Guest blog by Thiemo Albers-Daly
On a dark and chilly evening, one Sunday night, at the FEL Motorsports Paddock, there was something extraordinary afoot. Packed around a table, huddled underneath a tent with a headlamp above them, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the clandestine meeting taking place between six virtual strangers was where something sinister was being plotted.
In thinking this though, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, half a dozen Canadian women were founding a brand new entirely female owned and operated racing team – a first in the North American country’s history.
Slate Racing was born and with it, an ambitious plan not just for the team but for how to revolutionise Canadian motorsport.
Who’s in this team? I’m glad you asked. A former member of Ottawa Children’s Choir, a teacher, an artist, a pro pianist protégé and, a former competitive dancer. Intrigued? Need more details? Fair enough.
Let’s meet the team.
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Erika Hoffmann
Growing up captivated by Formula 1 and motorsport (thanks to VHS recordings sent to her in the post by her uncle), Erika began her racing career at the Calabogie Racetrack in Ottawa. From there, she’s been on a steady and impressive rise with notable highlights including winning the 2022 Formula Woman International Driver Search Competition, racing a McLaren 570s GT4 car in the UK GT Cup Championship and being selected to represent Canada by Women in Motorsport Canada, Canada’s ASN and the FIA to race in the FIA RallyStar Competition in Italy in 2023. A racer at heart, don’t let her sunny disposition lull you into a false sense of security out on track.
Megan Tomlinson
Having watched her Dad race when she was 15 years old, Megan found herself unable to resist the call to follow in his footsteps and was in the racing seat herself a year later. In a fun twist of fate, she’d also seen a poster of Erika when she was crowned rookie of the year and said to herself, “I want to do that.” Since that moment, she’s most certainly gone and done that.
To date, Megan has raced Spec Miatas in a gentleman’s series, competed with a Honda Civic for three years and taken on the Super Production Challenge – one of the most competitive series in Canada. Most recently, Megan’s competed in the FEL SCCC TCA series presented by Michelin where she has finished on the podium multiple times and she now races an Audi RS3LMS TCR in the FEL Sports Car Canada Championship. In 2024, she’ll make the step up from TCA to TCR, joining her father Ron, who is embarking on his fourth season in the SCCC presented by Michelin TCR class.
Ellen Sanders
Ellen’s path is a little different as she’s not a racing driver by nature. Instead, she’s the Co-Owner of Sanders Motorsport, a business that offers everything from race car support to driver coaching and more. When she’s not doing this, Ellen is a tyre technician in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Series down in America – something which certainly warrants a more in-depth conversation at some point in the future. As someone who also used to be an artist for Crayola – she’s now also unofficially in charge of all team artwork.
Megan Leahy
Megan’s Dad raced Radicals (race and sports cars) and as she grew up, she naturally learned more and more about motorsport, essentially absorbing all of the knowledge around her like a sponge. She saw an opportunity for herself to join the world of racing through TWOth – the racing outfit that she also works with now – and its development program. At present, she races Miatas and even received the rookie of the year award from the Ottawa Motorsports Club.
Morgan Smillie
Mont Tremblant was the first race track that Morgan got to know – the same place where a certain Samantha Tan fell in love with racing. Like many of her teammates, Morgan’s Dad also raced but now focuses on the data side of motorsport – a pathway that she has followed. Morgan also started marshalling as part of her involvement in motorsport and now works with Ellen behind the scenes to make sure that everything with Slate Racing runs as smoothly as possible. To show how tight-knit the racing world can be sometimes, Morgan’s Dad was actually a coach for both Megan Tomlinson and Megan Leahy!
As you can tell, there’s an exciting concoction of skills and experiences within the team that will be key to their success.
What’s the Plan?
Slate Racing is treating 2024 as Year Zero in their timeline – a period to methodically plan, organise and experiment with every aspect of the team so that when the starting gun goes off in 2025, they’ll be as prepared as possible to make the biggest impact they can – both on and off track.
They’ve already had their first race together as a team, driving a 2022 Factory Built Honda Civic Si FE1 Race car back at Calabogie Park in an Endurance Race. Supported behind the scenes by TWOth and Sanders Motorsport, they had a safety net in place should they need one – a sensible approach for a novice team going racing together for the first time. On this occasion however, they didn’t need it.
They had aimed to compete in the GT3 category and focus solely on finishing the race. However, the untapped potential of the team came immediately into play instead – not that any of the team complained about this.
During the race, they found themselves to be significantly quicker than the GT3 Class but not quick enough to take the fight to those in the GT2 Class. But by managing their brakes for the duration and putting in consistent lap times, Slate Racing somehow ended up finishing in P4 for the GT2 Class. Needless to say, they exceeded their expectations for just finishing the race and impressed everyone around them.
Year Zero is not just about building the foundations for their racing future though – it’s about setting the stage for the future of Canadian Motorsport too. The main objective here is to simply encourage and empower opportunities for all by doing something as simple as showing women that there are a multitude of ways that they can get involved in motorsport and raising awareness of this. Afterall, there’s much more to motorsport than being a driver.
This is being done through the development of an internship programme which aims to connect individuals with teams inside the industry, not just with Slate Racing. The program currently involves two options: an introductory path where individuals essentially enrol in an internship with the team where they get to be involved with a little bit of everything – and a mentor pathway which is naturally more specifically tailored. It’s already proving to be a success as Megan Tomlinson currently has someone shadowing her, when she is a TCR data engineer, for the role of data engineering.
“Everyone in the team is my role model. We all just want to normalise what we’re doing here.” – Ellen Sanders
Moreover, four people have already reached out about this program – and three of them didn’t even know that Slate Racing was doing this; they were simply shooting their shot and attempting to open a door into the industry. While this coincidence is amusing, it also immediately demonstrates that Slate Racing are onto something here and reinforces the need for infrastructure to be built to cater to this demand – especially as it will surely grow in both the short and long term.
Mission: Impossible?
An undertaking of this nature may be straightforward in theory – but in practice, it could prove to be anything but. While we are seeing a steady and promising rise in the number of women in motorsport across all sectors of the industry, there is still a lot of work to be done – for example, raising awareness that getting into motorsport is a viable career path. This is something that has already been touched on briefly above but is also something that is particularly important to Erika, Megan L and Morgan. The former recalls experiencing the notion that motorsport in Canada is a lot less accessible than it actually is. Arriving at the track, she’d often be the only woman there and, as simple as it might seem to say, it’s true that this can lead to questioning how could there be a role for me here?
“A lot of people don’t know how to get their foot in the door. We need to raise awareness of the simplicity of the opportunity to go and watch races and go and talk to people behind the scenes.” – Morgan Smillie
It’s not just about raising awareness though, but also about combating the untenable attitudes and unacceptable behaviours that still persist both in and out of the industry. It’ll come as no surprise that each member of Slate Racing has had to deal with this side of things at multiple junctures in their careers so far. From things such as little comments being made here and there to having to deal with the double standards applied to you simply for being a woman and consequently having to define your own role within the team, to their success in the sport being down to just good luck rather than actual talent and to learning the hard way about people saying they’ll support you but then failing to back this up with concrete action – in one case, Megan T was actually blamed for an incident in which someone drove into her car on track. When video footage of the incident was presented, it’s fair to say that there were some fairly sizable portions of humble pie being handed out to the accusers.
A common misconception about this too is that it’s just men who behave in this way – but according to Morgan, that’s not the case. Women both inside and outside the industry have questioned her presence when working trackside and the cliché argument of her and others being a diversity hire rears its ugly head. But Morgan also believes that each member of Slate Racing is more than strong headed enough to tackle these obstacles head on.
The Dream
While the team hasn’t yet developed any pre-race rituals, each member has envisioned an ideal scenario of where they’d like to see the team in the future and teased that all of them are possible. For Ellen, she’d love for Slate Racing to do something at Daytona – and honestly, who can blame her? Both Megan T and Megan L have fallen in love with the idea of going racing in Spa one day (perhaps the Fun Cup at Spa in 2025? Erika suggests) while Morgan went a step further and thinks the team crossing over into the world of Rallying and competing somewhere on the West Coast – there are some beautiful races in Oregon – would be something for the Slate Racing bucket list. As for Erika, she’d love the team to race at Bathurst. The prospect of that happening is a truly mouthwatering one and if Slate Racing continues to build momentum as it is currently doing, there’s no reason for none of these dreams to one day become reality.
You Know My Name
You may be wondering after all of this, why the name Slate Racing? No, don’t worry, a piece of slate didn’t fall on any of them, and then the name stuck. Instead, while brainstorming back at that sopranos style meeting when they founded the team, the word was plucked from the air by chance and instantly resonated with the team.
A definition that the team came across for it particularly caught their attention too, sealing the deal for them – “Slate serves as a resilient instrument used for honing and fortifying metal blades and devices. To enhance the efficiency, strength and competitiveness of other stones.” It’s not difficult to see how this became the namesake for the racing team and encapsulates each member of the team both individually and together.
“Slate Racing is a team dedicated to sharpening our skills, strengthening our abilities and empowering women in motorsport.” – Megan Leahy
Another thing that is certain after talking with the team is that despite the fact that the task they’ve presented themselves with is a monumental one, it’s clear that each member of the team brings something unique to the table in order for them to achieve their goals together. Speaking with them allowed me to see the passion that they all have for what they do, on and off track, as well as the sentiment of camaraderie that they’ve already established with one another. Without these qualities and the bonds between them all, the future of Slate Racing would perhaps look more clouded, more uncertain. But with these in place and a burning desire to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, at home and abroad, the future of Slate Racing (and Canadian Motorsport) instead looks incredibly exciting and brimming with game-changing potential.
As for which member of the team matches up with each member of the Avengers, I’ll leave that for all of you reading to decide.
Paddock Sorority 
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