Traction Principal Agent Goes Behind The Scenes With ShiftUpNow
The following is an excerpt of an article Traction‘s Principal Agent Holly Pezzano did for ShiftAtlanta. You can read the follow article here: Behind The Scenes With Professional Women Racers. You can join Holly, as well as get to meet pro women racers like Pippa Mann at the Shift Up Now (Virtual) Open House on Tuesday April 22nd 7pm easter. Registration details at the bottom of the article.
Whether you’re racing yourself or just watching, motorsports can be intimidating and seem inaccessible. This is especially true for women. There just aren’t as many female racers, team owners, pit crew, media representatives or even female fans in the stands. Whether you like to drive or spectate, learning from the people that are out there doing it in real life, makes a big difference.
That’s hard to do without access. For me, I get this through being a member of Shift Up Now. This allows me to be able to get into a physical or virtual room with these athletes hear their stories, ask them questions and learn from their mistakes. You see them at their most human and they will tell you, with breathtaking and heartbreaking honesty, the best and worst parts of competition. Once you realize that they aren’t that different from you, it gives you the permission to dream a little bigger for yourself -learning from their experience is priceless whether you want to ever compete yourself or not.
If you aren’t familiar with Shift Up Now, this is an organization that exists to help pro level women racers achieve equal footing in motorsports. Run by the formidable Indycar racer Pippa Mann, these ladies are helping racers address what is sometimes the most difficult aspect of chasing their dreams- coming up with the capital to race. By helping these racers with sponsorship introductions, social media deals, paid appearances, writing Grants for racers through their 501c3 Foundation, and spot-lighting their efforts on their website and social media, Shift Up Now is working to help level the playing field. In a world where only 10% of all available sponsorship and sports marketing money goes to women, this is a big deal.
Even though I don’t have any aspirations to be a professional racer, I would love to have more women to track with, to watch motorsports with and to cheer on. This is why I became a member of Shift Up Now in 2020. Since then, I’ve been able to participate in events and make connections that I can’t imagine making otherwise. I also know that I’m helping make a difference by directly supporting the work they do to help elevate female racers in one of my favorite sports.
If you’re curious to learn more here’s a link to their website, or you can read this article that was recently published on Forbes. You can join them (and myself) online at 7pm Eastern on Tuesday evening (4/22/25) for their first ever Membership Open House. Here’s the link to register for the event: Open House Registration– all you need is your email address, and a laptop or phone with zoom and an internet connection to attend!
I hope to see you online with me on Tuesday evening!
