woman ever to crest 200mph on a racetrack. The talk was followed up by a lively Q&A with attendees, revealing just what it was like to be such a pioneering force for women in motor sport. All these stories can be found on M1 Concourse’s YouTube channel, which has the talk in full. More at www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfXrZ681JWs.
