I found my place in motorsport, and so can you

I almost tuned around. Instead, I found my place in motorsport.

The first time I attended the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit, I almost didn’t make it through the gate.

Literally.

In 2024, I made the drive from British Columbia to DirtFish Rally School in Washington for the first time. I had never experienced rally racing before, I barely knew anyone who would be at the event, and it was my first time driving that far into the United States by myself.

Needless to say, I was already nervous.

Then, about an hour and a half into my three-hour commute, the highway closed. I sat in traffic for hours watching the start time come and go. I knew I had missed the first panel, and as the delay dragged on, my social anxiety turned into a more practical fear: What if they didn’t let me in?

I tried calling DirtFish. No answer. Of course there was no answer; they were busy running the event. But sitting alone in my car, already hours late to an event where I hardly knew anyone, I started convincing myself it was a lost cause. More than once, I considered turning around. I called my husband, who kept reassuring me to continue since, at this point, I was stuck in gridlock either way.

Eventually, traffic started moving. When I finally arrived at DirtFish, I was momentarily relieved, until I realized I had just driven into the property the wrong way… Perfect.

A staff member had to escort me through property roads that had been partially blocked for the livestream setup. At one point, someone literally had to move a ladder so I could get through. I was mortified. But instead of making me feel like an inconvenience, the DirtFish staff treated it like no big deal.

I was there and that was what mattered.

I had no idea yet just how much making it through that gate would change things for me.

I didn’t know what I was looking for

At that point, I had some exposure to motorsport through Formula Drift, but rally was completely foreign to me. I wasn’t going to DirtFish with a five-year career plan. I wasn’t looking for clients and I certainly wasn’t thinking about becoming an announcer or eventually starting my own company.

I wanted to experience rally, but mostly, I wanted to connect with other women in motorsport.

I barely knew the one person I planned to meet there, and I was walking into a discipline I knew nothing about, surrounded by people I assumed knew a lot more than I did.

Then I met Josie Rimmer.

Josie, DirtFish Women in Motorsport Coordinator, welcomed me despite my very late arrival, as if I were an old friend. She hugged me, got me oriented and integrated me into the event so quickly that I didn’t have time to stand around feeling like the lost puppy I was convinced I looked like.

That interaction may sound small, but to me, it was everything I needed in that moment.

There is a particular kind of intimidation that comes with entering a space where you don’t yet feel like you belong. Sometimes all it takes is one person treating you like you do belong to change the entire experience.

From there, I started taking it all in. I remember walking through DirtFish’s offices in awe of the memorabilia and incredible cars on display. I didn’t understand the significance or history behind most of what I was looking at yet. Honestly, I just thought the cars were really cool.

One of my first experiences was getting strapped into DirtFish’s rear-wheel-drive Subaru BRZ rally car for a thrill ride with a female driver named Tasha. We flew over gravel and through the trees and snow, sliding around the course at speeds that probably should have terrified me. Instead, Tasha made me feel completely comfortable.

For someone who had arrived knowing essentially nothing about rally, suddenly I wasn’t just hearing about it. I was experiencing it.

Seeing what was possible

The rest of the day introduced me to women whose stories challenged my ideas about what was possible in motorsport.

One of those women was Michèle Mouton.

I had heard her name before that day, but I didn’t really know her story. Hearing about a woman who showed up, drove and beat some of the best men in the world in an era when seeing a woman at that level of motorsport was even less common lit something up inside me. To me, her story felt like a lesson in claiming your space and letting your ability speak for itself. I left DirtFish that day completely inspired. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face the entire drive home.

I didn’t leave with a job opportunity or some perfectly mapped-out motorsport career. But what I left with was courage. Courage to get more involved, meet more people and see what might happen if I stopped watching other people do the things I wished I could do and started participating myself.

After the Summit, I posted a video recap to YouTube. It didn’t go far, but it became a diary of my experience that day. I had been so nervous filming that I mostly captured bits and pieces without much of a story tying them together. I remember thinking, ‘I should film this because I may never get another opportunity like this again.’

The video wasn’t very good, but I posted it anyway. Then I kept going.

I started volunteering more within my local drift community in British Columbia, helping behind the scenes with social media, administrative work and whatever else needed to happen. I met drivers, built relationships and got more comfortable being in the room.

Over time, “the room” started feeling less foreign.

The second time, I sat in the second row

When the Women in Motorsport Summit returned in 2025, this time at LeMay – America’s Car Museum in Tacoma, attending required an even bigger commitment.

It was a longer drive and I would need a hotel. But I didn’t hesitate to book a ticket the way I had the year before. My experience at DirtFish had been motivating enough that I knew it was worth going back.

This time, I travelled with my friend Alyson, someone I’d met through motorsport in the year since my first Summit. Motorsport had already started giving me community, and I almost didn’t recognize it.

This time, I made a point of sitting in the second row. That’s where I watched Becs Williams speak.

Becs had something I recognized immediately: confidence in her knowledge of the sport and a genuine investment in the stories of the drivers she covered. I realized I had that same quality inside me when it came to drifting. I loved knowing the stories. I loved understanding what drivers were working on, what they’d overcome and what was happening beyond what spectators could see on track. But I was afraid to show how much I knew publicly.

As a woman in a male-dominated space, and a newer fan who didn’t grow up around motorsports, I worried constantly about getting something wrong. I worried one mistake would mean being labelled as someone who didn’t know what she was talking about.

Watching Becs, I saw what it could look like to stop hiding that knowledge and I wanted to do what she was doing.

So I introduced myself. I asked her about announcing: what she did, how she approached it mentally and, most importantly, how someone actually got started.

Her advice was incredibly simple: “Just ask… and let me know how it goes.”

So I did.

Right there at the Summit, I messaged an organizer of the local drift series where I had been volunteering and asked if there might ever be an opportunity for me to announce.

He said they would love to have a girl on the mic. The answer was yes.

I hadn’t even left the Summit yet, and honestly, I had gotten the answer I was afraid of: yes.

Now I actually had to figure out how to do this thing I’d never done before, in front of people both online and in person. There was nowhere left to hide from my fear of sharing what I knew about the sport publicly.

Later that afternoon, I walked back over to Becs.

“They said yes to me!”

She celebrated with me, pointed out how easy asking had actually been, and told me again to let her know how it went after I did my first event. 

A woman who barely knew me had treated the idea of me becoming an announcer, something I had been pondering for years, as though it were completely reasonable. I needed that. Not someone to give me the job or tell me I was perfectly prepared.

I needed a push from someone who had already done what I was afraid to try.

Finding my voice

A couple of weeks later, I climbed into the announcing tower at Agassiz Speedway for my first grassroots drifting competition. I prepared obsessively, studying past events, checking standings and talking to drivers beforehand about their cars and their stories. I wanted to tell those stories, not just describe cars going around a track. And the fear of getting something wrong creeped back up, strong. 

I let my more experienced co-host take the lead for much of the event while I tried to learn as quickly as possible. Then it was time for me to call a run live, which is when I realized, there is no script for that.

I remember sweating so badly as I realized I had absolutely no idea what words were about to come out of my mouth. So, I just started talking.

I had unknowingly practised this hundreds of times at home while watching drifting on TV, but doing it live in front of an audience was an entirely different beast. I made mistakes, but I did it anyway. By the end of the event, I was fired up, exhilarated and incredibly proud of myself.

A few weeks later, at another event, a man approached me and thanked me for getting into the booth.

For years, he had tried to convince his wife to watch drifting with him, but she wasn’t interested. She’d declined again for the previous competition, but while he watched the livestream in their living room, she heard a woman’s voice coming from the speakers.

She came in to see who it was and she stayed to watch the entire event with him.

He told me hearing and seeing a woman on the broadcast had made her curious enough to give the sport a chance.

That interaction has stuck with me ever since.

I had needed to see a woman like Becs confidently sharing her knowledge before I could fully imagine myself doing it. Now another woman had heard my voice and decided maybe this sport had something for her, too.

From that point forward, whenever I announced, I tried to speak to that newcomer.

I wanted a seasoned fan to enjoy the broadcast while making it approachable enough that someone watching drifting for the first time could understand what was happening and why they should care.

Visibility wasn’t just about being seen.

It could be an invitation.

One opportunity became another

I went on to announce the remainder of the season, and one opportunity began creating another.

I started working with Formula Drift drivers and motorsport brands as social media clients, travelled to more Formula Drift rounds, SEMA and PRI, and continued building a network and portfolio within the industry.

In January 2026, I took another leap and incorporated my own company, Dark Sour Media Ltd.

None of that happened because of one Summit or one conversation. But the confidence to build it was shaped by years of putting myself in rooms like these, building relationships, asking questions and trying things before I felt completely ready.

Those experiences also shaped what I care about now: helping people become more visible and encouraging women to take up space and pursue opportunities in places where they may not yet see enough people like themselves.

This time, I’m coming back for someone else

I often think about the version of myself sitting in traffic on the way to DirtFish in 2024. She was convinced she’d missed her chance. She thought the gates might be closed. She almost went home.

Instead, I kept driving.

What DirtFish gave me wasn’t a career.

It gave me access to women, stories, experiences and possibilities I hadn’t been exposed to before. More importantly, the Women in Motorsport Summit created an environment where I felt welcome enough to be curious before I knew where that curiosity would take me.

I used to think confidence meant getting to a point where I wasn’t afraid of being wrong. Now I think it means being willing to show up anyway.

I know I won’t always get it perfect. But I’ve also learned that putting myself out there might give someone else permission to do the same.

In 2024, I attended the Women in Motorsport Summit because I wanted to experience rally and connect with women in the sport.

In 2025, I went back because I wanted to learn, build relationships and find opportunities that could help me grow a career in motorsport.

In 2026, I’m coming back for a different reason.

I want to be one of the people who helps someone else believe they can do it, too.

Maybe you’re already working in motorsport. Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to get involved. Maybe you’re simply a fan who wants to get closer to a sport you love.

Maybe you’ll come to the Summit and discover a discipline you’ve never experienced. Maybe you’ll make a friend. Maybe you’ll hear someone describe a career you didn’t know existed. Maybe someone will give you the push you need to ask for an opportunity you’ve been afraid to ask for.

Or maybe you’ll simply leave a little braver than you arrived.

I can’t promise what will happen because you attend the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit. But I can tell you what happened because I did.

In 2024, I came to be inspired.

In 2025, I came to build my career.

This year, I’m coming back hoping I can inspire someone else to start building theirs.

Just get through the gate.