An all-female team will enter the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2016, as was announced on Friday, May 15, 2015.
Grace Autosport is the brainchild of Beth Paretta, former marketing director for SRT Motorsports/Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. She has formed a core group that includes driver Katherine Legge, a two-time Indianapolis 500 starter, aerodynamicist Catherine Crawford, motorsports engineer Lauren Elkins, junior design engineer Jessica Rowe and motorsports public relations veteran Barbara Burns.
"This is a very visible campaign for women's empowerment," said Paretta in the IndyCar press release. "Motor racing is one of the few sports where men and women can compete side by side and win."
While the 2016 Indianapolis 500 is the team's first goal, longer term goals include a full season entry in the Verizon IndyCar series and eventual expansion into other forms of motorsports.
Legge stressed that one of the team's main goals is developing a path for young women interested in working in motorsports in any capacity, whether it be driving, engineering, management or any other role. The 34-year-old, who has raced in the Indianapolis 500 twice before, has been a proponent of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education as a spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of the USA.
"What we're trying to do is make it a positive thing, get rid of the stigma of being a woman in motorsport and make it something that everybody is very proud of," Legge said. "It's going to be very successful. So I'm very much looking forward to the challenge to seeing it from the beginning, from an idea, kind of turn out and bloom into something very special."