Thank you. Just, thank you

It’s near impossible to let the impact of an event settle in while you’re still ‘in the work.’

When this year’s Women in Motorsport Summit wrapped on March 2 – simultaneously the pinnacle Women’s Month and just the beginning of it – I couldn’t let it settle in. I couldn’t let the impact or the weight or the success of what we’d achieved sit in my mind as a finished product.

We had an entire month of work still ahead of us. Good, powerful, inspiring work, but work nonetheless. We had 29 more days’ content to get written, recorded, edited, online and sent on social. We had All-Women programs to plan, post-Summit podcasts to talk through. We had Scholarship details to sort and panelists to propose for future events. Oh, and there was also this awesome rally school to run.

We had work to do. And now March is over.

But the work is nowhere near done. The ideas are not getting smaller. The partnerships are getting stronger. We’re inspired. We’re working. We’re achieving. We’re so, unbelievably happy to push on and to strive for more, bigger, better. But also, maybe just for a brief second, I’m actually letting it settle in.

I’m rewatching our Summit film, the behind-the-scenes video from March 2. I’m remembering seeing our panelists surrounding the ex-Hannu Mikkola Audi Quattro E2 and hearing them speak to our audience, literally captivating folk.

Finally, it’s settling in. We did it.

We laid the foundation. We built the stage. We handed our panelists and workshop leads the microphone. And they took it. They shared their knowledge, their advice, their stories. Unfiltered. Brutally honest. And all from the most genuine place of opening the door, broadening the opportunity, widening the funnel.

But it didn’t stop there. Each and every piece of content, written, video, audio, all feature the voices of the incredible women within the sport, in every role, making it exactly what it is. And people showed up. They joined us at DirtFish for the Summit, they joined, online via the livestream, and through sponsorship, partnership, viewership. And they stayed for All-Women classes and for all the words we’ve written and the sentences we’ve said since.

You showed up. You joined us. You joined this initiative we dreamed up and said: “Yes, this is needed.”

“Yes. We’re here.”

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, from the most genuine, honored part of me, thank you.

One of the things I love most about this team is that, even when we say “we did it” the next words are immediately: “what’s next?” We’re not stopping. We’ve got more stories to tell, more impact to make, and more ways of bringing you into the sport. Keep an eye out in the coming months for full details of our incoming Pedal to Progress: Women in Motorsport Scholarship Program, and for all of the events I’m not quite allowed to tell you about. Yet.

But to return briefly to my current mental space, it’s funny; I was completely unable to see the impact we were having while we were ‘in the work’. It was head down, pen to paper, setting up tents, building stories, building the dream.

Now? I can see clearly. And now I’m standing, staring at the foot of the hill of what comes next. And I’m not staring because it’s intimidating or gawking at how tall it is, but because it’s a sacred hill to climb. I’m staring at it with open arms and a smile on my face. I’m not stopping. We’re not stopping. The wheels keep on turning.

And I’m honored that you’re letting me be a very small part of a much bigger group of climbers ready to run up that hill. I’d say we’ll see you next year, but we’ll be seeing you a whole lot sooner than that.

Thank you, thank you, thank you… for helping us know that what we’re doing here is worth it.

Ready? Then here we go again.