Purdue grad working as engineer for Arrow McLaren, one of few women trackside

INDIANAPOLIS — Before the Indy Cars hit the track on Sunday, there’s a lot of work that goes into making them race-ready.

Each car requires a team of people to make sure everything goes right and most of those people are men. However, Arrow McLaren systems engineer Lizzie Todd is one of the few women in the pits keeping the cars running.

When Pato O’Ward takes off from the pits and races around the speedway at over 200 miles an hour, Todd’s goal is to make sure he’s worried about nothing other than winning.

“It’s my job to worry,” Todd said. “He just drives.”

Anything in the car that has a wire, including the all-important steering wheel, is her responsibility.

“I’m responsible for all the electronics on the car. So anything that has a wire or a sensor involved, I’m responsible for calibrating it making sure we’re getting the most accurate data as possible,” Todd said. “It is a lot of data coming through. A lot of stuff that can go wrong that I have to be on top of.”

She spends race day posted up in the timing stand. Doing things like taking in data, doing calculations and helping make vital decisions on things like pitting and fuel usage.

Todd said it’s something she’s dreamed of doing ever since attending her first race in 2006.

“From a very young age it was kind of like this is going to be my path,” Todd said. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

Todd entered Purdue’s motorsports engineering program at IUPUI and went on to work with Andretti Global before going to Arrow McLaren.

Because she is a woman in a field dominated by men, she said she hopes when little girls come to the track that they see her and it shows them that they can do this too.

“I love talking to them. I love asking them if they’re interested in this,” Todd said. “It’s really kind of full circle to help inspire the next generation of women that want to be in the sport.”

She’s now focused on last-minute preps with the hope of getting O’Ward his first win at the Indy 500. While she does that, she said she still has trouble believing that she gets paid to do it.

“I love what I do. It’s fun,” Todd said. “You have to remind yourself of that, but I get to play with race cars for a living so that’s pretty cool.”

She said they get a lot of high school and college groups visiting and she always encourages young girls to get involved.

Purdue’s motorsports program that Todd attended will remain based in Indianapolis after the split of IUPUI takes effect this summer.

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