The two-time Bathurst 1000 start will get in the ring as part of the Podcast Royale at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on April 26.
Gracie will fight Summer Perry of The Dead Ass Podcast in a five-round bout, each round lasting two minutes.
“I told myself last year that I’m going to be 30 this year and I want to start doing some bucket list things, some cool things, some really awesome stuff,” Gracie told Speedcafe.
“I just want to push myself out of my comfort zone as much as I physically can.
“At the end of last year, [the organisers] were like, ‘yeah, we’ve got someone for you. Do you want to do it?’
“I said, ‘well, it was gonna be my resolution for turning 30, so count me in’.
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“This is starting strong because I feel like surely it can’t get any crazier than boxing,” she laughed.
“I’ve pushed myself to my limits on the very first task that I assigned myself.”
The event will feature a whole host of podcasters going head-to-head in the ring.
The night will also include a blindfolded, all-in, seven-man fight.
It’s the second edition of the event after the 2024 fight night attracted a sold-out, 6000-strong crowd.
Gracie has been training since the back end of last year when she found out she would be fighting.
“I started the week after the last round at Bathurst just because I didn’t want to get in the way of racing and I was also scared that I might injure myself,” she explained.
“I had a couple of days to recover and relax after Bathurst and put racing to the side. My off season has literally just been boxing, boxing, boxing ever since.”
Gracie said she was surprised to discover how similar boxing and motorsport are – physically, but more so mentally.
That’s despite her races lasting upwards of an hour and her forthcoming fight being just 10 minutes total.
“I keep telling everybody, I forget that I’m actually fighting someone. I just feel like I’m in competition with myself,” said Gracie.
“It’s such an immensely frustrating sport because one day you can feel really good and the next day you’re just like, ‘oh my God, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore’.
“It’s really quite intense and it’s so relatable to motorsport, it’s not funny. It’s crazy how I keep drawing comparisons and conclusions and things that I’ve sort of learned and picked up.
“They’re very similar in the aspect of mindset and determination. You’ve got to have the hunger, the competition side of things as well, the competitiveness with yourself, wanting to do better.
“It’s crazy how similar they are, so it’s actually worked out quite well for my off-season training as well.
“It’s weird because boxing’s obviously short. I’ve got five two-minute rounds, but when I’m in the car, I’m in the car for an hour at a time.
“It’s like the spurts of intensity are very similar to motorsport. During our races or if you’re doing a stint for half an hour, you could have 10 laps where you’re by yourself, but then all of a sudden, you’re pit-stopping, you’re hopping in, you’re hopping out, you’re being overtaken.
“It’s kind of like those intervals and those spurts where your heart races and then you cool back down and then your heart races again. It’s very similar.”
Gracie said she’ll be able to lean on both sides – boxing and racing – interchangeably.
“That’s one thing that I’ve sort of picked up on, and also being able to compose yourself in those high-intensity situations is very similar to motorsport,” Gracie explained.
“Being able to be composed and not let aggression take over and make sure that you’re obviously not putting a foot wrong. It’s all of those little things.
“I knew that I’d have some benefits from motorsport; hand-eye coordination, reactions and all that sort of stuff, but there’s definitely a lot more to it that I have taken from motorsport that even my coaches and stuff have said you’re very composed and you don’t react, you respond and you’re very cautious with what you do and you think about things before you do them.
“It’s very much like motorsport where you sort of have to stay composed under high-intensity situations. I think I’ve got that up my sleeve, which I’m very happy about.”
Gracie will return to GT World Challenge Australia on April 4-6 at the Phillip Island GT Festival for the SpeedSeries season opener.
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