At the Grand Prix of Long Beach, these are the women racers to watch

Samantha Tan isn’t quite sure how fast she went.

Down the straight portions of the street course in Long Beach, she can reach up to 160 mph in her BMW GT 4 race car, before abruptly breaking around the corners.

But on a recent afternoon ahead of this weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach — where Tan is competing in the GT America series — the Canadian driver didn’t pinpoint her top speed while flying around the track for just one lap.

“I don’t look at the dash when I’m going,” she said with a laugh.

But she knows what she’s doing.

The 26-year-old is a professional race car driver and BMW M Motorsport global ambassador. She’s won championships and set records.

Tan, a UC Irvine alumna, grew up around cars and racing. Her father is a “big car enthusiast and racing fan,” she said, and she would often tag along to car meets and track days.

As soon as she was old enough to reach the pedals, her dad enrolled her in performance driving schools so she could learn proper car control — after all, she lived in Gormley, a small town outside of Toronto, and would need to be able to drive safely in the Canadian winters.

But once Tan was able to do a “hot lap” — a fast drive around the track — with a professional driver, she was hooked.

“The intense breaking, the acceleration, I had the biggest smile on my face,” Tan recalled. “As soon as I got out of the car, I said, ‘I want to be a race car driver as well.’”

Related: Katherine Legge is driving progress — on and off the race track

At 16 years old, she began that journey.

Tan can point to many successes over the past decade — but she’s also faced hurdles along the way.

“Oh, what a disadvantage it must be to both be Asian and a woman,” she’s been told.

It was 2021 and Tan was competing in endurance racing — teams of multiple drivers cover a large distance during the race — for the first time. In the paddock, she casually mentioned to someone how great it would be to win the championship.

They laughed in her face. She couldn’t be serious, they said.

But she was. And her team ended up winning six championship titles that year, she said — all the ones the team was eligible for.

And Tan became the first Asian woman to win a major international endurance racing championship.

“A lot of people consistently ask me, ‘Why do you mention you’re a woman? Why do you mention you’re Asian in the media?’” Tan said “I understand that a lot of people think we’re asking for special treatment, but it truly isn’t.

“To think about where I started in my career, to never having a role model who looked like me, it would have been so different for me if I could have seen somebody who I could relate to,” she added. “The fact that I’m still getting hate comments and generalizations, like how are we going to dismantle these stereotypes and generalizations if we’re not continuously normalizing women in places of power, women in places of success, and that’s what I want people to know about me.”

‘Misogyny is still there’

Social media — like in many spaces — can be both a blessing and a curse in racing.

“Misogyny is still there,” said Katherine Legge, a British driver who will be inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame on Thursday, April 18.

Legge, 43, was recently signed by Dale Coyne Racing to compete in the Indy 500 — with e.l.f. Cosmetics sponsoring the IndyCar.

When she announced the Indy 500 news, Legge picked up her phone and started scrolling through comments before she quickly put it back down.

“There’s still a bunch of people — and I don’t know if they’re (vitriolic) and jealous or what their deal is — but obviously they don’t want to see women here,” Legge said. “We’ve come so far, but there’s still a long way to go.”

Still, social media is an incredibly important component for racing drivers, said Zoey Edenholm, who is set to compete in the Stadium Super Trucks series over the weekend.

“Back in the day, racing was: you just had to be a good driver,” the 22-year-old said. “Now, you have to have the whole package with the social media, be able to speak well, get in front of a camera. They’re looking for the full package nowadays.”

Tan agreed, adding that it can be a tool for women who want to break into the sport:

“Racing is a very cutthroat sport and industry, and there are going to be a bit of challenges, but seize every opportunity that you can, use your social media,” she said. “It’s a free marketing tool.”

Edenholm has seen her social media grow since she began competing in Super Trucks in 2020. It’s a way to promote the sport and herself as a driver.

Like Tan, racing for Edenholm is a family affair.

The driver, based out of Scottsdale, Arizona, originally thought she wanted to be a gymnast — competing in the Olympics was her early childhood dream — but her racing origin story began when family friends invited her to try out karting. She already loved ripping on a dirt bike or four-wheeler or quad during family camping trips, but there weren’t many sports involving driving that were visible to her at a young age.

Until she tried karting.

“The adrenaline I’ve always loved,” Edenholm said. “When the green flag drops and you’re going into turn one, that adrenaline feeling of you’ve got to hit your marks, you’ve got to be perfect.

“There are so many things that go into it that I absolutely love that you can’t stop chasing it.”

So that’s what she did growing up, competing in what’s called SuperNats in Las Vegas, billed as the largest karting race in the world.

From there, it was an easy transition into open-wheel racing — karting on road courses generally leads to open-wheels while dirt tracks go the NASCAR route, she said — and IndyCar became the new dream.

Over the years, Edenholm has competed in Formula 4 (an open-wheel series for junior drivers) and sports car racing — until she saw trucks flying through the air at an event in Ohio.

She lurked around the track and met Robby Gordon, a former race car driver who owns and competes in Stadium Super Trucks. Gordon, she said, wanted a female driver in the series again and promised her a pink truck.

“Now we’re talking,” she said.

IndyCar is still the dream for Edenholm — but she’s relishing her time in her Barbie pink truck.

“I was taught from a young age that you need to be versatile in your driving,” Edenholm said. “Any opportunity you get to drive, take it because it’s just going to make you a better driver in the end.”

And racing, particularly while growing up, gave Edenholm more time to spend with her family.

“It’s such a cool thing growing up because you don’t really realize how much it’s a family sport until you’re in it,” she said. “Most kids, their parents go to their soccer game and that’s an hour and then you go home. In karting, you’re there Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with your family all day long.”

“You get to the track at 8 a.m. and you leave at 8 p.m.,” she said. “You’re on track five times a day for 10 minutes each time, and then you get that downtime with your family trying to figure it all out, trying to get faster.”

“I wouldn’t trade those days literally for the world,” Edenholm added. “It’s so amazing.”

The creative side of racing

There’s a certain routine that comes with prepping for a race.

Practice. Media interviews. Qualifying. Analytics. Race day rituals and playlists.

But there are also ample opportunities for creativity.

Case in point: Tan’s blue and purple and orange GT 4 car this year. Working with a creative director, Tan helped design the livery splattered with a kaleidoscope of colors. In 2021, her car’s design was a nod to painter Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”

They’re “art liveries,” she said.

And Edenholm — who needs sponsors to compete in races — wanted to do something different this year to get her fans involved.

She set up a GoFundMe, and anyone who donated will have their name on her truck for the upcoming Long Beach event. Companies that donated more than $100 could get their logos on the truck.

As of Wednesday, she had sold 55 spots.

“It was just a really cool way to get my community involved and get everyone excited just to see their names flying through the air,” Edenholm said. “It is so cool to see so many people be so excited about something that I’m so excited about too and get to come to the race track and see their names if they’re in town.”

For both Edenholm and Tan, training — both in the gym and on simulators — is an important aspect of their lives to be successful on the track.

Tan spends around five days a week in the gym, depending on her schedule, to deal with the G forces in the car.

For Super Trucks, Edenholm works more on her core and neck — since landing jumps can be a lot on the spine — rather than her arms, like she needed to when she raced open-wheel cars that required her to lean back more. She does pilates and is also big on wellness since she travels a lot for racing and her work with Formula 1.

Still, there are nerves.

“It’s not true that we don’t get scared before a race,” Tan said. “I get very nervous before I get into the car.”

To quiet those butterflies, and remain focused on the track ahead, Tan will often sit in a quiet area and run through the lap in her head. She’s got a playlist, too, of music that will pump her up, some EDM and Doja Cat.

And she’ll remind herself of the times she’s felt imposter syndrome or doubts before — and how she proved herself wrong.

She has the skills to succeed, she will remember.

And then the green flag drops.

Source: Orange County Register