Race car driver with Marin ties stars in Amazon docuseries
Heather “The Heat” Hadley started off racing go carts as a 9-year-old at Driven Raceway in Fairfield. Now, she’s the star of a new Amazon Prime docuseries, “First to the Finish,” which follows her and two other prominent female racers throughout their time in the Mazda MX-5 Cup.
“I kind of stumbled into racing,” said Hadley, who grew up in Marin.
Although her family had no history in racing, they learned quickly.
In the first six months of racing go carts, she won 104 out of 107 races.
“After that, we decided to kind of take it more seriously and do what we could do as a family and bought a go cart,” she said.
In 2023, Hadley competed in her rookie season on the Mazda MX-5 Cup, the signature spec series for Mazda Motorsports. It was after the completion of her first season that she was approached by Jonathan Applegate, senior manager of Motorsports Mazda North America.
The original idea was a show that was female-centered, to get people interested in their personal and professional journeys and introduce a wider audience to the racing series.
Professional racing has long been a male-oriented sport. For Hadley, the docuseries presents an opportunity to show people her story and her competitive drive.
Having a camera crew with her at all times took some getting used to.
“Especially as an introverted person, just kind of a naturally quiet person, most of the time I was like, ‘Am I being interesting enough?’” Hadley said. “’Am I saying enough? Am I doing enough?’ A little bit of that imposter syndrome.”
The experience of welcoming five to 10 camera operators into private and sometimes difficult moments was challenging, yet important. In the second episode of the docuseries, Hadley is distraught by her performance at qualifiers.
“I purposefully didn’t turn the cameras away because I was like, this is reality,” Hadley said. “This is what I would do if the cameras weren’t here so I’m not just going to turn you guys away just because I’m uncomfortable.
“As it kind of progressed throughout the season it got a lot more comfortable … by the end of it the film crew, the production crew, they really just felt like family. You know, they were at my graduation from college and a few of them were crying.”
The first three episodes are available to stream now on Amazon Prime and the final three episodes will be released on April 15.
“So far, I love how they captured our storylines,” Hadley said. “There’s never a boring or dull moment. Maybe that’s a little biased for me because I’m glued to the TV.”
For those who know little to nothing about car racing or the MX-5 Cup, the docuseries explains the basics, while keeping the focus on the women’s stories.
“You don’t have to be a motor sports fan to enjoy this docuseries,” Hadley said.
She hopes the docuseries can help change the perception of women in motorsports.
“I think just getting people involved in our personal lives and seeing all that we’re kind of putting on the line, sacrificing,” she said, “I’m hoping that it helps to kind of change this narrative around women in sports to be a little bit more open-minded for people and not be so quick to judge.”
Throughout the series, Hadley goes through both highs and lows. Despite the lows, she still loves racing.
“I love racing for the competition and just the feeling that it gives me,” Hadley said.
Racing is also an equalizing sport in many ways, she said. “The car doesn’t know your gender.”
At 5 feet tall, Hadley likes that racing brings out her competitive nature when she realistically wouldn’t succeed in many other sports.
“I can do everything that they’re doing. I don’t have any factors that are really prohibiting me from succeeding,” she said.