![]() You were a valuable team member at the race track. “Larry Foyt called me the day after the race and said ‘Look, I've watched you busting your ass for the past three months putting this programme together. And all too often surprise bills would see her looking thousands of dollars “the wrong way” as reward for her efforts. Far from being paid to compete, Mann had to raise her own funds just to make the start line. “An outsider doesn't really understand why you're so proud of finishing halfway up the field, right? When you're really in there in the trenches, it… it takes everything. “We were hugging and crying down on the pit lane like we had won the damn thing. “To somebody who's never done it, you can't understand how much it takes,” she explains. P16 was Pippa’s best ever Indy 500 result, and capped off an “amazing, difficult and emotional programme” that, let’s not forget, was there to shine a light on organ donation in the US. I'm not risking this car not finishing, not at this stage in the race. “One of the younger drivers, who shall remain nameless, was literally down on the freakin’ grass on the inside of four as we're coming to the green flag,” Mann recalls. Having started down on the 10th row of the grid, Mann had climbed to 14th by the time the final caution ended with just 13 of the 200 laps left to race. The race itself a week later was “just another Indy 500”, an assessment that’s modest in the extreme. We were hugging and crying down on the pit lane like we had won the damn thing Team co-founder Tim Clauson reckons “it was Bryan tweaking us” from on high, she adds. “Holy cow were we relieved not to have to go through that again,” says Mann. ![]() Who was then ejected on Bump Day barely 24 hours later. It’s horrible!”īut she survived, taking the 30th and final safe spot a mere 0.02mph (oh the irony) faster than one… Fernando Alonso. And now somebody’s going to push you out. You did the job, in the hardest part of the day, the most difficult conditions. you had a car that was easily fast enough. “And so you're standing there with about 45 minutes to go, and you don't know. Too late to join the main queue for another go, Mann was left with an agonising choice: withdraw her time to join the shorter priority line - and gamble everything on a second do-or-die run - or wait it out. ![]() The team assumed the track conditions would only get worse and that Mann was safe, but late in the day her rivals started getting quicker. Running a leased car made from spare parts labelled “shaker rig only” and maintained by a part-time garage crew, Mann was comfortably inside the top 30 who’d be guaranteed a spot in the race after her first (and only) four-lap qualifying run, averaging 227.244mph. Forget the cliche, it was a proper rollercoaster. ![]()
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