Pippa Mann Tries to Carefully Play "The Girl Card"

(Part 2 of a two-part post. Read part 1 here.)

Firestone Indy Lights driver Pippa Mann likes to “dress like a girl.” For an interview at Iowa Speedway, she turned up in her typical non-fire suit attire.

“I have jangly stuff on my wrists; I’m wearing flip-flops that have sparkly bits on them; my Pippa Mann tops (see photo at right) are hardly your usual thing,” she says. “People say to me ‘Why do you turn up the track with all this crap on your face and in your ears and on your wrists? Why don’t you just show up and do the job? I'm sure people would pay that much less attention to you when it went badly if you did that.’”

And that’s challenge, said Mann, 26, who is from Ipswich, England. Walking the line between “the girl thing” and “the racing driver thing.”

“So I say ‘Why do I have to stop being a girl and stop being me to be allowed to do this job?’” she said. “Now, if I accept that I want to be me, and I want to still be a girl and identifiable as a girl when I am doing this job, I have to accept that both sides of this job (praise and criticism) are going to be bigger.”

How “Girlie” to Go?

Mann said all female drivers face decisions on when and how much to accentuate their feminine side to attract attention and when to go with the hair-in-a-ponytail-and-cap look. In this area, Mann finds IndyCar driver Danica Patrick an interesting case study.

“It's the same thing with Danica’s photo shoots and things,” said Mann. “People say ‘she should just concentrate on being a racing driver.’ Well, this is part of the job for the sponsors, actually, and the more exposure she gets the better for them the more likely they'll stay with her. It's just another part of the job. But my other argument is if you do that, you have to accept the fact that there's always going to be some people who turn around and say you shouldn't be doing it. It's just the way the world. For every person who believes in you, you will have someone else who is a critic. That's life. And you have to be okay with that.”

Although Mann hasn’t done any Danica-level bikini photos, her online fan club and other marketing materials aren’t shy about accentuating “the girl thing.” Mann said walking the line between fire suit and spaghetti straps is much easier in the US than in Europe, where attitudes toward women drivers are more in line with what Janet Guthrie faced in racing during the 70s in the U.S. than with what Danica deals with today.

Thick Euro Glass

“In Europe we really, really have this glass ceiling effect going on for female drivers,” she said. “I ran into this a bit when I was coming into World Series by Renault (2007). I tested for teams and they looked at me and they said, ‘You know, you've done a pretty good job for rookie over the past two days. We like what you brought to the team. We like the way you've been able to learn. We like the way you handle yourself in this type of car. We like the fact that you're obviously stronger than you look. You've been able to drive it,’ they said, ‘But, to be honest with you, we're really not sure about the dynamics of bringing a girl into this.’”

Even if Mann found the “horrendous and huge” money need to drive in the Triple A minor leagues of Europe, GP2, she said no one would give a female driver a serious test. “If they did, it was just going to be to take the money and send you ‘round and ‘round.”

Living with Media Extremes

Mann believes in order to stay in racing, female drivers have to be OK with the yin and the yang of extreme media (and to some extent fan) love or condemnation.

“If you have a good result, everybody kind of jumps up and down and points and does the whole ‘it's a girl!’ thing. It has been known to be a little bit like a circus sometimes,” Mann said. “And when you have a weekend where stuff just goes wrong, everybody just looks at you and says ‘well she's a girl; what do you expect?’ You have to accept that one comes with the other, and you can't have one without the other. It's something that I agreed to accept a long time ago.”

Still, those extremes are much less pronounced in the U.S. than Europe, she said. After Mann won the pole for the Firestone Indy Lights Freedom 100 at Indianapolis in May, the “girl thing” magnified the attention, Mann said. But after she was collected in an early-race incident she did nothing to cause, “nobody turned around and said ‘oh well it's because she should've never qualified up there anyway.’ Well, actually I think one person did, but nobody else did. That's kind of the difference (between the female driving life in Europe and the U.S.). Out here were accepted as drivers, and it’s a really, really cool thing.”

Mann credits female racing pioneer Janet Guthrie and the line of drivers who came after her, including Lyn St. James, Sarah Fisher and Danica Patrick, for three decades of getting Americans used to women on the track.

“Whatever you think of sometimes the way Danica does or does not comport herself off the track, she gets in the car and she does a good job,” said Mann. “Last year she was the top non-Penske and Ganassi driver, fifth place in points, and you can't argue with that. And, okay, she's had a tough start to this year. You could probably argue that at the start of this year she felt the pendulum effect of being a female racer. She got hit by the pendulum (of heightened criticism) coming back the other way. That happens, unfortunately, but if that had happened in Europe, I just can't help but feel the pendulum would have been coming so much harder and faster it would have been very, very difficult to stay on your feet from.”

When it comes to stepping up into the IndyCar series, Mann is fine with playing the girl card, in the sense that it helps differentiate her and establish a unique brand or image so critical in attracting sponsorship in today’s racing reality.

The Girl Card Attracts Attention

“Of all of us, (Firestone Indy Lights driver) Charlie (Kimball) is probably most likely to step up IndyCar (due to performance and sponsor relationships). And he is not only able to be all that, he's able to be American too,” Mann said. “That's something I cannot do. He has the American card; I guess you could argue I have the girl card.” The girl card also means more fan attention and recognition, which Mann sees as part of the job.

“For me it's not about being famous, but I have to accept that in order to get sponsorship to drive a racing car I'm going to have to do things that will make me more well known,” she said. “I suppose with being a female and being vaguely recognizable with the big blond hair going on, especially in Indianapolis,I actually get recognized quite a lot. It is actually little bit strange, but I guess it's a taste of what life will be when I'm having to do all this other stuff.”

Her life in the FIL has also been a foretaste of the constant attention and high expectations that will come with being a unique, fan-favorite driver in a major racing series.

“It is very difficult to be happy all the time,” said Mann. “At Indianapolis, I had just gotten out of my smoking, sidepod-less car (after her early Freedom 100 crash). My feet hurt. My neck hurt. I got carted up to the medical center. I walk outside. There's cameras everywhere. And then the first thing I see is my dad crying. Coming straight at me. I’m like, okay, I have to hold this together now because I'm about to go on camera. It is very difficult sometimes. It is difficult to hold it together in those situations.

"Someone who is in IndyCar, and someone who has the intensity of the following that Danica does, every time something goes wrong or right, she's absolutely surrounded. Anybody who says that they are cheerful every day of their life is telling porky pies. Everybody has days where you wake up and you're like, ‘Oh, I don't want to do this anymore.’ You have days like that. Problem is, when we have days like that it's on camera. And that's something we always have to remember.”

For more on Pippa, visit www.pippamann.com

Read part one of this two-part post on what Pippa and fellow drivers Gustavo Yacaman and Martin Plowman hope to get out of their Firestone Indy Lights experience here.

Comments

[jim]

Pippa Mann rocks!
I was crushed when she was crashed into at the freedom 100. :(

[Dylan]

Another great article Bill!

[Jenna]

Excellent article. It was really interesting to hear Pippa's perspective.

[F1 Prospects]

Excellent two part article. The whole issue of the economics of GP2 is something that is of concern to Jean Todt of FIA. I think he is looking to have an official FIA formula as the proper stepping stone to F1 instead of having a commercial series be the last rung. And costs containment is an important consideration.

[Jack The Root]

Yes, I am sure Charlie Kimball has all the advantages because "he's an American". Uhh, right.

Hey Pippa, you seen Indy Car lately? Ain't many American drivers left, that aren't related to the car owner.

Pippa gives a nice interview, but the facts are she doesn't appear to be very talented as a race driver. Sucks to say that, but she can't even compete driving for Panther and Sam Schmidt with less-then-full (or deep in talent) fields.

[Pippa]

My comment was based on Charlie's performance and commercial background with his diabetes sponsor, and all the work he does for them first and second, and then on him being American very much third... I was just making the point, that while being a good prospect on track, and commercially, he is American too. It certainly can't hurt him, and it is another string to his bow.

I'm also sorry that you feel being on pole at Indy is "not competitive"... (!!!) Unfortunately what happened in the race was beyond my control, but I'm not sure whether you can get much more competitive than pole in qualifying...!

I understand that while I have fans out there, I will always have critics, so thank you for sharing your opinion! I am, as always, working hard to prove you and my other critics wrong. However at the same time I am working far far harder to reward, repay and give back to all of my fans, supporters, and everyone who always has and continues to stand behind me! And to everyone who does, once again, thank you! :)