The first, at Sebring, was literally designed to find out whether she could get as quick as the guys with very little time in the car - and she proved she could. The second was to try and dispel the myth that women just aren't strong enough to be able to drive a race car, particularly in the second half of the race. So we put her through a complete race simulation, including pit-stops and were very interested to find out what her performance would be like in the second half of the race, because that's where people get tired, make mistakes; they lose their rhythm. She turned out to do an extremely good job in that, and she's very, very fit.
She's on an 18,000‑calorie‑a‑week exercise programme and, when you think a mile is 300 calories, you'll begin to understand the sheer nature of the physical aspect of what she has to do.
So she proved she was fast enough, she proved she was fit enough and, in the opinion - not only of myself but of people like Jim McGee, who won Indianapolis 500s; Jimmy Vasser, who has been a Champ Car champion - we said, yeah, this could work. And so we made the decision to go ahead, particularly this year, because the car is a known entity. We know the engineering on the '06 car, and so that removes a significant variable in performance.
When it comes to the '07 car, we've got an advantage that all of the teams will have the same car on the same date, but there will also be a steep learning curve in the engineering. And we decided the best thing to do is to use this as a transition year with the known quantity of the car, and give Katherine a chance to understand the aspects of racing without having to worry too much about the engineering of the car.
MC:
Tremendous announcement for Champ Car and great opportunity for Katherine. I wanted to ask both of you, as you head into this next season, Katherine, and Kevin as well, we'll throw this over to you, what are your expectations? What do you think is a realistic goal? What are you hoping to gain from this upcoming season in Champ Car?
KL:
I guess I will know more of what my expectations are nearer to the start of the season but, right now, I want to get to Long Beach, I want to finish Long Beach, I want to just gain experience, finish the race, and kind of re‑evaluate from there.
