When Pippa Mann climbs into her IndyCar this weekend at New Hampshire, she plans to start thinking “parabolica.”
Ironically, the Ipswich, England, native who grew up driving nothing but road and street courses in Europe somehow developed at least competence on, if not an affinity for oval racing. Pippa won the 2010 Firestone Indy Lights race at Kentucky and finished 20th at this year's Indy 500. She will drive at New Hampshire, Kentucky and Las Vegas for Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
Perhaps the most famous such corner is the sweeping Parabolica at Monza. Pippa said she loved to drive Monza and always blazed through the Parabolica-included sector. While speed on an oval -- or through parabolic corner -- is often a case of being super smooth and sensing very subtle cues and signals that the car delivers to the driver through a wide range of channels, speed on a road or street course is often found by ignoring all subtleties and engaging instead in a brute battle between human and machine.
"The circuits where I had to be very aggressive with the car were the circuits that I had to work a lot harder to try to find time," she said. "The circuits where I could be really, really smooth and everything I kind of felt could kind of contribute to the setup contribute to car placement, contribute to helping me go faster, those were the places I was pretty good at.”
Cue New Hampshire Motor Speedway
The track at Loudon could be considered two flat parabolicas connected by a front and back straight. Pippa and her team tested at Loudon several weeks ago. "I thought it was a really fun track," said Pippa. "But there are going to be a lot of torn up cars coming back after that race weekend."
Why?
"There's a fairly decent bump between turn one and turn two,” she said. “Not as big as Iowa, but there’s not the banking (that Iowa has) to help catch you either. So if you get out of shape on that bump you’ve got very little room to maneuver shall, we say."
Man said it will be interesting to see how many drivers manage to get flat (go an entire lap without lifting off the throttle) at New Hampshire. She predicted fewer would manage it than even at Milwaukee, which is very similar to NHMS. "We're either going to come back flat or come back in pieces, I’m not sure which," said Pippa.
The Bad Comes with the Good
When last we saw Pippa Mann on track, she was finishing 20 the Indy 500 for Conquest Racing. Her car was in one piece, but she was suffering painful cramps caused by severe dehydration brought on by a malfunctioning drink bottle. She had to be transported to the infield care center after the race to rehydrate. Pippa said only after making the show, surviving the race and recovering from dehydration did “it hit me, the amount of interest we had of how big a deal that was in making that happen.”
Thanks to a clutch second-day qualifying run, Pippa made the race as a rookie and became one of a handful of women ever to drive the Indy 500. She was the first British female to qualify and improved 11 spots in the race to finish P20, all of which got Pippa attention from other teams, including Rahal Letterman Lanigan. On top of that was Pippa's relentless efforts to meet fans and sign whatever was thrust at her outside her garage throughout the month. Since then her popularity has been on the upswing, as evidenced by increased Twitter followers, Web site traffic and requests for interviews and appearances.
As the level of fan love goes up, sadly so does the level of hate mail that rolls in through various channels, including Twitter and Facebook. A lot of it seems to be induced by Pippa’s gender.
“I am a female racing driver,” she said. “I’ve had this my whole career. It’s not going to go away and I kind of had to grow up with it. It’s never been something new to me. However, as my popularity, notoriety, whatever you want to call it, increases, the level of vitriol out there on the internet also increases.”
Pippa has had to develop thick skin and make ample use of block buttons on Facebook and Twitter to weed out some of the most egregious flamethrowers. She’s also started a subscription-based channel with her sponsor, Nov.us, where fans can pay a yearly fee and get exclusive messages, photos, videos, etc. from Pippa. (Click here for more info.)
“As the level of love goes up, the level of hate goes up goes with it. It’s just one of those things,” she said. “I think as that started to happen it shocked me a little bit, and then (Pippa’s PR manager) Hannah sat me down and said you’ve been dealing with this your whole career and now you’re getting more popular it’s going to get worse.’” Her approach is to block, ignore, and move on … at least for now.
“I have lots of three-hour drives (from her home in Indianapolis) to Columbus where Rahal Letterman Laningan is based and back,” she said. “I sit there in the car on the drive and I compose the reply that I am one day going to post. The very day I decide to hang up my helmet, I’m going to go log into one of those sites and I’m going to tell those people exactly what I think of them. And it keeps me amused. Otherwise it would be a long, boring, straight drive. I get a great deal of amusement from that, and I think it’s a great way to deal with it.”
A Day in the Life of a “Racing Driver”
A lot of Pippa’s fan love of late has focused on her daily tweets about a driver’s day job, which she describes as “eating, sleeping, going to the gym alot and doing laundry.”
The interest led to a recent series of blogs from Pippa about her daily training sessions. (Posted in Pippa's free-of-charge fan club HERE.)
“We had a lot of people seemed to be interested in what I was doing (for fitness),” she said. “It actually made for a really cool series. A lot of people kept coming back for the next installment. I think it got the point across that I do all this but I’m not one of the people who finds this whole thing easy. It doesn’t come naturally to me to put myself through that (training) mill. I understand I have to because it’s my job. But there are guys out there like Tony Kanaan doing Ironman and that makes me tired just thinking about it. And yet I am working so hard trying so hard to better myself in the end that’s all I can do is work on myself and try to work within my own limitations.”
An example of Pippa’s training blog focusing on “The Dreadmill” (treadmill) ..
To get to the point, to call it running would be an insult to anyone who actually can run. I don’t run - I stomp. And when I stomp it is usually accompanied by a site of flailing limbs and arms as I try to keep up with the moving belt beneath me. You may think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. I have often described myself as an elephant going in for a stampede, but once I saw an elephant run on TV and it was actually more graceful than me.
I often get jokes about being “The Hulk” on my Twitter account from those who know me well, and while I not only find it funny, given the size of my arms, and the gait of my walk or my lumber when I’m in full flat out mode, there is a ring of truth to it. Have you ever seen The Hulk run? He stomps too. (Read all of Pippa's diary entries here.)
Pippa's humorous and self-deprecating blogging style has been a hit with fans. She thinks average fans who have their own fitness struggles identify with someone like her who has to work so hard to stay in good shape.
“I am not a natural athlete. My school teachers would tell you the exact same thing,” Pippa said. “They would try to make me run and as we’ve joked and discussed on Twitter, am not a good running.” Then again, there’s a lot to be said for badger-like determination, something Pippa displays repeatedly, whether it’s moving to America to overcome European racing's glass ceiling (read more here), refusing to let severe dehydration park her at the Indy 500 or persevering through last-minute disappointments to find an IndyCar ride.
“In really close sports fight (in school) they would always want me on the field because there was no way I was going down,” Pippa said.
Pippa on Popularity
Despite gains in fan base, Pippa waves off questions that even hint at “popularity.”
“I’m nobody yet; let’s not kid ourselves." she said. "I‘m a girl who has done one IndyCar race thus far in her career. I have three more line up, but I’m not even a full-time IndyCar driver. I’m hoping to be next year. I’m just some girl off the street who got lucky enough to drive race cars and decided that is what she loved doing.”
Pippa gained some sponsorship on Tuesday as TBC Retail Group announced it would support her efforts for the rest of 2011. TBC member NTB - National Tire and Battery® will be on Pippa's ride at New Hampshire, while fellow TBC Retail Group member Big O Tires® will be featured on her car at Kentucky and Las Vegas. TBC Retail Group has sponsored Rahal Letterman Lanigan Indy Car efforts in the recent past, including cars for Jay Howard and Graham Rahal.
As for 2012, “We have some really interesting leads, but we have had really interesting leads before,” Pippa said. “I try not to get my hopes up. I just have to go out there and make the most of this opportunity with Rahal Lanigan Racing. I’m just going to to out there these next few races and try to have fun. Because I don’t just have one shot (as with Indy), now I have three shots, and that really takes the pressure off and makes it easier to go out there and have fun.”
I don't read IndyCar blogs very often anymore, but when I do, I drink absinthe and prefer that they be this well done.
Also, "I’m just some girl off the street who got lucky enough to drive race cars." *swoon*
♫ PIPPA FROM THE BLOCK! ♫
Posted by: Royhobbson | August 10, 2011 at 01:12 PM
That's what they say about pressdog.com, Roy ... absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.
Posted by: pressdog | August 10, 2011 at 01:37 PM
Pippa really gave folks insight...Nice read Bill!
Posted by: Chiefswon | August 10, 2011 at 01:54 PM
Yeah, nice write-up Dog. Really hits some points why I'm a fan of hers. Interesting to read about the "hate" though, I don't get that at all? What's not to like?!?
Posted by: DougC | August 12, 2011 at 07:05 AM