Team Mopar’s Cindi Lux to compete at Detroit Grand Prix

Posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 12:07 PM EDT.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND IS NEARLY UPON US, AND THAT MEANS BIG DOINGS ON BELLE ISLE, AS COMPETITORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD TAKE PART IN THE ANNUAL DETROIT GRAND PRIX RACES.

 

PETE MISIAK CAUGHT UP WITH CINDI LUX, ONE OF THE DRIVERS COMPETING THIS WEEKEND:

 

 

The engine’s roar is music to the ears of Cindi Lux. The Team Mopar driver will compete in Sunday’s SPEED World Challenge GT on Belle Isle in Detroit, Mich., as world-class auto racing will be on display in the Motor City over Labor Day weekend 2008.

 

CINDI LUX—“We do a sprint race which is a little bit different from the other two sanctioning bodies that are running this weekend on Belle Isle, which is more of an endurance-type of race. We do a sprint format, where basically we have to get the job done in about 45- to 50-minutes, so it’s going to be a little more, it’s going to be a little bit more entertaining, let’s just say, for the folks in the stands, because, yeah, we’ve got to start driving towards the front really, really quickly, so, it’s pretty exciting.”

 

The races will feature the American Le Mans Series, the IndyCar Series and, new for ‘08, the SCCA SPEED World Challenge GT Championship, of  which Lux competes. Lux says she says she confident of putting on a good show, and when asked about the Belle Isle course, she said:

 

CINDI LUX—“Haven’t even seen it. Haven’t even been downtown. You know, honestly, yeah, it’s brand new, that’s the other aspect is that it’s brand-spanking new to our series, so none of the drivers within a few folks that may have participated in some previous events, but to be really honest the track has changed so much in the umteen years, last year was the first time it changed in the new configuration, so this is only the second year that they have run that configuration. So, to answer your question, never even been there, never even seen a layout, I’ve looked at a few things and I watched last year’s race a few times from an in-car position and so forth, but luckily for me, what I do for a living, I’m on the racetrack a lot , so for me, learning race tracks happens fairly quickly.”

 

Lux and her No. 2 Team Mopar Dodge Viper Competition Coupe will compete on the 2.35 mile, 14-turn street course. As a relatively new member of Team Mopar, she says the association is a good fit.

 

CINDI LUX—“To me, it’s like an old shoe. It fits so well. These people within Mopar, they get how to activate programs, they understand the dynamics, I understand my role as a race car driver with the team and so forth, is to give them feedback, back on technical parts and so forth.”

 

 

Whenever she’s interviewed the issue that always seems to be the giant elephant sitting in the room is the fact that Lux is a woman competing in a traditionally male-dominated sport. She has won more than a dozen championships in her 18 year racing career, and many more accolades and honors within the sport over the years, and in that time she’s developed a very healthy philosophy that bodes well with her on-track success

 

CINDI LUX—“You know, like everything else, the car doesn’t know if you’re driving or I’m driving. Truly, the car’s going to do what the driver tells it to do. So, I figured out that game quickly, to where I better learn how to drive a car pretty quickly pretty fast because that’s what’s going to get me ahead in the world. If I actually ever listened to the word ‘no,’ you know, ‘No, you can’t do that, Cindi,’ ‘No, you shouldn’t do that, Cindi,’ ‘No, we prefer you not doing that,’ I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now. It’s not that I’m defiant, not that I’m a kind of rebel, I’m like, ‘This is my heart, this is my passion, we’ve got to go for our dreams.’”    

 

But with all that success and winning attitude beside her, Cindi Lux is not above resorting to a little superstition to ward off bad karma…

 

CINDI LUX—“I wear a certain pair of socks every day, I put on my headphones in a certain order, I do all this stuff. When it comes to race day, after qualifying, before the race, about three hours period before a race, I kind of disappear.” 

 

And, true confessions time, when she’s alone with her thoughts before a race, does she meditate, pray, take a nap? Nope, none of the above.

 

CINDI LUX—“What I actually do is I go into our transporter and I put in the same movie for every race, and I sit there and watch What About Bob? That’s the deal. And I put that in and I watch that, and I’ve watched that about 10 times this year, but I sit there and I laugh and it gets my mind off it.”

 

PETE MISIAK—“So it’s not Days of Thunder, it’s What About Bob? Truth be told?”

 

CINDI LUX—“(laughs) What About Bob? Yeah, I can pretty much recite pretty much every line from that movie, so if you need tips, let me know.” 

 

They say in show business that even the most veteran of performers still gets nervous before hitting the stage, and after all these years, Cindi Lux feels the same way.

 

CINDI LUX—“I still get as nervous as can be before the start of a race, and I keep asking myself, ‘What am I doing?’ The thing about it that I truly enjoy the most is the business side of things, it’s the building of the team, building of the synergy there, relating to the consumers. To me the most relaxing time is when I strap on the helmet, and I plug in the radio, and I say goodbye to the crew, and it’s just me and the car.”  

 

I’m Pete Misiak reporting.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 12:07 PM EDT and is filed under Mopar and tagged Audio. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed.