Scott McLaughlin is besotted with his wife Karly and baby daughter Lucy. Photo / Woman's Day
With one eye on the data and with motivational words on repeat, anyone would have thought racing star Scott McLaughlin was behind the wheel chasing another victory.
Instead, the 31-year-old year Kiwi was at wife Karly’s side at the birth of their daughter Lucy Violet McLaughlin. “There are things I’ve learnt from racing, like breathing techniques, which I used to calm Karly,” says Scott. “I was following the screen next to her bed like it was data on a race car dashboard!”
With fatherhood at the finish line, Scott helped Karly, 30, through a 40-hour labour using racing skills, which he’s been honing since his childhood in Christchurch, Mount Maunganui and Hamilton.
He was just 6 when his dad took him to a Hamilton car show.
“I saw a go-kart and went, ‘That’s awesome’. Dad said that’s what he and Mum did as a hobby before I was born,” says Scott. “We ended up going to a local track the next day to buy a kart.”
Scott spent the following months practising until he was allowed to compete after turning 7. Many wins followed, but the go-karting remained a hobby, alongside rugby and cricket, until he witnessed Greg Murphy’s 2001 V8 Supercars win.
“It was the first time I’d seen Supercars in the flesh and I was like, ‘I have to be a Supercar driver!’” he says.
Noting how Kiwis such as the All Blacks and golfer Lydia Ko constantly “punch above our weight”, Scott dreamed of becoming a professional racer. He transitioned from karting to Supercars after his family moved to Melbourne when he was 9. With their support, he became a three-time Supercars champ and a Bathurst 1000 winner.
He was helping at a racing event in Las Vegas in 2016 when he met New York native Karly, who had tagged along with a race car-loving pal.
“We hit it off and became attached at the hip,” says Scott. “I knew I needed to see her again after Vegas.”
Karly says: “It felt natural and oddly nice. I would have married him that weekend!”
Scott returned to the US within weeks to spend Christmas with Karly, who was studying liberal arts.
“It was a 40-hour trip and I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ It was my first Christmas away from family and I was meeting her Italian-American family, but we had a great time. They couldn’t understand me, though.”
Of Scott’s accent, Karly says: “You still need subtitles sometimes.”
Scott had initially told Karly he was a mechanic and while she was surprised he had more than 40,000 Instagram followers, it wasn’t until she visited him in Australia that she realised his true profession. She eventually moved Downunder for “the best four years”.
However, it was during a US visit that Scott proposed. Conscious of his tendency to “babble”, he instead handed Karly a handwritten card at New York’s Bryant Park, before celebrating their engagement at a basketball game. They tied the knot in Malibu in 2019 but paused baby plans as Covid hit.
It was during the pandemic that Team Penske’s owner Roger Penske presented an opportunity for Scott to race in the US. Moving to North Carolina, Scott was separated from his parents for 31 months due to border closures, but Karly became his biggest cheerleader. He also credits her for helping him find balance between his work and personal life, and they were ecstatic to find out they were expecting, right after Karly’s sister Taylor announced her pregnancy.
Holding Lucy for the first time, Karly felt overwhelming happiness for the 3.6kg bundle of joy, named after Karly and Scott’s grandmothers.
“The instant love was just amazing,” says Karly. “When I met Scott, I saw his blue eyes and thought, ‘My baby’s going to have blue eyes’, and she does. And the support Scott showed me during labour has made me fall even more in love with him.”
So how did welcoming Lucy compare to motorsport wins?
“I felt what Karly feels after my races – happiness I’m safe,” says Scott, who dived straight into nappy duty.
While bringing Lucy home to meet golden retriever Luna and Australian-born puppy Chase was a highlight, first-time parenting has proved to be challenging.
“I feel terrible if she’s crying and nothing works,” says Scott. “It’s hard not to feel useless as a dad sometimes. She’s so intertwined with Karly through breastfeeding, so I’m just helping wherever I can, whether it’s looking after the dogs or cleaning bottles.”
Karly says: “Scott has exceeded all of my actual expectations as a father. I didn’t realise how crappy I’d feel in the first weeks. I wasn’t feeling myself physically, and he went above and beyond on the home front. He’s just so smitten. She’ll get away with murder with him.”
Until then, Lucy remains a dream baby. She has started smiling and was a “rock star” during a 12-hour journey to Colorado for fellow Team Penske racer Ryan Blaney’s wedding to Gianna Tulio.
Lucy has given Scott a deeper drive to succeed professionally and withstand the pressure of representing brands and sponsors.
“There’s millions invested in my racing and 500-odd people back at the workshop,” he says. “If you’re successful, they’re successful, but if you make a mistake, you carry that. There are days I wish I could go back to being a kid when if I didn’t win, I just went to school on Monday. But now we’ve got a little girl, every success on the track helps to build up our own foundations.”
Since the pregnancy, Scott’s had one of his best years on the track. He won his first Indy 500 pole, which felt “amazing”, then the Milwaukee Mile. He then kicked off this year teaming up with fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen for the 24 Hours of Daytona racing event.
“Shane just came over and met Lucy,” says Scott. “It’s nice to have a familiar face around and even better that we now get to race together. We also know Scott Dixon and Marcus Armstrong, so it’s really a good little Kiwi fraternity. I looked up to Scotty and Greg Murphy for years, so I count myself lucky to have raced my heroes.”
With a new wave of Kiwis, such as Liam Lawson and Louis Sharp, shining on the track, Scott credits Aotearoa for helping build champion skills.
“You’re always driving in the rain, so you develop abilities that people in California might not,” he says. “I’m comfortable racing in the rain, which stems from life back home.”
As for how he’s bringing his Kiwi heritage into Lucy’s life, Scott reads her Hairy Maclary books and Kiwi’s First Egg. “She’s learning what a puku is!” he says. His mum also gifted a Buzzy Bee, while koala toys salute their Aussie background.
Scott’s thrilled Lucy has a New Zealand passport and hopes to bring his girls home to Aotearoa in 2025.
“There are still many places I want to take Karly, like off to Queenstown,” he says. “More so now we’ve got Lucy, who’s Kiwi by default. I said to Karly last night, ‘I can’t believe she’ll be hanging out with us for the rest of our lives’.
“I’m so excited to see her grow – and come hang on the track.” As Lucy breaks into a big, beaming smile, he adds, “It’s going to be just awesome having her around everywhere.”
If you need a break from the slopes or don’t fancy a ski, there’s still a lot to do this.