sixwordstories | (no subject)

Congratulations!! That's wonderful news!

Thank you very much. It's still sinking in, honestly.

You're welcome! I can imagine but you've worked hard and deserve it.

Two 250-lap races in two days on a track notorious for its G-forces. I don't know how we're all not falling over right now.

[Shelby herself is still catching her breath.]

But to get that damn monkey off my back feels incredible. How are things in California?

That sounds insane!

[But in a good way. It was something that Les was coming to admire. It was an aspect of racing that she didn't exactly follow and so it was even more interesting.]

Things are good. Outside of work, I've been working on a restoration project with one of my best friends. It's going to look GREAT when it's done. We're hoping to show it (and hopefully sell it) at an upcoming car show.

That's fantastic. I miss having the time to go to those.

[Usually when the big ones happened in the summer, Shelby was already on the road. And even when she had an off week it was spent getting rest and taking care of any to-dos that had piled up.]

We didn't even get to hit up the Iowa State Fair this year. Usually it's a tradition that I embarrass myself at carnival games, me and Pagenaud.

I can imagine the schedules don't mesh well, especially during the summer!

That's a shame! Damn. It's been a while since I've been to a state fair... at least a few years. I tried to always go when there was a good concert lined up.

I don't go often, but NBC used to do this thing where they take a few of the IndyCar drivers to the fair as a way to promote Iowa. All they had to do was tell me there was funnel cake.

[Laughs.]

I try to be an ambassador for my sport when I can. When I'm upright, that is.

Not going to lie, the promise of funnel cake is USUALLY why I go to fairs.

As you should. I do it all the time myself for racing and car shows... anything that I'm into really.

That's the great thing about car culture. It's a community.

Also, they give out free tote bags and there are usually good snacks. Have you ever gone to SEMA? That place is huge and it has its own food court.

It really is. It's one of my favorite things about it.

Yes!! We've been a few times and love it. I'm hoping to go again either this year or next.

I get lost there. Every time. I can navigate my way around Watkins Glen but at the Las Vegas Convention Center I need a map.

And then I regress into being a teenager.

I have too but it's the best kind of being lost. There's always something new to see around the corner. Do you go often?

When I lived in L.A. we did every now and then. It was easy to get to Vegas. Not for a long time, though. I'm either racing or I used to live in Indiana and now I'm in New York.

I imagine with a busy schedule and living further away, it gets harder to go! We don't get there often ourselves - maybe once every few years.

It's a goal of mine to show a car there one day in the near future.

Keep working at it and I'm sure you will. I told my dad at five that I was going to win the Indianapolis 500 and I've done it three times now, much to his amusement.

Thanks, it's giving me something to work toward. I find it impressive that you knew what you wanted to do from that age.

It's the world I've always known. My dad was a single father, so I had to travel with him from racetrack to racetrack, as soon as I was old enough.

It's actually kind of funny, because some of the people I grew up with are some of the people I'm racing with. Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and I all came up together.

That makes a ton of sense and actually really cool. I wasn't around cars until I was maybe twelve. It wasn't long after that I started learning how to work on them.

It's pretty entertaining when you think about it. We've all been to each other's weddings. Comes a long way from being small kids chasing each other around in parking lots.

In other news, I'm going to self-destruct before the end of the summer.

Oh absolutely - it's interesting how that all works out.

Would you rather self-destruct or be completely bored out of your mind with nothing to do? I assume races have been added to your already packed schedule?

Yeah. They just added a last-minute race to our schedule next weekend so another doubleheader on short notice. And there's another one at the end of August now. These back-to-back weekends are going to be hell on me and my crew.

[Not that Shelby would complain about the toll it was taking on her. Not when her crew had to work just as hard. But she knew that she could only do so much before she was exhausted.]

Well, crap. That sounds absolutely exhausting for both you and your crew. Is there any break on the horizon for you? Or do you just have to wait for the season to be over?

[The IndyCar world was still rather new for Les and while she raced nearly every weekend (in usually a straight line and not around a track), it was no where to the extent Shelby did through the season.]

We'll get a week off between this weekend and the 500. We normally take most of a month. And then we get September off, but by then it'll be too late; damage done.

[She knows that to race IndyCar is a privilege and treats it as such but she's also a realist and the idea of cramming the biggest race of the year in the middle of a month doesn't sit well with her. But not as if she can do anything about it. The fact that she hasn't seen her family in several weeks isn't helping either.]

I'm just going to do the best I can. Nobody can ask for anything more than that.

I'm glad that you'll have a week at least to rest but damn, that's exhausting.

That's all you can do is just do the best you can. And I think your family and friends would all say the same. I'll be rooting for you.

Thank you. I'll take any good wishes I can get right now between this schedule and how close the championship fight is.

You definitely have some good wishes and luck coming from California.