Four minutes before I was due to join the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit livestream, I was wiping mud off my face with a mechanic’s wipe.
I had just climbed out of the passenger seat of Sara Price’s Can-Am Maverick R after a demonstration in front of the Summit attendees. My red tank top was covered in mud, my adrenaline was still pumping and I was fairly certain the wipe was about to take off all my makeup and turn my face bright red. Thankfully, it didn’t.
There wasn’t time to do much about it either way. I had an iPhone for filming content, a DirtFish microphone in the other hand and no notes. Around me, all the day’s workshops had converged into one large conversation with attendees and the WiM Pros gathered together in an impromptu Q&A session. Engines were running in the background, race cars were moving around the property and out of the corner of my eye, I could catch Aoife Raftery driving the Motion State Camera Arm Car around the track.
I had only a few minutes to catch my breath and figure out what I was going to say. And yet, I wasn’t scared, or even nervous in that moment.
One year earlier, I had stood awkwardly near Becs Williams, the voice of WRC, at the same Summit, waiting for her to finish another conversation so I could ask her how someone like me might get into announcing. I was hoping to snag just a minute of her time and trying to figure out the perfect question that would hopefully be the key to unlocking the mystery of how to get into motorsports reporting.
Just ask
I had been secretly curious about announcing and live reporting before hearing Becs speak at the 2025 DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit, but I hadn’t told anyone.
It felt like one of those jobs that wasn’t really for me, a role reserved for the guys or someone who had been around longer and knew more than I could possibly even pretend to know. Clearly, this was a role reserved for the experts, at least in my mind it was. I had done a small amount of pit reporting for social media, but I had never worked live and I certainly hadn’t announced an event before.
Listening to Becs talk on stage earlier that day made me question the story I had been telling myself. Maybe this was something I could do too.
I was nervous approaching her. I didn’t know exactly what to say, so I asked everything: what does announcing involve, how did she prepare for events, how did she get started and where should I even begin?
“Do you have an organization or event you could ask?” she said.
I did.
“So, just ask.”
Who was I to ignore Becs’ sound advice with whatever silly excuse I was giving myself? So, I did ask, right then and there.
I texted the organizer of a grassroots drifting series I knew from previous social media work.
“Would there ever be an opportunity for me to co-host or announce one of the events?”
The response arrived within minutes.
“YES! We’d love to have a woman’s perspective and voice for the events.”
I went back to Becs during the break to tell her. She congratulated me and invited me to message her after my first event to let her know how it went.
Two weeks later, I was holding the microphone in front of a small audience at my first grassroots drift event.
Learning to use the microphone
Honestly, that first event felt clunky.
I didn’t really know when to enter the conversation, and I let my co-host talk over me instead of finding a comfortable back-and-forth rhythm. I struggled to build our chemistry and I leaned on the same phrases whenever I didn’t know what to say. I stumbled over words. I called a Genesis a G35 more than once, and got called out for it… also more than once.
But I loved it. I felt a sense of pride over what I had just accomplished.
I loved talking about what I was watching in real time. More importantly, I loved finding ways to explain it that would welcome new fans into the sport. Motorsport can be intimidating when everyone around you appears to understand the cars, rules and terminology already. I knew what it felt like to be the person with questions, and I realized I could use the microphone to help someone else feel included.
Within the next month, I was asked to fill in at a pro-am level competition, with a bigger live audience and live stream component.
This time, I got to co-host alongside a more experienced announcer. He didn’t expect me to perform a certain version of the job or prove how much I knew. He welcomed me, made room for me in the conversation and encouraged me to be myself.
Our chemistry came much more naturally. At the end of the event, he told me I had done really well and that he preferred announcing with me then trying to carry the entire event alone, and inevitably losing his voice by the end of it. To my surprise, some drivers and fans even approached me to say they had enjoyed hearing me on the microphone.
For the first time, I thought: I could really do this.
What happens when the opportunities stop?
Over the following year, I announced three grassroots events and two pro-am competitions. Proving to myself that I wanted to do more.
At one point, I was approached about potentially co-hosting a much larger event alongside an experienced professional announcer, something I was extremely excited about! But I didn’t end up getting the job. Around the same time, the organization I had my first few events with ran out of budget, leaving me with no announcing dates on my calendar. The year I thought was going to be my breakout year on the mic, had suddenly flat lined.
I was angry, disappointed and deeply discouraged.
As she does, Josie saw my potential before I could.
For a while, I pulled back from motorsport altogether. I wondered whether announcing and reporting had only ever been a short-lived opportunity and whether I should quietly let it go. At my lowest, I questioned whether I belonged in motorsport at all. Despite my long list of accomplishments and projects from previous years in the industry, I felt like maybe I didn’t have “what it takes” to make it in this sport.
After a couple of weeks of feeling sorry for myself, I shared some of that experience online. I said that I had pulled back after something hadn’t gone well, but that I wanted to return to motorsport and be more intentional about telling the stories.
That just happened to be the post that Josie Rimmer at DirtFish saw and reached out to me asking to hear more about what I wanted to do and what had gotten me so down. She, as she does, saw my potential before I could.
It was an important reminder that visibility isn’t only about showing people the polished result. Sometimes, being honest about what you want, even when you aren’t sure how you will get there, is what allows someone else to recognize how they could help.
There still wasn’t a clear roadmap in front of me, so I kept practicing the parts I could control.
I posted more videos on my own social media sharing my opinions on recent races and forced myself to watch them back, even though I hated hearing my own voice. I noticed my filler words, repeated phrases and the moments when I stumbled because I was trying to speak faster than I could think.
I asked my co-hosts from past events, organizers, drivers, friends, fans and my husband for honest feedback. I began listening to other announcers more carefully, paying attention to how they filled time, explained action and created space for the people beside them. I even started commentating races that I would watch on YouTube in my living room, just to practice.
I might not have an event to announce, but I figured I could continue learning how to communicate.
Without realizing it, I was using the same process I now teach through my Camera Confidence work: show up, review what you did, identify what could be stronger, make an adjustment and try again. Confidence wasn’t something I needed to possess before I began. It was being built through repetition.
The invitation I had been waiting for
I originally planned to attend this year’s Summit to create content about the event.
On Thursday evening Eliot Barnard, DirtFish’s head of video, emailed me and asked whether I might be interested in hosting portions of the livestream and conducting interviews. He made it clear that there was no pressure and he didn’t want to scare me off.
I laughed.
“Don’t worry, that doesn’t scare me,” I replied. “I’d be thrilled to jump on.”
It was exactly the kind of opportunity I had been dreaming about. The invitation arrived suddenly, but the readiness didn’t.
By then, I had announced live events, created videos, taught Camera Confidence, worked one-on-one with clients and coached athletes, influencers and brands through their own on-camera work. I had spent a year proving to myself that I could speak, present and connect with people without knowing every answer or having every word written down.
The livestream was still intimidating. I hadn’t been given much of a brief, and the event didn’t follow the predictable structure of a competition. I needed to understand what was happening, find people to interview, keep us within broadcast range and fill time without a list of drivers, sponsors, points or prepared notes to lean on.
It also revealed where I still need to improve. Thinking quickly and describing unstructured action without rambling doesn’t always come naturally to me. Being ready for an opportunity doesn’t mean having no weaknesses left. It means trusting yourself enough to step in while continuing to learn.
Eliot coached me through the broadcast, and I soon found a rhythm.
My first interview was with a random attendee that I pulled out of the crowd at the Summit. I had approached her and a friend to ask if they would join me on the livestream and one of them said no. Fair enough.
I spoke with the other woman, and as soon as I began asking about her experience at the Summit, my nerves faded. I wasn’t trying to manufacture something impressive to say or follow a specific script anymore. I was having a conversation, and that is where I feel most at home.
Curiosity has become one of the greatest strengths I bring to announcing and interviewing. I’m willing to ask the question that might seem obvious or “dumb” because I know that if I am wondering about it, or have had that question cross my mind back in my early days of entering the sport, someone watching probably is probably curious about the same thing.
I once thought the person holding the microphone needed to be the one who knew the most. Now I believe the role is also about being open, inquisitive and able to connect the people who possess that knowledge with the audience that wants to understand it.
Becoming ready to say yes
From the outside, being invited to host a livestream watched by viewers around the world could look like one exciting opportunity that appeared at exactly the right time. But to me, it represented all the smaller moments that came before it.
It was standing awkwardly near Becs, hoping I could find the courage to speak to her.
It was sending the message to ask for an announcing opportunity before I could overthink it.
It was holding the microphone for the first time, making mistakes and deciding I wanted another chance.
It was receiving encouragement from people who heard something in me that I was still learning to hear in myself.
It was losing opportunities, questioning whether I belonged and eventually telling people that I still wanted to come back.
It was watching videos that made me cringe, asking for feedback and trying again.
By the time Eliot asked, I didn’t need to become ready overnight. I had already done enough work to trust that I could handle whatever happened next, even if I had to do it muddy, breathless and without a notebook.
After the livestream, I had one quiet thought: I actually just did that. But I don’t see it as the destination. I see it as evidence that I’m moving in the right direction and as a new starting point for everything I still want to learn.
If there is a role, opportunity or idea that keeps returning to your mind, you don’t need more proof that you are allowed to explore it. Wanting it is enough reason to begin.
Ask the question. Tell people what you hope to do. Find the smallest place where you can practice. Review your work, make an adjustment and keep going, even when the path temporarily disappears.
