Women's Motorsports Network Podcast & Let's Talk Racing LIVE

The 14-year-old girl making waves in the male-dominated world of motorsports

• Melinda Russell • Season 9 • Episode 399

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What drives a 14-year-old girl to spend scorching summer days at racetracks instead of swimming pools? For Chloe Mazzagatti, racing isn't just a hobby—it's in her blood.

From her pink #87 Supra late model to her remarkable story of determination, Chloe represents the changing face of motorsports. Traveling from New Franklin, Ohio to compete in the prestigious Kalamazoo Clash, this young racer shares her journey from Bandolero cars to late models in just five years. Her accomplishments are nothing short of extraordinary—track championships at multiple speedways, a dramatic seven-barrel roll crash she walked away from, and winning her second-ever late model race against seasoned competitors.

Behind Chloe's success lies a supportive racing family. Her father races late models (often competing against her), while her 10-year-old brother Michael races Bandoleros and Legend cars. This motorsports-centered lifestyle necessitated homeschooling, allowing Chloe to balance education with her demanding race schedule. Rather than maintaining friendships with school peers who don't understand her passion, she's built connections with fellow racers across North America, staying connected through racing simulators and social media.

What makes Chloe's story particularly compelling is her natural talent combined with unwavering dedication. Qualifying P1 in her first late model race and finishing P2 after starting last shows her exceptional skill behind the wheel. Now facing new challenges at the faster, high-momentum Kalamazoo Speedway, she demonstrates the importance of pushing boundaries and gaining diverse track experience.

Racing has given this teenager purpose, community, and direction. As she sets her sights on Pro Late Models, CRA events, and potentially ARCA and NASCAR opportunities, Chloe embodies the future of women in motorsports—breaking barriers one lap at a time, with her Hey Dudes shoes firmly on the pedals.

Subscribe to follow more inspiring stories of women shaping the motorsports landscape, from teenage phenoms like Chloe to the trailblazers paving their way.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, the show that puts the spotlight on the incredible women who fuel the world of motorsports, from drivers to crew members, engineers to fans and everyone in between. We're here to celebrate the trailblazers, dreamers and doers shaping the sport we love. Each episode we share inspiring stories of females of all ages, from every corner of the motorsports universe past, present and future. It's a journey through the seasons of life filled with heartfelt moments, laughter and a whole lot of horsepower. So, whether you're a lifelong fan, a racer yourself or simply curious about the extraordinary women behind the wheel, settle in, relax and enjoy a fun and uplifting ride with us. This is the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, connecting and celebrating women in motorsports, one story at a time. Let's hit the track.

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, this is Melinda Russell with the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, and this is actually take two, because we're at the racetrack and, as most of you know, the Internet's not always a hundred percent at the racetrack. But this young gal sitting here and no, that's not me, that's Chloe Mazzagotti. Oh, I said it right. Right, I hate butchering people's names, so I always try to make sure I get it right. So Chloe is here racing in the Kalamazoo Clash, and if you haven't heard of the Clash, you better google it, because it's a huge race and we're gonna welcome her first of all to Kalamazoo and then, chloe, why don't you start by telling me a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I'm'm Chloe Mazzagatti and I race the pink 87 Supra.

Speaker 1:

L08 model.

Speaker 2:

We are from New Franklin, Ohio, and we came up here for the Kalamazoo Clash and we're hoping to maybe get a finish. Maybe get a win. Yeah, maybe get a win.

Speaker 1:

That'd be awesome for sure. So you have a little brother.

Speaker 2:

My little brother, Michael. He races Bandolero and legend cars, which they don't run them here, sadly, but he's only 10 so we'll be getting him started and late model soon.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you are, but you can go ahead. Sorry, it's, it's, you know it's race day.

Speaker 2:

You got to keep working.

Speaker 1:

So so your little brother races, and then your dad races.

Speaker 2:

Yep, my dad races late model so I get to race him every weekend back in Ohio so it's definitely interesting and rough on my mom, but you know.

Speaker 1:

So he's not racing. Your dad's not racing this weekend, no we just couldn't get enough help.

Speaker 2:

And then we have to shoot back to Ohio tomorrow to race, so he'll be racing tomorrow, okay. It was just too much with all the cars.

Speaker 1:

So you and he will race against each other tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

And me and my brother will race against each other tomorrow. We'll fly cars to the track tomorrow Norton Raceway Park, the old Barber and Speedway. So it's definitely going to be a lot of fun and a hot day.

Speaker 1:

Hot day. It's a hot day here in Kalamazoo too, for sure. So you came from Ohio, and I know you're homeschooled Yep, because you can't do this, really if you're not, and you know, I think that's why so many more kids, especially girls I interview women, girls. They are able to do this because of homeschooling, and it's amazing. You know, covid did a lot of bad things, but it did some good things too, and it taught us that we don't have to be in school.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's the reason I, you know I'm not in school, which I figured I'd probably be homeschooled anyway with racing. Once I really got into it, I was like this is what I want to do in a career. So they decided to homeschool me, and my brother's homeschooled, so my mom's my teacher every day.

Speaker 1:

Does that work out okay?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we definitely have our moments being in the house 24-7 together, but you know it works out nice.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's better. So when you come to the racetrack, um, you know what's what's your favorite thing, why do you? Why are you at the racetrack?

Speaker 2:

it's going to be probably 90 today, I don't know, it's hotter than heck. It's already 92.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, so it's already hot in kalamazoo. It's humid. Why are you at the racetrack out here, when you could be at home swimming, or you could be at the lake, or you could be playing softball or doing a hundred other things, why are you at the racetrack?

Speaker 2:

just I. I've always been around it my whole life so it's always been I want to go to the track. You know, once you get started you can't stop. So you know just the adrenaline of it making laps, working on the car, being out here with everybody too just amazing group of people over here on track and traveling and seeing different tracks, different people, meeting new people from other states it's just awesome and you know there's people like we would have never met if you hadn't been in racing and you meet so many people that become family.

Speaker 1:

they just do. And other sports don't necessarily get it, because softball teams, soccer teams, they travel, but it's not the same. It's just not the same. No, and the thing about racing is you can do this until you're too old to get in the car. Oh yeah, you know, and you're not going to play softball for that long. And so you know, I know you had friends at school before you were homeschooled. I'm sure you still have a lot of those friends. What do they think? That you're racing? You're gone all the time, what you know? How does that impact?

Speaker 2:

friendships at home. I really, you know, I just kind of like the odd one at school. I like to get dirty. You know I wasn't. I didn't really fit in, almost it was. It was really weird, but I really don't stay intact with any of them anymore. I got friends from Nashville to Canada because when we always go travel or racing they understand me more. I still talk to a few people from school. They just don't understand when I talk. They're like what are you talking about? So it's nice having racing friends from other states. We all get on our racing simulators every night and we all talk and get on the race. So it's really a good community.

Speaker 1:

Well, technology has definitely allowed you to have friends. I mean, I have the same thing, I have a lot of friends.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't homeschooled, I have a lot of friends from way back in the day and still friends here in Kalamazoo. But I have so many more friends from all over the world actually that I've interviewed and once you sit and talk to them and get to know them, you feel like they're your friend and you feel like the next time you see them or talk to them, you know you really develop those relationships. And that's the thing about racing that I think we take away from it and sometimes we take that for granted. That we have all these friends, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But I could go anywhere in the country and if my car broke down I could find somebody to help me.

Speaker 2:

That's what makes it nice. Yeah, yeah, for sure so you started?

Speaker 1:

how long ago when you first started racing, and what did you start in?

Speaker 2:

so I started five years ago in the Vanduulero car, so I started there in 2020 at Harvard and Speedway, which is now Norton Raceway Park. I was 2023 track champion at Midville Speedway, then 2024 at Norton Raceway Park and then also in 2024, I started racing Legend cars, and now we're in a late model. I still do race the Legend car weekly. We just don't travel with it as much. Now that we do have a late model, I love that.

Speaker 1:

So late model is your favorite of all the things you've driven.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, and for it being my first year in it, you know I still love it. That's all I want to do is race. That's why we're here right now. Yeah, Because we're not just around the corner from New. Franklin Ohio.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's about four and a half five hours, yeah, so not terribly far, but it's not something. You just jump in the car and go every weekend, and I know you were at New Paris, I think. What'd you think of that track?

Speaker 2:

You know it's definitely different. You know I was with Somerset and Slurway. I think we got six plates.

Speaker 1:

You know we were having some car issues, but I think it was a good night. I love the track.

Speaker 2:

I love any track though, so I didn't say too much, but it was a nice track. Nice people I mean. Everywhere you go it's just so many nice people you know, so welcoming and love to have you at the track. They do.

Speaker 1:

So we talked about. You're 14 years old, bryce Bozell, from here in Kalamazoo. You know him, he's also 14 years old. You see more and more younger kids I call you kids in racing, and so you know why do you think more and more you're? You're young to be in a super late model, but you've been racing for five years. He's been right. He's been around racing since he was born, just like you. Why do you think more and more younger kids are getting into the bigger cars?

Speaker 2:

So I almost feel like it's the parents. Even just if the parents like racing, if your parents don't even have to race, but if your parents or grandparents like racing, just taking you to the track, you're like, man, I would love to do that sometime. Or if your parents do race, you're like I'm going to make you race, just like me, and you want to take after them and do what they do. Yeah, so I think it's really just family and friends, even if you you just go out to the track. I know people that just go out to the track on a saturday night. There's nothing else to do, and now they're racing. You know it's just something you never think you're gonna do. And then you go to it and you're like I love that it gets in your blood for sure yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1:

You're homeschooled, you travel, you race, you have I'm sure you have to still clean your room and do all those things. How do you keep? How do you keep yourself? I want to say balanced. I don't know if you really know what maybe that means exactly, but how do you stay balanced and get your homework done and do all the things you have to do?

Speaker 2:

yeah, you know we'll get up early, we'll get our schoolwork all done early. You know we've got to stay there until 3 o'clock, so we'll get it all done and then my dad gets home around 5 or 6. We'll go out to the shop until 8 o'clock and get everything ready. We've got a lot of cars. Yeah, because he races late, mom, my brother races, with all the traveling. You know we do take our schoolwork with us. We bring our iPad, so on long trips we get all that done or we'll get ahead, so like we'll do a whole bunch during one day so we can like skip the next few days. Yeah, so it's just stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, keeping it balanced. Yeah, absolutely when you started racing. You know, I think your mom was a race fan as well, so she probably was okay with it. But it, but you know, do we want our little girls racing with all these men? What does she think about it?

Speaker 2:

she was definitely wishy-washy at first. You know she's like I don't know about all this racing stuff, but now that I've been doing it so long. She knows I love it and she knows I'm. You know I'm safe and I've had some pretty hard hits. So she knows I'm safe and you know we have a lot of faith in the Lord and I know he keeps us safe.

Speaker 1:

So she has nothing to worry about yeah, so do you have a race day like routine, like this is race day, it happens to be a Friday, but, um, what's you know? Do you have any like superstitions? Or do you always wear that same shirt, or do you have anything like that that you always do on?

Speaker 2:

race day? No, I just always have my black. Hey dudes on okay, that's just my thing. I always gotta have hey dudes on the track okay, so your thing is your hey dudes.

Speaker 1:

I have some hey dudes. They're great, aren't? They love them for sure. So, um, what would you say if a little girl and her mom came up to you and they said chloe, my little girl wants to be just like you. What would you say to them? To encourage them? Because obviously you think racing is a good sport for girls to be in. So what would you tell them?

Speaker 2:

um, just I would. I'd be amazed first, you know, just being someone's inspiration, then wanting to be just like me and inspiring little kids out there. You know, just, if you really want to do it, have your mind set to doing it. I mean you will do it. I mean, get sponsors, get help. You know everybody's willing to help around here. Yeah, I know, if you want to race, you will be able to race, and if that's really what you want to do, yeah, so sponsors, how about you?

Speaker 1:

how do you get sponsors and who are they?

Speaker 2:

so my dad is a lot of them. We own a lot of scrap yards so we have City Scrap and Salvage Shakers, auto Recycling, arlington Auto and Truck Wrecking. Mickey and Connie from Springfield they've been around racing. They used to race, now they have a roller rink so they wanted to help me out. I just can't give a big enough thank you to Steve Needles with Needle Speed Solutions. He thank you to Steve Needles with Needle Speed Solutions. You know he's the reason we're here. Basically, you know he always gets our car set up. He'll go to Nashville, he'll go to Florida, anywhere we want him to go, and he's just. We want to be able to do it without him.

Speaker 1:

Big help and he's raced here quite a long time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this used to be his home track. Yeah, so he's pretty good here for sure.

Speaker 1:

So um social media, you're just the perfect age that you know. I'm surprised you don't have your phone out while we're talking. So how would people follow you on social media and how do you use it to promote yourself?

Speaker 2:

so we just got our social media started. Actually, you know, I'm still not a lot of habit. They just let me have facebook. So we have mazagati racing on facebook, instagram and x, twitter or whatever. Yeah, um so mazagati Racing on Facebook, instagram and. Twitter or whatever. So Mazzagati Racing, all of them. And then I do some stuff on my Chloe Mazzagati page, but that's about it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right.

Speaker 2:

We post all our updates and everything.

Speaker 1:

Your schedule, like where you're going to be. All that, yeah, and you have a website that we could go to as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Chloe Mazzagati.

Speaker 1:

And then we also have my brother's website, michaelmazzagaticom. Yeah, so we could follow you and if you're on flow or something we could watch, even if you're not in my backyard like you are today. I was so, so excited when I saw that, because I you know you can't miss the clash if you live here, and I hadn't really paid attention that much to who was coming because I knew I was coming no matter what. And then I saw the post about you like okay.

Speaker 1:

I gotta go out there in the afternoon and find this Chloe girl, I need to talk to her. So that was. That was great that they posted about you being here. Can you tell me, do you have a favorite moment from racing? Um, maybe a win or maybe a flip that you did, or something.

Speaker 2:

No, I flipped about. I think I barrel rolled seven times at Midville Speedway.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

So, in the vein of the Lero car, actually the year I was track champion not at that track, but I was still track champion we rebuilt the car in two hours, completely tore it apart and I got second in the feature.

Speaker 2:

So that was definitely a memorable moment, wow. And then, my first time in the late model, I was at Norton Raceway Park and I qualified P1 and I went on to start last because I was a rookie, and finished P2. My second race we were planning on going back to Norton Raceway Park and it rained out, so we decided let's go to Midfield Speedway, changed the gear, loaded up you know, just going down there for a learning experience, you know, not thinking about anything of winning had some of the biggest people in Ohio there, some big names, and we qualified seventh, which wasn't too horrible I think there was about 20 cars and we went on to win that night. And it was just, you know, shock. You know, second time ever in a car or ever in a late model, especially my first time ever at that track in the late model, it was just, it was amazing, I was in shock.

Speaker 1:

So somewhere along the line you've got some talent, natural talent that's in your blood, from your dad, from whoever you know, family up the line or whatever, because that's not, that's not a normal thing to have happen. You know, even you said I think I finished seventh. Well, finishing seventh would have been a huge accomplishment for a lot of people. Yeah, and so you know you're. You're just doing an amazing job. What's your long-term goal? You're only 14. I know you probably want to be a NASCAR driver. I hope.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wouldn't that be awesome we're trying to make it there. We have a super outlaw here tonight and we're working on the pro late model to get it ready. Maybe run a CRA at a jake store, take it to Nashville, maybe do some earn at the end of the year, maybe a waso. You know, travel, bounce around, get some different, feel on some different cars and have.

Speaker 1:

are you familiar with the cars tour? Would that be something you would want to run, or that's not the right car?

Speaker 2:

You know, if we come across it and we get offered or something like that, you know I would love to do it. Anything racing you know I'm loving to do, but you, we have the pro late model. My dad knows about it because he raced it and steve always helped us on that too yeah so, um, we have that already. So I think we're gonna start off in that maybe go to the cars tour, maybe do this.

Speaker 1:

You know, we don't know yeah, because there's so many opportunities really there are, you know, oh yeah arca has a lot of girls that race.

Speaker 1:

From time to time they had yeah, a couple times this year they've had six girls race. I know every one of those girls and so that always makes me happy to see that. Yeah, for sure. Now, did we talk about your sponsors? I don't think so. Yeah, I think that was the first video that didn't record. Sorry, let's mention them again. Oh yeah, we did the metal recycling and that. Okay, oh yeah, we did the metal, the, the metal recycling in that. Okay, awesome, that's perfect. So, chloe, what have I not asked you about? About your race career, what you want to do? You know any of that. What have I not asked you about that we need to share with these listeners?

Speaker 2:

um, I'm not sure you know. Uh, it's just my first time here at kalamazoo. We tested here and we were playing around racing a few weeks ago and then it rained out. The track is completely different from when we tested last time. So we put the same set up on and I was like man, something's not right. So just trying to change the car to adapt to this new track. It's a lot different from what I'm used to racing too. It's a big, big track, fast, high momentum. I'm used to some flatter, smaller quarter-mile tracks, two barrels.

Speaker 2:

You know we've got the four-barrel on here tonight a lot of power, so it's a lot different. It's going to take me a minute to get used to, but we're getting there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's what you have to do. You know you have to try new things and go to different tracks that are shaped different and different sizes, because that's the only way you're gonna get any better. You know, if you always do what you always do, you're not gonna advance, and so I'm I'm glad to see that you're willing to stick your neck out and try something different, for sure. So I don't have any other questions for you. I want to wish you a lot of luck tonight. Remember, I'm right behind the flag stand and I'll be cheering for you, for sure, and when you and when you get in the winner's circle, I'll be running down to get in the picture. So thanks, chloe, any last words.

Speaker 2:

No, thank you for having me on. This was awesome.

Speaker 1:

Okay, thank you. That's it for this episode of the Women's Motorsports Network podcast. We hope you've been inspired by the stories I shared today and feel more connected to the amazing community of women in motorsports. Remember, whether you're behind the wheel in the pits or cheering from the stands, your story matters and together we're driving change and celebrating every milestone. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with someone who loves motorsports as much as you do, and don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates, behind-the-scenes content and more incredible stories. So until next time, stay inspired, stay connected and keep racing through life. This is the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, where every woman's story is worth celebrating.