How Drive to Survive and a Facebook Ad Kick-Started Emma Male's IndyCar Career | FanAmp Fast Lane

Emma's start in motorsports

‍#1. What was the first moment that you discovered racing?

I'm one of the Drive to Survive people who watched during COVID, but I took a different route. I love rally [car] racing. I always say if I were to leave IndyCar, that'd be one place I would go is rally. I kind of fell into IndyCar. I thought IndyCar and NASCAR were the same thing, to be entirely honest, which looking back, is kind of mortifying! But I've gotten some cool opportunities, like my first internship was with Andretti, of all places, and then it's just kind of snowballed from there.

Logan: What interested you about rally car?

I think it's just that it takes a better driver in my opinion. Don't get me wrong like I love Graham [Rahal] to death and Louis [Foster] and Mick [Schumacher], they're amazing. But I feel like it's a lot more technical and it's constantly changing the conditions so it's not so much engineering but more driver-based. And also some of the places that they race, you're just like, how do you race a car there? Like, I don't even want to drive going 10 miles an hour, let alone 100.

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#2. When did you decide that the racing industry is where you wanted to build your career?

So it would have been my senior year of high school. I played golf my final three years of high school and I ended up getting a golf scholarship and the school I chose in the end had a motorsports marketing program that was brand new. So it was highly specialized and it just fell into place and I got a scholarship. I got some financial compensation from the school to help me out as a freshman, which isn't always heard of with some of the golf scholarships, especially at smaller schools. And then it had the program, motorsports marketing. And I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something STEM-based entirely to begin with, whether it was engineering or science, but everything kind of fell into place with the program.

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#3. What was the first step you took to launch your career? How did you find the contacts to start turning it into a job rather than just a hobby?

I was always raised with a really good work ethic, so my parents always said if you want something you're going to have to go get it. Like we can help you along the way, don't get us wrong, but a lot of it you have to do yourself. So what I did different from other students in my program is I immediately sought out contacts at different teams. Again, I didn't know what IndyCar was, so I was trying to go to the European Rally [Championship] or to the ARA, which is the American Rally Association. So that was my goal out of school.

Facebook, of all places, was my first way I got into racing. I actually worked for a local motorcycle performance shop to help get marketing and events experience. Because it's kind of adjacent, but not, and it was still some customer service. So I was still public facing rather than internal. And then I put an ad for myself out on Facebook in one of these racing groups and I ended up meeting—his name's Max, and his dad owns a customer racing team. They do Porsche Sprint now, but they were in IMSA and then they were doing WRL at the time, which is World Racing League. And they're like, "We need someone to come help us serve food." As dumb as that sounds, I'd still do that now. If I can help, I'll help. "You can post on social media, if they have an interview, you can help with that."

And I wasn't getting paid, they were paying for me to be there, I had a place to stay and food and all that. But I wasn't getting paid, so I just took the leap. And then the Andretti internship opened up and I applied and I ended up getting it because of my experience prior to that.

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Emma's current role

#4. How would you describe your current role?

I don't want to call myself a ringleader. I manage monkeys in a way, as it can be fun to post on social media, don't get me wrong, it's fun to make! I made a Spotify Wrapped this morning. I saw somewhere on Reddit, it was like 8 AM it'll come out so I'm like, okay, great. I was ready and I wanted stuff prepared because I'm a Spotify user myself. So, I had to post something!

The posting is maybe 10% of my job. Whether it's gathering assets that go into it, there's a lot of planning that goes into it. When I was at JHR [Juncos Hollinger Racing], we essentially sold social media assets, which some teams do, like sell campaigns. So I managed a lot of the partner stuff over there. Compared to here, we have a lot more partners, but a lot of it's more fluid. So I'm kind of still part of the overarching campaign, but scaled back a little.

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#5. What are the most rewarding and the most challenging parts of your role?

Rewarding

Social media you can definitely see some of the benefits in a way. I don't think benefits is the right word, but it is cool seeing people come in. I had Gordon Ramsay like one of the posts and I saw that and I was like, oh my god, Gordon Ramsay! It's cool, you kind of fangirl for a moment, but then you take a step back and focus again.

We do get to go to a lot of cool places, which is fun. My favorite is Road America, if you haven't been. I'm also a big foodie, so I like to try new restaurants. And then I get to hang out with a lot of the guys at work, which is cool.

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Challenging

But then at the same time, there's a flip side of it. I look at my calendar from January all the way to September, and I have no life. But we're ending at Laguna and my birthday is in September, so hopefully I'll stay out there and celebrate!

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#6. What are the three qualities that have helped you succeed at this role?

Ambition

You have to have some sort of ambition to succeed in any role. Here, everyone generally has the same ambition, whether it's advancing their own career. I'm so early in my career, I want to keep on advancing it and advancing it. I tell Jay [Frye], our Chief Operating Officer and our Team President, I'm coming for your job when I'm probably 20 years on from now, but I'm coming for your job. I like that corner office over there!

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Work Ethic

But it’s a lot of work to get there. 

It's a lot of long days and you do get some of the benefits. Obviously, poles, wins, whatever it might be. You get to get some of those rewards in return, but it’s hard work that goes into it.

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Creativity

You also have to be creative with your time. How you manage it, what you do with it. But then also be creative with the social media side. How can we still stay in our lane and start to branch out? I keep on trying to branch out more and more. And there's this new wave of the team. So I'm trying to match that. And some people are like, well, why are we doing that? And I have to go back and explain myself, and say, let's try this. If it doesn't work, it's okay. We just won't do it again. We'll reassess. And then maybe we can try again, just with a few tweaks.

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Emma's advice

#7. If you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what would that be?

Don't be so hard on yourself. I thought I was so behind, I still feel like I'm behind and now I'm 22 and here I am in a full-time career!

I've always thought I'm not doing enough, because I see other people in my same role, but I have to remind myself they’re 10 years older than me doing that role. So I just take a step back and just look around. And it's like, OK, you're doing all right. Yes, things might go wrong. You're there. But everything happens for a reason. And good or bad, the whole Murphy's Law I abide by—what will happen, will happen, whether it’s good or bad.

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#8. What advice would you give to someone looking to be in your position?

What did Dory say?

“Just keep swimming.”

There's some rough days, don't get me wrong. But just keep going through them. I have people reach out to me all the time asking, "How'd you get your job?" And I'm just kind of blunt, like a lot of it is luck, don't get me wrong. I was very lucky, but I also worked my ass off. 

There's always a part of me that fears that I'm getting fired today, I'm getting fired tomorrow. And obviously you don't want to go through life that way. But I do that to myself to keep myself on my toes as well as trying to keep innovating in the same way. But I think that it all comes down to just trying your best and to just keep on going good or bad.

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Emma's career highlights

#9. What's been the most memorable moment of your career so far?

My first IndyCar race I ever worked with in Andretti, Colton Herta won at the Indy road course. I think it was my third day working with them. 

In racing, we have hat bags for every sponsor, whether they're contingency sponsors—so series, team partners, personal partners, whatever it might be. IndyCar will give us a Firestone hat, an IndyCar hat, a race hat, whatever it might be, but then we have a lot of personal team and driver stuff as well. So I'm running to the truck with one of our PR reps to go grab those, which was fun. So that's probably up there in my top three.

Another one would be Conor [Daly's] podium last year with Juncos, which was kind of cool. Not kind of cool, it was cool. It was the first podium for the team in IndyCar, which was amazing. Also, I always wear earpieces or a radio every race. And I was doing Indy NXT stuff mainly that year, but assisting in some IndyCar stuff here or there.

So in Milwaukee, they had to do an engine change. And I was like, wow, this is gonna suck, he's right at the back of the grid. And then it's the opening lap and I hear his spotter go:

“Inside, inside, inside, inside, inside. And he's like, Conor, you just passed like 10 people. I can't keep saying inside.”

And so seeing him pass, I think it was like 10 or 11 people in one go. Just keep on going, just keep on driving. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And his mom was there. And so towards the end of the race, I think everyone was just kind of really jittery. Seeing the team erupt into cheer, there was a lot of hard work and we weren't getting a lot of benefits at the time and that was one of them.

And then the last one would probably be a toss up between Takuma [Sato] this past year at the [Indy 500] qualifying in second place, which was really cool, or Louis’ first IndyCar pole, which was really cool. It was good for his sponsors and it was great for the team.

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#10. Is there a social media trend that you're excited to do with Mick Schumacher throughout the season or something that you're excited to introduce him to IndyCar with?

He doesn't really know IndyCar, like he knows the car and the engineering stuff now, but he doesn't see the fan side of it. The fan side of it is totally different. The access fans get is insane at some races. Like you can just go buy a grid pass, which is cool. Or some races have an open paddock, which is amazing in comparison to Formula 1 where you're going to spend ten grand to try to get a suite access which potentially can get you down into pit lane.

So I think I'm just excited to show him the fan access. We have autograph signing sessions every weekend. I don't think Formula 1 has that.

We're also just a lot more relaxed... I post memes. Everyone likes memes! His fan base is starting to follow us more and more. And so I'm just trying to kind of almost in a sense preach that to him or show him that we’re much more chill and it’s a very inclusive environment.

Want to learn more about other professionals across motorsport series? Then check out all of our Fast Lane interviews, or jump right into one of these:

• Jacob Donahue on working in Motorsports PR
• Lucille Dust on being an IndyCar journalist