ON THE FAST TRACK Brienne
Pedigo, who left Greenwood to become an actress, now
finds her career is in the pits--and she couldn't be
happier. By. J. Scott
MacGregor
Her first trips to the
Indianapolis 500, during her childhood, came with Kroger box
lunches and tickets to the grandstand. Soon her family
moved up to the luxury suites, thanks to the growing influence
of her father, local Chevy dealer Gary Pedigo (the "No horsin'
around!" guy on TV commercials). And by the time a
teenage Brienne Pedigo put on her first official 500 fire suit
and strolled across the Yard of Bricks clutching a pit pass,
she thought her family had reached the pinnacle of the
Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Her dad, after all, had
finally lived his lifelong dream: starting a racing team
and placing a car in the Indy 500.
Nearly a decade
later, the month of May brings a considerably bigger milestone
for the Pedigo family, Greenwood residents for more than two
decades. On Race Day this year, Brienne, who turned 27
in April, will again roam the pits with a special pass -- an
all-access TV pass -- as she joins veteran announcers Jack
Arute and Vince Welch in pit lane for ABC/ESPN's worldwide
broadcast of the 91st running of the Indianapolis
500. Though not the first female announcer in
auto racing (the sorority also includes Marlo Klain of
Indianapolis), Pedigo is still blazing trails and proving each
week she has the stuff for the job despite little more than a
year as a broadcaster. With a pleasant voice, deep brown
eyes and long dark locks, she's winning over male racing fans
who are drawn to her combination of racing pedigree and
girl-next-door good looks (Internet chat rooms refer to her as
"eye candy" and "'smokin'"). Think Danica Patrick with a
microphone. But unlike her father's dream, a lifetime
in the making, the hometown girl with the cum laude college
diploma hasn't been reaching for this particular pinnacle very
long. Leaving Greenwood after graduating from Center
Grove in '98, Pedigo thought she'd found her calling in
theater -- first as a student at New York University, then
while producing an off-Broadway show, then after migrating to
Los Angeles, where she performed in and choreographed rock
musicals, got engaged to a soap opera star and bought a
decked-out house in the Hollywood hills. If there was
stardom in her future, she figured, it would more likely occur
on the stage than in the pits. "This line of work never dawned on me,"
Pedigo says, suppressing a bemused chuckle. "I'd been
doing plays, performing since I was 2 1/2 or 3 years old, and
I grew up thinking that's where my career was going. But
my first race (on the smaller-time USAC circuit), I'm standing
on the track, and half the guys I'm talking to were friends I
grew up with. And I started thinking, "Why didn't I
think of this sooner?" She didn't have to. A couple of old
family friends were doing it for her. Pedigo was performing with a musical
comedy troupe in L.A. when Arute, a longtime friend of Gary
Pedigo, called saying he needed a pit reporter for the USAC
races his company produced for the Outdoor Channel.
Brienne, who had minored in journalism at NYU, jumped at the
chance, and soon drew the attention of ABC and ESPN
executives, who would be looking for a new pit reporter for
IRL races. Another family friend, Scott Goodyear (who
drove for Gary's Panther Racing team in it's first 500 in
1998), recommended her for the job. Now she's teaming
with both Arute and Goodyear, on of racing's top analysts, for
IRL broadcast on ESPN. Her lack of on-air experience needn't
hinder her prospects, Arute says, "I was given an opportunity
by ABC without a long TV resume," he says, "So, when Brienne
crossed my path with a similar story, I felt it was an
opportunity to 'pay it forward.'" Her acting background
even figured into the mix, Arute says, "I immediately saw her
poise on camera. Her resume showed that she was
'classically trained,' meaning acting, and I figured she could
easily make the transition to field reporting with some
coaching." Early returns from her IRL work are
encouraging. She demonstrates a likability and composure
whether interviewing a distracted Marco Andretti before the
season's second race (fellow driver Helio Castroneves was
trying to untie his shoe) or talking in the pits with racing
legend A.J. Foyt after his team's disappointing showing.
Arute's advice couldn't have hurt. "I have always told
her to pretend she is talking to friends and don't be afraid
to ask questions that she wants answered," he says. That Pedigo's career is on the fast track
should surprise no one. Precocious and aggressive, she
has always felt the need for speed--even away from race
courses. "Ever since I was a kid, I've been in a rush. I
really never had done things like a normal person; I can't sit
still," she says. "My dad kind of instilled that in
us." Gary, then can hardly blame her for one
of his favorite stories, about the time Brienne was clocked
doing 51 miles per hour in a 35-mile zone on her way home from
Center Grove, just two days after getting her driver's
license. "Yeah, I'm kind of a lead foot," she says
proudly. The first time she drove an actual race car,
she booked the day's high speed during practice runs at
Kentucky Motor Speedway, around 158 mph. "I thought, 'If
I had known she could do that, she might have been Danica
Patrick,'" says Gary, whose Panther Racing teams won two IRL
titles. Speed, racing and thrill-seeking are part
of the Pedigo creed. Before he helped start Panther
Racing, Gary and son Matthew (now 33) would race nights and
weekends at the Indianapolis Speedrome on the east side of the
city, building their credentials and a family tradition along
the way. Too young to gain entry to the pits, Brienne
would sneak in anyway; when someone would kick her out, she'd
"throw a fit, and my dad would have to come out and tell them
it was OK," she says. But Brienne had other places to go too,
and she was resolute in her pursuit of the destiny she
believed lay ahead in the performing arts. For
inspiration she borrowed the popular Nike slogan, "Somewhere
someone is practicing, and when you meet her in competition,
she'll beat you." As a toddler, Pedigo was already
performing in hefty plays like A Christmas Carol, and
by 12, she was dancing some 40 hours a week and had won the
lead role in the Indianapolis Ballet Theater's production of
The Nutcracker. During her last two years of
high school, she spent half her day at Center Grove and half
practicing her craft, enrolled in Butler University's ballet
program. Summers meant dancing in New York or L.A. or
even in Germany, where she and best friend Emily Zachary won
an international dance competition two years in a row.
And they topped it off by dancing in Hawaii's Hula Bowl, where
Pedigo was named junior dancer of the year. "All those things you saw growing up --
the persistence and dedication -- that's what's paying off
now. You can still see that drive she has," says
Zachary, a Perry Meridian High School graduate who also now
lives in L.A. "I wasn't surprised when she decided to do
(broadcasting). She's always had an interest in
journalism and broadcasting, and she's a natural." Her father, too, sees Brienne's
determination. "She's a risk-taker--that's what has
gotten her where she is," Gary says. But her new career
path taught him something new about his daughter. "I
never really knew how much she loved racing," he says.
"She just likes being around it." Even as she traveled the globe, Pedigo
came to the same realization. "I really enjoyed those
trips and working on my craft," Brienne says, "but there was
also a big chunk of me that would wonder if my dad was racing
this weekend or what was going on at the Speedrome. I
loved the way it smelled, the way it sounded, just everything
about it. If I hadn't grown up at the race track, I
couldn't tell the stories the way I can now. Looking
back on those things, I realize where my heart has always
been."  Her
heart is still split two ways--between racing and her beau,
General Hospital star Tyler Christopher, whose past
relationships include a two-year marriage (2002-2004) to
Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria. Pedigo
and Christopher met last July, set up by mutual friends, and
were engaged within a month. Over the winter, the couple
bought an older but luxurious home near the top of the famous
hills peering over the vast expanse of canyons that lead to
L.A.'s glittering downtown. While modest by Hollywood
standards, the ranch unfolds into a stunning view over the
valley, with an outdoor kitchen, pool and waterfall and a
six-hole putting green in the backyard. Inside, three
living rooms flow into the piece de resistance:
a master bathroom layered in mosaic tile and a bath that
drops a cascade of water from the ceiling to fill the
tub.
The Indy 500 will bring her back to her
childhood home, but it'll hardly be downtime. With her
family and old friends in the suites, and millions of viewers
watching at home, Pedigo may be under as much pressure to
perform as the drivers. Zachary--who was with her in the
grandstand with those box lunches during one of her friend's
first 500s--says Pedigo has been thinking about Race Day every
day since she got the ABC/ESPN job earlier this year.
"That first race made such an impact on her," Zachary
says. "This year is going to be full of amazing memories
for her." Just about the time Jim Nabors finishes
Back Home Again in Indiana, and the colorful balloons
float off above the track, Pedigo will likely feel something
natural, yet supernatural coursing through her body.
Will it be the revving of the engines shaking her to the core
of her bones, the electricity created by nearly half a million
race fans filling the stands, or just pure nerves wrenching
her stomach in knots? She says she wasn't nervous for
her first IRL race, televised on ESPN in late March, because
she didn't know what to expect or be nervous about. But
this--well, she knows all about the place and the
race. "If you aren't nervous at the Indy 500,
you can't be human," Pedigo says. "I think even the fans
come in nervous. There's just a certain energy that
swallows the Motor Speedway in the month of May. That's
why you come here. There's not a single person that's
above that. "Honestly, who would want to miss out on
it?" Greenwood Living
May/June
2007 |
