As you know, we at FairerScience are big auto racing fans, well at least Tom and I are. Indeed we once were a race team, Tom drove and was the head mechanic; I was everything else (including one of the best darn tire changers you ever saw). Ah but, as usual, I digress.

Flying to Ohio yesterday, I was reading the Delta Sky Magazine and immediately fell in love with a story by Katherine Clark about her and a bunch of guys learning to drive at Lowe’s Motor Speedway (that would be NASCAR).

Why am I telling you this? Well read what she wrote after her first attempt:

Frozen with fear, I began to hear my own thoughts spoken by the men around me…. Wait a minute these are men. Good ol’Southern boys, Red-blooded American males who were rased on racing. And they’re just as scared as I am. A-freakin’-mazing! Hot diggity…

Listening to guys around her talking about their fear made her decide “I’m going to get back in that car. Nor only that. I’m going to drive as fast as I can.”

And she did.

Now that’s my idea of a step forward; men speaking of how scared they are and doing it anyway and women gaining courage from men’s honesty and going ahead to do it too. Now if only we could make it happen in settings other than car racing! .