Alanis King & Her Inspirational Impact on the World of Motorsports

Kathleen: 0:01

Hey, it's Kathleen and Shannon here, and this is Get In Her Lane.

Shannon: 0:05

We are two automotive professionals diving deep into why women are so underrepresented in this industry and trying to make a positive change.

Kathleen: 0:12

So ride along with us as we discuss ideas and takeaways that can help everyone further this effort in the automotive world and beyond.

Shannon: 0:21

Hey Shan how are we doing? Hello Kathleen, Welcome back to another episode of Get In Her Lane.

Kathleen: 0:27

I am so excited. Today we have an incredible guest, Alanis King, and let me just say, if you are interested in motorsports at all, this is the episode for you.

Shannon: 0:39

And I will add, even if you're not into motorsports because, to be transparent, I was not prior to this interview, but there's no way.

Kathleen: 0:46

This is also the episode for you.

Shannon: 0:49

This is also the episode for you, and there's no way to not be at least a little bit into motorsports after talking to Alanis, so, so excited for that.

Kathleen: 0:56

She has quite the resume. She's done it all.

Shannon: 1:00

Yes, so to dive into her resume, because I think, alanis, she's so passionate, she talks about so much on this episode, but the one thing is she doesn't brag about herself enough and her resume, so we're going to do it for her. She is currently a video presenter and car reviewer at Cars and Bids, a contributing editor at Road and Track. She also hosts a podcast, donut Media's F1 podcast, and she is even co-authored a book on F1 racing which we will get into in this episode. This is making me feel bad about myself. Yeah, and if you recognize her name, she has also worked as a writer and editor at Jalopnik and Business Insider, so her resume keeps going, she's incredible and really, beyond all this, she is one of the most passionate guests we've spoken to.

Kathleen: 1:45

Yet you know I can't wait for you guys to get a glimpse of it. She loves what she does, so let's hear about it. All right, alanis, we're so glad to have you here today. So, just to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey into the world of automotive journalism and motorsports? Ooh, myself.

Alanis: 2:04

Who am I? Let me think I first got into motorsports and cars by getting free tickets to a NASCAR race when I was, I think, 13 years old, 12 or 13. So it was 2009. Got free tickets to Texas Motor Speedway and we went to the race and I didn't know a single thing that was going on. I didn't know anything about cars, but as soon as they took the green flag and the grandstands just like shook under me and you could see it felt like you could see the end of the earth in front of you because this facility was so big and you were so high up. I was like I don't know what's going on, but this is what I'm going to do with my life, but it feels right. Yeah, that was like, if it feels right, this feels like what I want to do and I didn't want to go to NASCAR actually because it didn't interest me, and my mom said it's the recession, we are not going on vacation. We got free tickets, we're not doing anything, this is free and we're going to go, and I was like, okay, well, I guess I don't have a choice.

Shannon: 3:07

Yeah, maybe they'll have snacks.

Alanis: 3:10

Yeah, maybe they'll have snacks, Maybe there will be something there. I vividly remember walking up and there was a T-shirt for Sayla Dale Earnhardt Jr T-shirt, and my mom said that's Dale Jr and I said who's Dale Jr? And she said it's Dale Sr's son and I was like who's?

Shannon: 3:26

Dale Sr.

Alanis: 3:28

I didn't know anything at all, but that became my path.

Kathleen: 3:33

Good for you. So what happened from there?

Alanis: 3:36

I decided that I would watch every single NASCAR race from here on out for the rest of my life, whoa Okay, so you went zero to a hundred. Yeah, and the most familiar with NASCAR. There are three ladders. If you're listening and you're not familiar with it, there are three ladders in the national series the truck series, the Xfinity series and the cup series. Cup series is the top, the Xfinity series is the middle and the truck series is the bottom. They race pretty much every weekend. The cup series has 38 races a year. 36 of them are points paying. The Xfinity series, I think, is like 32 or 33, and the truck series is in the 20s somewhere. So to commit to watching every NASCAR race ever for the rest of my life is like a hundred races a year. And I was sitting there in that grandstand yes, I was sitting there in that grandstand and I said I'm never going to miss another NASCAR race. And I have not.

Kathleen: 4:28

Oh, my gosh, oh my gosh.

Shannon: 4:30

I was going to say how are you tracking that?

Kathleen: 4:32

That's incredible. You've missed nothing so far.

Alanis: 4:35

Nope, I've watched all of them, even if I missed them. I watched them back, even if I was somewhere else. I watched them on replay.

Shannon: 4:41

So at what point did you know this passion you had? You were like I'm going to turn this into my career because obviously you were very young. So were you just kind of like, okay, I'm going to watch them all, but I'm also going to do this for the rest of my life.

Alanis: 4:57

It was immediate. Yeah, it was. When I was sitting in the grandstands there, literally on that day, I was like, yeah, this is going to be my career. I don't know what this is, but this is what I'm going to do. And I think some of that was I had a close friend when I was young who always knew what she wanted to do when she grew up and she found it so perplexing that I did not have a passion like that. She found it so perplexing. She wanted to be an international correspondent for CNN from the time we were in the fourth grade and she was like I don't know how you are not passionate enough about something to do it for the rest of your life. And she said that to me for years when we were in elementary school and I was always shocked because when the teachers went around in class, everyone had an answer. It was like I want to be a teacher, I want to be a lawyer, I want to be president, I want to be this. And they would get to me and I'd be like I don't know, there is nothing that I want to do every single day for the rest of my life. And then when I saw that, I was like this is what I want to do every single day for the rest of my life.

Shannon: 6:01

That was it. I think that's so cool because I know, even like Kathleen and myself and a lot of women we've had on the podcast, it almost feels like sometimes they stumbled into automotive you know what I mean Like maybe it was the people side of the business or just like some skill that they had. That translated well. So I'm really excited to talk to someone who's like passion for the actual part.

Kathleen: 6:22

Intentionally joined.

Shannon: 6:24

Yes, that's so cool.

Alanis: 6:25

Yeah, I think the difficult part about that is that I was 13 when I discovered that NASCAR existed. I did not know who Dale Sr was and I ended up in motorsports and automotive new cars, old cars, whatever. I ended up in both. And when you get into these fields, you're typically getting into these fields with men who have done this since they could walk or talk or whatever, like their dad showed them a car and that was all they did for the formative years of their lives. So I was extremely behind and that is hard, especially when you're a woman.

Kathleen: 7:03

Yeah, we know that story Absolutely. So from there, how did you get into the journalism field?

Alanis: 7:11

So this is actually something I talk about with people pretty regularly, including kids who want careers. I got into journalism and writing because that was all I saw women doing at the time, especially in NASCAR. So Danika Patrick was around in the early years of my fandom, but not really when I made that hard commitment to this is what I want to do for my life, which is it's wild, because I was like 13 or 14. I thought I had to know exactly what I wanted to do at that point in my life. And then you get to college and people switch majors all the time and then they don't even use those majors in their career. But I was like I'm at a pivotal moment where I have to decide that this is what I'm going to do with my life, and I didn't see a lot of women driving or doing the engineering or doing anything like that, and some of that is access, some of that is just I wasn't on the shop floor in Ray shops or in the garage seeing the few women who were around. There just weren't a lot of women, and so I didn't see women doing these other things and I thought, well, I see women on the TV reporting and I see women writing, that's what I can do. And when you're that age, when you see people who look like you're doing something, that's kind of what you think is possible and not too much past that. And so I always say, had I seen women driving, had I had the access to see women driving, had there been more women driving, knowing my success rate and the things I do in life, I would be driving. But I saw people reporting and writing and talking about it, so that's what I ended up doing.

Shannon: 8:52

In hearing you say the name, danica Patrick. Obviously I'm not super well versed in the NASCAR world but that is one of my benchmarks that I do have and I remember those were the races I did watch was when I knew that she was driving. And I think maybe like one in D 500 that might have been on TV at some point but that I watched, but because she was driving. That's when I started to engage in the sport more. So you're definitely right of only know what you see in a lot of ways, so that makes sense. That kind of journalism stuck out to you as okay. If I want to get in this world, this is how.

Alanis: 9:25

Exactly, and I love what I do and I think it is just as professional and just as difficult as driving or engineering or doing whatever else. But my one thing I do say is that there was not a lot of choice in my 13, 14 year old brain just because of what I saw Now. It was still just as difficult to get here and it's still just as rewarding and I love my career and I think I'm good at it. But I was limited at the beginning.

Kathleen: 9:53

So, on that note, this podcast is we're really focused on diversity and inclusion in the automotive space. Obviously, it looked very different for you when you were 13. What's your take on the current state in motor sports in terms of female inclusion, and where do you see room for improvement?

Alanis: 10:11

You know, things have changed a lot. At the time I was like 13 and changed it in ways I didn't expect to see for another couple of decades. So obviously we're still way behind where I would like to be, but we're way ahead of where I thought we would be in motor sports. And it's really interesting now to watch NASCAR and see NASCAR celebrate Pride Month. They did that, I think, for the first time on a major scale last year and this was the second year. And to see them celebrate Pride Month, to see them talk about Black history and all kinds of things like that is so cool, because when I got into this it was still very much like old school NASCAR, you know To see that is really cool. Also, I think having Lewis Hamilton be so, so good at Formula One that has just advanced the sport by miles, because I really do believe if Lewis Hamilton was not as good as he is, he would not be able to have as big of a voice as he does. Because when you transcend a sport in the way Lewis Hamilton has, you can say and do whatever you want for good and for bad, and he uses that for good. And that is really really, really cool because when you think about it, lewis Hamilton is the first and only Black driver in Formula One, and here he is, seven championships later. He can say whatever he wants without being ostracized for it, and if he did not have that era of dominance and just transcend the sport, I do not think he would have the ability to do that, because even now you do see sanctions put against him. He stopped from saying all of the things he wants to say. I think it was two years ago. He wore a t-shirt that said arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor, and that is all it took again. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, great. They made new rules in Formula One to where you could not wear T-shirts on the podium. So if he were not as big of a deal as he is, he wouldn't have as much of a voice, but he has done so much with that voice to progress Formula One and Motorsport in general. That has been super cool to see as well. I mean, I've seen it across all divisions, I've seen it everywhere and just the progress we have made is more than I thought we would have made, which is really, really cool. I mean I still deal with a lot. I know my friends still deal with a lot in Motorsports, but overall it is so much better of an environment than it used to be.

Kathleen: 12:41

That's amazing to hear you just mentioned. You've dealt with a lot. Have you faced any challenges, maybe early on in your career? How did you overcome them and can you share maybe any specific instances where your gender presented unique obstacles for you Every single day?

Alanis: 13:02

Every day. I mean, I'm sure y'all experienced this too and I'd be super interested to hear what y'all experienced, but it never stops. It is every single day. I mean, especially being on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram Reels and everything like that All I hear is about not about the topics I'm talking about. It's always about me. There are people who do keep on topic and who are great, and that is fantastic, but there are also so many people who don't stay on topic and you think we're here with a shared passion cars and Motorsports and you're only talking about me. Why can't we just enjoy something we like together? And so it's every single day. I mean, when I was early in my career at Gealopnik, it was terrifying because I was a Motorsports expert. I didn't know anything about cars, and here I was at a car website car specifically and there was so much pressure to get everything right Because if I got something wrong, then it was like, well, she was faking it this whole time. She never actually liked this stuff. If any of my male colleagues got anything wrong, it was like, ha ha, dude, no problem. You know it was, Stakes were high it was, yes, it just how quick people are to invalidate you If you get a single thing wrong or they sense anything off. It's wild. I would host. I would host reader meetups for Gealopnik and I distinctly remember one time I hosted a meetup at a bar and a man came up to me and he asked me something so wild. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something basic about working on a car. Like he asked me to basically tell him how to change oil or something like that to prove that I could. And I was like, do I really have to go through the steps of changing the oil on my car to prove to you that I change my own oil? What? And that took me by such surprise. But then I realized people will quiz you, just to quiz you. Like. Men will come up to you and ask you questions they know the answer to, just to see if you can answer them. And I have actually gotten to a point where I don't answer those questions, even if I know the answers. Yeah, even if they could come up to me and say what does red mean on a stoplight? And I would say I'm not going to answer. I am not going to answer that because I don't owe you that answer and you are not asking me that from a place of curiosity. You are asking me that from a place of invalidation and I will not give you that, whether I know the answer or not, you are not going to get it and I think that's been powerful for me to to accept that. I don't have to show people that I know what I'm doing.

Kathleen: 15:51

I'm here Absolutely Exactly.

Alanis: 15:53

I don't owe them anything. This also happens with colleagues and with people in the industry. I remember it was, I think, 2019 or 2018. I went to the launch of the KTM Crossbow Comp R and it was at Sonoma Raceway and there were six of us, and it was five men and me and this, this launch was very interesting. But because there were only six of us, they just let us have free laps on the racetrack, no leader, no, nothing. And you would think that would be awesome, and that would usually be awesome for me, because I love ripping around a racetrack with no one telling me what to do. But as we get there the dinner before the track day, I have a man sitting across from me and he goes. You know, this car only comes in a manual right. And in my head, in my head, I was like, well, it's a manual and there's a DSG option, which DSG is a form of automatic. But I did not say that because, again, I'm not here to validate myself. So I said, uh-huh, what about it? And he said do you know how to drive a manual? And I was like, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, I sure do. And he chastised me the entire night about being able to drive a stick and then toward the end of the night, he goes. Have you ever driven on a racetrack before? And I said yes. The last time I drove on a racetrack was a couple of months ago at Shanghai International Circuit, which is a Formula One track. And he said ever been there, buddy? And he said and was that car a manual? And I said yes, yes, it was Uh-huh, it was indeed a manual. And then the next morning at breakfast, there were only two women on this entire trip me and a woman who worked for KTM. And this woman also, she raced cars. She was super cool. Next morning at breakfast, he invites me to sit down at his table and I'm like damn it, yeah, I was like I was trying to escape you. He invites me to sit down and he goes. So I hear you race cars. And I said we went through all of this last night at dinner, what? And he goes no, no, no, no, I like I hear you race cars professionally. And then he started listing out what this woman does and I said that is the only other woman here. There are two of us and we look nothing alike. And you just confused us. After chastising me for an hour at dinner An hour and then I had to go out on this racetrack with six men, and this man is a race car, like he is very, very well known and he drives race cars. And I tell you what, when I went out on that racetrack, I said to myself I am going to wreck this car before I let this man pass me. There you go. I will wreck this car before he passes me. And he never passed me. He never got near me and I do track days like twice a year and this man is an actual race car driver and he never passed me and I was like no, you are not going to, I will destroy this car before you pass me.

Kathleen: 19:03

Like that's some motivation right there. That was how mad I was.

Alanis: 19:08

I was so mad and like again I've never felt like this, ever in my life, like I've never felt that passionately about proving myself. And I shouldn't have felt that passionately about proving myself because I didn't owe it to him, but there was no way in hell that this man was going to pass me. Yeah, no, none.

Shannon: 19:28

I think, like I completely relate to trying to find the balance in the situation of just like letting the results speak from themselves. You know what I mean. Like I know that I deserve to be here versus maybe I will talk you through how to change oil and maybe you'll learn something from how I change my oil. It definitely is kind of a delicate balance and I think early in your career it's very, very easy to just get caught up in trying to validate every way you can that you deserve to be there. So I guess for you was it just like over time you kind of got that confidence, or was it maybe I know you've had a lot of different roles within the industry Was it like a certain role that you were like, okay, now I feel like I've made it kind of thing, or where'd that confidence come from?

Alanis: 20:10

It happened over time, and I think it's because I realized this is a very important realization for me. I realized that if I would not say what these people are saying to me, if I would not say that to someone else, then whatever they're saying is not valid and it's not constructive and I don't need to listen to it, because if they are saying something that I find out of line, then I don't have to listen to it because I would never say that to someone else, so there's nothing valid in it because it is not up to the standards that I hold myself. So if someone says something, I learned over time that it doesn't actually matter. I also learned that while you will change some people, you won't change most people and they can think what they want and do what they want. I'm doing the things I want to do and I feel like I am in a place that I like to be in and they can deal with it. That's kind of what I learned over time.

Kathleen: 21:10

Okay, so on a more positive note, on the other end of the spectrum, you've had a ton of different roles, from Dilopnik to Road and Track, to Cars and Bids. What stands out is the most memorable or rewarding moment for you in your career so far, and why.

Alanis: 21:28

Oh, most rewarding moment. I have had so many, that's good, sounds like a good career. I really have had so many that it's hard to choose. I mean I had a very cool moment. I'll just I'll talk about a recent moment that I had, because I have these. I really do mean it when I say I have these all the time. I had a very cool moment recently where Top Gear magazine reached out to me and they said can you write a history of NASCAR for the upcoming issue? And I said you can say no to this idea, but can I do this instead? And my idea was let me talk about the history of NASCAR, but let me intertwine it with the fact that I was not around for most of that history and what got me into NASCAR, because when people talk about motorsports they often talk about the glory days. Ah, we'll never get back to those. Whatever I wanted to talk about how the glory days were, not what got me into NASCAR, it was just and motorsports and cars in general, it was just seeing it right. And so I said can I write about that and can I interview some of the really important people who had an impact on that? And they said go for it and I said all righty. So I went for it and I called up the person who was with me at my first NASCAR race, who's a family friend named Steve McClain, and he walked me through everything and he was a big Dale Earnhardt Jr fan and he told me you are going to be a Dale Jr fan. And the first race we went to, which was a Saturday, it was the middle tier Xfinity series. It was called the nationwide series back then. A man named Kyle Bush won that race and Kyle Bush is by far the most dominant driver in pretty much the history of the Xfinity series and across NASCAR's three national ladders he has more than 200 wins. It's shocking how many wins this man has. He wins that race and I'm like so who's this guy? Steve says you cannot like this guy. He is a punk. And I was like well, I think he's my punk. And so I became a Kyle Bush fan. I didn't know anything about this man, I knew nothing, but I decided that from that point forward I was going to cheer for Kyle Bush. So I called for this story, for this Top Gear story. I called Steve McClain, I called Kyle Bush, I called my mom, I called everybody and I was like let's just let's talk about it. And it was so cool to come full circle and write about that first experience and I was sitting there thinking about what 13-year-old me would think about the fact that I get to interview.

Kathleen: 24:17

Kyle Bush.

Alanis: 24:19

Yeah, like, if I want to, I can text this man and say, hey, I need you for something 13-year-old me, I think, would die. And I got a call from Kyle's PR person the other day and he said I just wanted to tell you, we really appreciate you. And every single time you ask for Kyle he's like OK, I got her. And sometimes he's too busy. Sometimes he's like can you give me some more information on the story? Sometimes he's like who is this person? And he said all I have to do is say your name. And he says, all right, I'll figure it out. And that Top Gear story came together really last minute. They needed me on a five-day turnaround and I said, guys, I'm so, so sorry that this is such a quick turnaround. And it was an elimination weekend in the NASCAR championship and Kyle was in a must-win scenario. He needed to win the race to not get eliminated. And he still said, all right, I got her, I'll talk to her after qualifying. And he fit me in on this elimination weekend, which he did end up getting eliminated, and that was such a stressful weekend for him and he had the children in the backseat screaming. He still made it work and 13-year-old me would think that was the wildest thing to ever happen.

Shannon: 25:32

I mean, yeah, you've got your here-on-speed dial. That's amazing. Yeah, that's a goal for anyone.

Alanis: 25:38

Childhood me would just totally freak out, and I have moments like this all the time. I really do have moments like this all the time. I went to NASCAR Victory Lane for the first time this year with my dear friend Tyler Reddick. He is the best. I went to Victory Lane with him this year and got to take a picture with the trophy, and my husband came with us and we all took pictures with the trophy. Childhood me would be like what you took pictures with the trophy at a NASCAR race. There's just so much.

Shannon: 26:07

It happens all the time and just listening to that, I can't help but imagine how one about the Top Gear story, how much more engaging that is to readers than like a history of NASCAR, which I mean that we could not to discredit anything, but you could do that on Wikipedia. You know what I mean. Like you could, yes, but to hear your story again, it reminds me of what we said about like Danika Patrick, right, like seeing her you probably in this article, you're probably able to like connect with so many readers, hopefully some like young females who are like oh wow, she did it. She look at her. Now she's interviewing her hero. So hopefully, you know that's kind of the goal of what you're doing, so that's cool.

Alanis: 26:43

No, it really is. And I mean I had. I had another moment last week where I was at my hotel at the LA Auto Show and a couple of months ago CNBC brought me out to New York City to do an interview for a Formula One documentary and so I was sitting in my hotel at the LA Auto Show watching this Formula One documentary that I was in and they were talking about like my book and my career and all of this stuff and I'm in. I literally got as much FaceTime in this documentary as Lewis Hamilton. Like neither of us got like a ton. They used a lot of my information but only a couple of interview clips. But me and Lewis Hamilton got like the same amount of FaceTime in this documentary. And I was just like here I am on a CNBC documentary talking about Vegas Formula One and I just got last minute tickets to the Vegas Formula One race earlier today and I'm changing my flight to go to the race. What Again, childhood me would just freak out Like it's possible. It's possible to make it to this point and just do whatever you want all the time, like that's so cool.

Kathleen: 27:49

Yeah, and you definitely sound like you've. I mean, you have had the drive since an early age, which is incredible.

Alanis: 27:55

It's. You know, I really have. And like this was all I wanted. And I remember the first time I got into the garage at a NASCAR race, I was like this is the most surreal thing in the world, because when you're at the racetrack there's a very big difference between being on the outside of the racetrack and being on the inside of the racetrack. And I remember the very first time that I was on the inside of the racetrack I thought this is like this is the peak of existence, right, this is. This is crazy. Like the cars are in front of me and now here I am. Like last week I made a phone call last minute and I said, hey, do you have formula one tickets? And now for Romeo said yeah, we got formula one tickets and hung up three minutes and then a few minutes later I had formula one tickets in my email, I had a hotel room and I had an alpha that I drove to the formula one race from Los Angeles. It took three minutes and like again 13 year old me which is what it's every day that I'm shocked, I'm shocked that I did it.

Shannon: 28:51

Yeah Well, and you're still doing it. So you brought up formula one. We want to make sure that we touch on this for our listeners. So you co-authored a book called racing with rich energy. Could you tell? Us a little bit about that what it also what it's like writing a book, but also just what less readers could expect. Kind of all about it Racing with rich energy is.

Alanis: 29:13

It is such a story. Wow, it's wild. So, basically, if you do not, for follow formula one, in late 2018, the Haas formula one team, which is the American formula one team, announced that they had a new title partner, a company called rich energy, which is a British energy drink, and everyone's reaction was what is rich energy? That was literally what everyone thought. What is this? Because a formula one team. So at the time, the Haas formula one team's annual budget, I think, was like a hundred million pounds a year and this unknown energy drink is now the title partner for this team, which you would assume means they're covering a giant portion of that annual cost. So everyone started looking it up and we found documents with the British company's house, which is the British registrar of companies, that said, in its most recent financial statements, this company had about $700 in the bank and everyone was like what? And then you go to this company's social media accounts. It looked like something from 2011,. Just like a teenager basically ripping photos from the internet and posting them as their own. So there are a lot of examples in the book, but basically the person behind the social media account, which is widely believed to be the CEO, william Story. He would just take photos from Pinterest and like hotel websites and stuff and he would post them and he would pretend like they were his photos. So I remember specifically there was a photo of a private jet and a Bentley, I think continental at dawn and he posted something about his flight to somewhere that morning and it was a photo from Pinterest. And then he posted a photo of a Ferrari Enzo and he said Santa came early this year it was around Christmas and it was again a photo from like Pinterest and he posted a photo of an aircraft hangar at one point and talked about basically like how he had again like a business flight and this was from an Air Force base. All of these images were not real. Yeah, they were. Well, they were real. They were not his. They were not real in the way that this company was showing them. All of their ads were just rips of other ads with rich energy logos put over them. Everyone is like what is going on? And how did this top level Formula One team like this? This? This Formula One team finished fifth in the 2018 constructor standings, fifth of 10. That is a big deal, because the top three are always going to be the same. So to finish fifth basically means you finished second of the people who are not already solidified on getting the top three. This team has a bright future and they have just signed with this wildly obscure company that apparently doesn't have any money. So everything went just about like you would expect. It crashed and burned within a few months, and crashed and burned to the point that at one race they had to rip the logos off the car. Because a British bike company sued rich energy for quote unquote stealing its logo. And a judge found that they did, and the judge said that the CEO, william Story, and the person he brought with him to court were unreliable witnesses who manufactured evidence. This is all in the judgment. And so they had to rip the logos off the. I think Friday before Thursday or Friday before race weekend. They had to take the logos off the car because they were no longer legal logos. And then, a couple of months later, william Story, the CEO, emailed Gunther Steiner in an email without a subject line, to terminate the partnership. The email had, like, no punctuation and every new thought was just a line break. And he went for many, many of these line breaks, talking about how everyone wants him out of Formula One and how the Haas F1 team was not performing to the level that he wanted it to. So he was terminating the partnership, and Haas responded and said you can't do that, that breaks the contract, but we will accept it and sue you for the rest of the contract. It was a wild story and we just really wanted to catalog what happened and a lot of really, really wild things happened and it's so cool to see people reading that book. One image that I always see when people ask me about this book is one person on Twitter sent me a photo of their daughter, their very young daughter, in a car seat, in the back seat, reading this book, and they said this is her first non-picture book that she's reading herself and I was like well, it has a few curse words in it and maybe some legal jargon and some legal jargon, but that is the wildest thing I've ever seen this young child, this person's daughter, reading the book.

Kathleen: 34:16

Absolutely wild. That's incredible. So what was the process like for you as you were learning?

Alanis: 34:22

It took three years to write the book and that was on top of the original reporting that went into it at the beginning, before we decided to write a book, and basically you take everything you have, collect that together and start building out chapters and then you do the additional reporting, reaching out to every single person you can. We reached out to more than 200 people for this book it was so much and I have a spreadsheet tracking every single person we reached out to and all of those people. If you get any information from them at all, you have to get their employment verification. You have to make sure that they are who they say they are. You have to do all of these things and also anything they say. You need material documentation of every single thing they say. I know that a lot of people don't understand journalism and we really did try to go through that in the book and talk about how the things that are in the book got in the book. And when you get information from people, you have to back up that information and you have to make these connections. So like there was some information that we couldn't put in the book and it was because I could not confirm it on my own because the people involved signed in DAs. I couldn't corroborate it and I couldn't get the information, but I did have a back road that I could have confirmed it with, and this back road involved digging back to like three or four years earlier and confirming that a single person was at a track day at a single race track, and I found this track day using locations on Instagram and hashtags and I found people involved in the track day, but every single video they posted and photo they posted did not include the one thing I was looking for, which was a rich energy logo on the screens at the racetrack. That is what I was looking for so close.

Shannon: 36:09

Looking for a rich energy logo.

Alanis: 36:11

And none of the videos showed any of the screens. And so I actually reached out to some of the people involved in the track day and I did not hear back from them because I was asking them do you have a photo of any of the screens from that day? And it is possible that before that track day began they turned off the screens, but we would have had some ground breaking, one bit of ground breaking info, which there was a lot of ground breaking info in there, but one bit that I really wanted to put in there but I could not confirm that track day happened.

Shannon: 36:43

Wow, it is so incredible. Yeah, it's so incredible to hear like the investigative journalism side, because I think a lot, like you said, a lot of things are just like kind of categorizing history, but you were the one actually doing like the digging on this, so that's so cool.

Alanis: 36:56

And then also, when you get the information and you corroborate it and you're writing it, everything has to be fact checked. So you fact check the words as you are writing them. Also you have to fact check them again because sometimes you will use a verb or a word that makes people like, gives people a connotation that they shouldn't have, and you have to avoid being sued. And so we had to go line by line, word by word this is a hundred thousand word book Word by word, and fact check every single word in the book. So we had a system where if it was written and you fact check while you're writing, of course if it was just written the font was black and if it had been fact checked once, we changed it to purple and then the other person had to go fact check and then they would change it to maroon. So if the font was maroon it was good to go. But if you changed a single word in any sentence, that sentence had to be reverted back to black and doubled again and if anything got changed it had to be redone completely on the fact checking. And so it's that word by word, not sentence by sentence, not paragraph by paragraph, word by word fact checked for a hundred thousand words and you'll get on forums and there will be dudes like, oh, they didn't do anything, they just wrote about stuff I already knew. It's like no, no, there's a bunch in here that was never public information. One, two, you have no idea what went into this. You want to discount it and you have no idea how difficult it was.

Kathleen: 38:26

I'm sure it was extremely rewarding too. That's incredible, the final product.

Alanis: 38:31

I forget sometimes that I wrote a book. And then people bring it up and I'm like, oh, that rocks. Yeah, I did write that book, that's my book. That's so cool to me when I remember that. I think my brain like detaches from the fact that I wrote a book, because it's so out there that I wrote a book that my brain just kind of forgets it sometimes. And then my brain's like, oh wow, who would have thought? And it's so interesting when that happens that I'm just like that's so cool, I relive it every single time.

Shannon: 39:05

Well, that is so incredible. I am definitely going to check this book out, and I hope all of our listeners do too.

Alanis: 39:12

It's written in a way that, even if you don't know Formula One, you will be able to understand it. I think one of the most important things about journalistic writing that a lot of people actually don't do is make that writing accessible to everyone in a way that is not redundant for the people who know what's going on. So my entire goal for this book, and my co-author Elizabeth Blackstock's goal, was to make this accessible for everyone, because ultimately, this is a business story, it's sports business, and you want everyone interested in sports business to be able to understand the story without making it redundant for Formula One fans. So one of my very good friends, jason, he, read this book and he said I have never watched like I don't know cars, I don't watch races, but I understood everything that happened and I was like I'm so glad because that was the goal.

Kathleen: 40:06

And that's a talent right there. To take a subject, that you know people don't have a major understanding of, and bring it down to everyone's level.

Alanis: 40:14

It was so hard, but that was something that I baseline really wanted to do. I wanted everyone to be able to understand this because, again, I think of 13 year old me not knowing who Dale Earnhardt Sr was. If she wanted to read a book about NASCAR, she would want to know what was going on instead of having to Google all of it.

Shannon: 40:33

I think another way that you really incorporate bringing more people in is also your social media presence. I know you've kind of got your hand in everything. Could you speak a little bit just about kind of like what it was like to go from kind of being a print behind the scenes journalist to all of a sudden now you're the one kind of in front of everything, and then what it's like to engage an audience like that. It's a lot of pressure, you know it is.

Alanis: 40:58

But I had this really big shift. So I started working in a big capacity in motorsports writing when I was like 18. So I was literally still in high school when I wrote my first magazine story for AutoWeek Magazine, still in high school. It was wild. I have it hanging on my wall. Still in high school you learn a lot and you go through a lot of stages of life. When you start writing professionally in front of everyone when you're 18. And so early on I was very serious. I was like I can't have favorite drivers, I need to be an objective journalist, I need to do all of this and I need to be very serious about women in motorsports. And as I got older I realized every single day, the more serious I am, the less fun I have. So why not just completely 180 and just be myself and have as much fun as possible? And then, by default, all of my other goals, like covering motorsports in the way I wanna cover motorsports and making it more diverse and making it more welcoming for women that will happen. But it's show, don't tell, it's do the thing instead of talking about the thing. And, like I do, still talk about diversity in motorsports and everything like that. But 99% of what I do is just going and having fun and letting people watch it happen. And then they just get used to me being there by virtue of that and that, to me, is really fun. I've also since I wrote the book was also a very freeing thing for me because I did my big journalism project and I was like, okay, I did my big thing. I am using the rest of my life to just have fun and do whatever I want. And so now I'm like I don't usually go to the races to work. I don't usually go to NASCAR or Formula One or whatever to work. I'm just like, hey, friends, can you give me a VIP pass so I can come screw around for a weekend. And they're like, yeah, and then I end up doing things people like wanna see. Anyway, I'm not writing about it. Well, I am writing about it sometimes, but I'm not just doing this serious Joey Logano won today's NASCAR race. I'm just going and having fun and people love that too and I love that and it makes me so happy.

Shannon: 43:24

Yeah, it sounds so authentic. You know what I mean. There are definitely times where I see people go to events and you can tell they're showcasing what the event wants you to see, almost, but you going as someone who just is really excited to be there. That's what I would wanna see content-wise, so that's cool.

Alanis: 43:39

And it's a formula one, and all I talked about the whole weekend was the fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I'm still thinking about I had about eight A fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was like an uncrustable deep fried Wow, and by the end of it my stomach hurts so badly. But I was having the time of my life, okay, I was having so much fun and the food was free and I was like whatever, I am having so much fun and that's all I've talked about since I went.

Kathleen: 44:15

It's really cool to see. You joined the space because of your passion and you haven't lost it, and I think so many people become calloused in their industry, whether it's automotive, any job and genuinely, even in this conversation, we can feel that from you, which is amazing.

Alanis: 44:33

I'm so glad because that's what I really wanted when I decided to shift to just going back to being myself and having fun. I wanted to stop the whole, just like. This is my job. I'm this, like I'm cynical, I'm this, I'm jaded, I'm whatever. I wanted to stop that and just have fun. Why do things if you're not having fun? Obviously, yes, we have to pay bills and we have to do this and all, but outside of that, shouldn't our goal to just be to enjoy ourselves? And that's my goal. Like all the time, that's all I wanna do. I had the time of my life at the Vegas Formula One race. That's just my goal, that I just wanna have fun at this point, and I think I get to do that. I get to have all of these really cool experiences that I wouldn't be having if I was just still very, very serious about being serious.

Kathleen: 45:27

Yeah, so weaving in, you know, keeping an element of fun as you think about this. What are some of your big future goals or aspirations you still have in the field?

Alanis: 45:39

People always ask me what my goals in motorsports and cars are and I'm like I don't know. I kinda did all of it. That's awesome, like I think whatever happens happens, you know, and things keep happening right. So, like the Formula One documentary on CNBC that was so cool I got called to be part of the Amazon Prime documentary, the Prime Video documentary about the Garage 56 car at Le Mans. So Garage 56 was the experimental entry that NASCAR used at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France and they called me and they brought me to North Carolina to film for that documentary. So, like these things happen and I'm usually not actively seeking them out. I just get a phone call that says, hey, can you come do this? And I'm like, yeah, that sounds great, I'll come do that. I mean, my goal is just to continue doing what I'm doing and I really I think that's super cool because I don't have anything that I'm like if I don't get to do this, I will be so upset. Like I'm good, I do wanna become the fastest mind sweeper player in the world. I love mind sweeper. I would love to become the fastest mind sweeper player in the world, but that's not an automotive and motorsport goal.

Shannon: 46:49

That's just me. That's still a good goal.

Alanis: 46:51

I think it's a great goal. It makes me excited, but I mean I just I'm good. I'm good with the things I've done, and whatever happens from now on is just a bonus.

Shannon: 47:02

Yeah, it's good to be open. Especially it sounds like we're. In a lot of ways, I think the future just can be so uncharted in this space for you, right Like as a strong female in automotive journalism there's no direct path of where you need to go. So staying open like that, I think, is sounds like that's the best bet for you.

Alanis: 47:19

So that's cool that is my best bet, I would say, just like my non-tangible goal would be just helping people realize that this industry is for them, and I try to do that every single day and I also try to educate people and myself on making the industry better for every single type of person we can. That's always my goal. I really am passionate about that and I think I've heard from a lot of people hey, you helped me realize that I needed to be more open and inclusive and I'm like that's so cool because that's what I want to do. So that's just like one of my constant goals. But, aside from that, fastest Minesweeper player in the world In the world OK, that's up there, that's up there. Yeah, the fastest Minesweeper player in the world currently does like a 40 second expert mode Minesweeper and I can do it in 100. So I'm still a minute behind.

Shannon: 48:14

Yes, right, we're rooting for you, but it's way faster.

Alanis: 48:17

Thank you so much. It's way faster than like. I'm definitely in the top percentile, but I still have a minute to go before I'm the fastest in the world.

Kathleen: 48:24

Keep us updated on your progress.

Alanis: 48:26

Thank you so much. Thank you, I absolutely will.

Kathleen: 48:30

Good, I think, to bring it home. One final question I would have is what advice would you share with young women that are looking to follow in your footsteps, or maybe just to get into the space in general? What would you share with them?

Alanis: 48:44

So I actually I was at the Los Angeles Auto Show recently and I was asked to talk to a group of high schoolers and give them my advice for getting into the automotive industry and doing what I do, basically, and I told all of them just life advice in general is to be yourself, because we try so hard to fit in and be normal and be what people expect of us. And I was like I spent so many years of my life, especially when I was in high school, especially when I was a high schooler, trying to be normal and trying to not be made fun of. And why would I want to do that? Make fun of me, I don't care, I'm going to be me and it has worked out so well for me. And I see that a lot of the people who acted normally, they're still trying to be normal and I'm over here having the time of my life. I will call up a NASCAR driver and be like yo, let's go to medieval times dinner and tournament, come on, and they'll come right Because we have fun. I think that's really, really important and I told all of these high schoolers be yourself. If you're weird as hell, be weird as hell. Be yourself and meet people and be genuine when you meet people. Don't just meet people and want to use them for something. Take interest in who they are and they will take interest in you and they will help you. I try to help as many people as I can so when people reach out to me, sometimes I miss the messages, but I really do try a lot of the time to help people out and I try even harder when they have taken a prolonged interest in just talking to me and learning about me and me learning about them. People will put in the effort to you that you put into them and that's just how you make connections and you make a lot of lasting friendships and just acquaintanceships in this industry.

Shannon: 50:43

Well, I think that is all great advice and I will say, like the fun aspect has come through in this conversation tenfold, so thank you. I'm so glad we do have one last, I think, fun question that we like to ask everyone and I think you have a good answer, just given some of the things we've heard. If, in a hypothetical situation, you owned a car dealership, what would be your snack in the customer waiting lounge while people are waiting for service? And like there's no budget, no limitations, go for it.

Kathleen: 51:14

You can have fried. I was going to say you can have fried peanut butter and jellies if you want. That's an option.

Alanis: 51:20

Oh, my goodness, that's a really, really good option Fried peanut butter and jellies up there. But I feel like that's an easy answer because that is from this weekend and I don't want to go the easy route Most recent, I would say knock off cheez-its and chocolate milk All right.

Shannon: 51:40

Okay, this is very specific.

Alanis: 51:41

Knock off cheez-its.

Shannon: 51:42

Kind of channeling like middle school lunch a little bit. I think that's when. I had those two things together a lot. Okay, just any knock off cheez-it.

Alanis: 51:52

No, no, no, specifically H-E-B cheese squares, because I actually like them better than the on brand.

Shannon: 51:58

Okay, yeah, maybe we'll get a sponsorship, yeah they are.

Alanis: 52:01

yes, they are better than the on brand cheez-its and I really like on brand cheez-its.

Kathleen: 52:06

Yeah, I'm a cheez-it girl.

Alanis: 52:07

But those H-E-B cheese squares, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh.

Shannon: 52:11

Yeah, I'm enough to look these up.

Alanis: 52:12

They ripped off of cheez-its and made it really really good.

Shannon: 52:15

Does this extend to white cheddar or are we? We're talking traditional cheddar.

Alanis: 52:20

I'm traditional but I know that a lot of people like the different flavors I would be fine with, like, a cheez-it bar. Yeah, I would be fine with that. I would be fine with the cheez-it bar at my dealership service Cheez-it bar and chocolate milk and I would never leave the dealership because I would eat cheez-its and chocolate milk for the rest of my life.

Shannon: 52:40

I love that. I'm cool with that. I've got to tell you this is you're usually when we say like no budget, people are going crazy, but I like how you're more straightforward. No, we've got two things.

Kathleen: 52:51

Simple to the point. It's what people want.

Alanis: 52:53

Two things Cheez-its and chocolate milk. Oh wow, no, I heard no budget and I was like oh, I don't, I don't need no budget, I got this.

Kathleen: 53:05

Well, thank you so much. We truly have enjoyed spending time with you Again. Your passion is inspiring. It makes me want to enjoy my job every day a little bit more. It's incredible.

Alanis: 53:17

Thank you. I you know I love my job. I think it's great. My my newest day job is with cars and bids, as we talked about, and I just make videos about cars on YouTube. That is literally my job with cars and bids, and that is so cool because it's something I love to do driving cars and talking about cars and posting videos about them and I have fun every single day and I wish that for everyone else.

Shannon: 53:44

So if our listeners want to hear more, could you tell us your social media platforms how we can find you, your book where we can find you, and all that just.

Alanis: 53:52

Absolutely so. Every social media platform except for YouTube. My handle is Alanis in in, as in Nicole King KING, and that is because a man named Alan took all of my social handles in 2009 because Alan is King and Alan never used those social handles again. Alan is King of ruining my life. Thank you, alan, yep, thank you, alan. So it's Alanis in King on everything. I have tons of emails that have gone to AlanisKing somewhere and they are not. They are not for Alan, they are for me, but on YouTube I am AlanisKing because Alan did not get me on YouTube. So Alanis in King on everything. Alanisking. On YouTube. You can find where to purchase Racing with Rich Energy anywhere in the world. If you just go to richenergybookcom, we have instructions for wherever you are, instructions for an audio book. We had a wonderful voice professional named Linda Jones. Read the book for Audible if you want to have an audio book. So all of that information is on richenergybookcom. And then, what else do I do? Cars and Bids. We have a YouTube channel with Cars and Bids. I do histories of cars, drive cars. Now I'm doing like POV videos too, where I go to car launches and stuff, so you can follow those. I do my YouTube channel. I just do a bunch of wild stuff related to cars and motorsports, so that's fun too. But yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at.

Kathleen: 55:26

Well good, thank you, we are so excited. I'm definitely going to have to read Racing with Rich Energy and try a fried peanut butter and jelly soon, but oh man. I'm telling you, you will not be disappointed. We'll report back. Well, thank you so much Again. We really appreciated it.

Alanis: 55:42

Thank y'all.

Kathleen: 55:43

What an episode. I cannot get over how much she has accomplished.

Shannon: 55:49

That was just so much fun also. What a fun conversation beginning to end. I'm so happy that we could have her on.

Kathleen: 55:55

Yeah, she is very cool. So, shan, tell us a little bit about your biggest takeaways.

Shannon: 56:00

There were a lot, but the one that I definitely related to most as like seeing, hearing a story that she told and seeing how I related to that with my career is just the idea of like wanting to be validated in your career versus like having the confidence to not need every single person's validation, like her. Example of the person who was quizzing her on how to change oil just to make sure that she knew how, first of all made me roll my eyes. But I mean, I can think of examples in meetings where I know the person asking me the question already knows the answer. They're just trying to figure out, if I know the answer. Yeah, exactly, and she summed it up perfectly and she said you know, while you will change some people, you won't change everyone. And like, as soon as she was able to accept that she just started enjoying her career so much more and so, I think, that's important for anyone you know in any career, but also in this industry, specifically for women, to remember. Not everyone is always going to look at you and think you deserve to be there just because you're there. You know there will be some times when people want to add that extra hurdle for you, but you don't have to cross it every time. You know being there is enough. I think that was really cool.

Kathleen: 57:10

Yeah, it's a reminder to enjoy the ride, but you know you're not going to win everyone over, so don't spend time trying.

Shannon: 57:17

Yeah, what about you, kat? What was your take away? Yeah?

Kathleen: 57:20

I think the other piece was her advice to just be yourself. And you know, similarly to what you mentioned, it can be tough in this industry. I think, especially starting out, you feel the need to fit a mold. You know, when she was first writing she didn't want to share her favorite drivers. But as she began to share some of those more personal details, she became more passionate, her content was elevated and she just enjoyed it more. And I think everyone does their best work when they're passionate, when they're happy, when they're enjoying themselves.

Shannon: 57:49

Absolutely. I'm glad she shared her favorite drivers. I learned so much about all of them by you know, learning a little bit about her passion and journey into motorsports. That was cool.

Kathleen: 57:57

Yeah, it really did make me. I can't wait to read her book. I'm so excited.

Shannon: 58:01

Yes, absolutely. That story sounds wild. I love the investigative journalism that she did personally. That's so cool, so I can't wait to read it yeah. Well cool. I think that about wraps it up. Of course, we would love to hear from you all, so make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. All of the reviews that you guys leave really do make our day. So leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, and then check us out on Instagram at getinherlane, and we will see you next time.