Game Changer Cara Adams

Women always did science in Cara Adams’ house. Her science teacher mom made that clear when she hosted informal summer camps for a young Adams and other neighborhood kids, teaching them about anatomy using butcher shop meat, how to launch a rocket and other hands-on lessons.

Adams was still deciding which science major to pursue at The University of Akron when she happened upon students building an open-wheeled car to race in a collegiate Formula SAE competition. Enthralled, she joined the team.

“I was focused on the actual parts of the car, how it made it function and how those parts could go together to make the car even faster,” says Adams who has since built more cars and has raced at Nelson Ledges Road Course.

She graduated with mechanical engineering and Spanish degrees in the early 2000s and scored an entry-level job with Bridgestone Americas in Akron. But Adams had her sights set on the Motorsports department, so she spent her off hours studying textbooks on vehicle dynamics and race tires.

She got a job with the department and by 2016, she was named chief engineer of Bridgestone Americas Motorsports — the first female to hold that title and the only female chief engineer at the Indianapolis 500. She and a team design Firestone tires for the IndyCar Series division. In 2020, her team is set to use a new factory, which will be Akron’s first new tire plant since at least World War II.

She loves tires so much she bench-pressed Firestone tires for an “American Ninja Warrior” audition. She didn’t make it on TV but hopes to try again.

Being the first female chief means she encounters resistance. People have patted her on the head and act astonished she knows how a race car works. But Adams isn’t fazed. “It only drove me harder,” says the 40-year-old Green resident.

She’d rather celebrate the women following in her tracks: the six to nine female engineers who now travel with her on about 17 races a year, and the young women she talks to about science careers at school presentations. Or the girl she met at a race who is now a Harley-Davidson engineer.

Adams is still in awe of the magnitude of her job.

“One of the most emotional moments is to stand on the grid for the Indianapolis 500,” she says, “sweaty in a fire suit, absorbing all of the energy, knowing that 33 drivers are depending on your tires — it puts chills down my spine.”