Sherry Ma’s dream of attending a Formula 1 Grand Prix was coming true. But first, she just had to answer that age-old question:

What do I wear?

Her outfits needed to be fashionable, of course — suitable for the Las Vegas nightlife. But she’s also a real fan and wanted to support her favorite teams and drivers.

Ma spent three months curating her 2024 Vegas Grand Prix wardrobe, and she found it was actually quite difficult to meld those two worlds — fashion and Formula 1 — together. Most of the racing-themed apparel she found was polos or T-shirts or hats — and she wasn’t going to wear those to a club.

So she bought an off-brand moto jacket, customizing it with Aston Martin, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull patches.

It was what she paired with every outfit, and it was a hit. Ma couldn’t go five minutes without someone asking, “Where did you buy that?”

It started as a bit of a pipedream, almost a bit of a joke, Ma said. What if she started an Etsy shop? What if she turned this one jacket into a career?

Before she knew it, Ma had a full-blown business plan together and was re-enrolled in college to study fashion merchandising.

The Grandstand Project was born.

Creating community with clothing

Ma, 23, has long considered fashion a hobby, thrifting and curating, mending and sewing clothes.

And she’s also always been into cars — something she got from her mom, who grew up watching races with her own dad.

But it was never meant to be part of her “identity,” said Ma, who studied public relations and business administration at Emerson College in Boston and is now enrolled in UCLA’s Master of Business Administration program.

Before Netflix’s popular “Drive to Survive” documentary series about Formula 1, before social media became a place for so many women to connect and share their passions for motorsports, Ma didn’t find the racing world to be all that inviting of a place — particularly to a young woman.

“It was something where I was just like, this isn’t my world,” Ma said, “and it’s not something I want to be a part of.”

But that’s no longer the case, especially since she launched her line, the Grandstand Project, last year.

Ma has now found a community, not only one that she has been welcomed into, but also a place where she has quickly become a resource for other women in the motorsports world.

“It’s thanks to how warm it’s been, how sweet all of these girls have been,” Ma said. “The whole reason Grandstand is even doing as well as it is, is because all of the women in motorsports are being so inviting and sweet and helpful in trying to encourage more women into the sport — no matter how they’re trying to get into it, whether as a fan or as an engineer or as a driver or whatever.

“It’s really all community.”

The Long Beach collection

It started with a Formula 1 grand prix, but the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is also shaping up to be special for Ma, a San Marino High alumna from Temple City.

Besides the Las Vegas collection — skirts and dresses, jackets and pants in colors reflective of popular Formula 1 teams — the Grandstand Project has released what Ma is calling “The Basics” ahead of the IndyCar race. These are classic black-and-white tanks and hats and pants sporting the “GP” logo.

“The future of motorsports is female,” the black baseball cap says.

And there’s also a black-and-white moto jacket that can be customized with patches — just like the one Ma made for the 2024 Vegas Grand Prix that started it all.

And Ma has launched a new collection with Stadium Super Trucks driver Zoey Edenholm, who competes this weekend in her hot pink truck in Long Beach.

Related: Stadium Super Truck driver visits children’s hospital ahead of Grand Prix of Long Beach

There’s a black-and-pink tank with Edenholm’s number, 21, and a hot pink trucker hat emblazoned with the Zoey signature.

“The way she (Ma) designs the clothes is so different from any other brand that has taken a spin on motorsports,” Edenholm said at her pre-race party in Long Beach this week.

“Bringing community to the sport is one of the most rewarding things in this industry,” Edenholm added, “and bringing the girls together who love and share this passion for fashion is really rewarding.”

Ma is also giving back. She’s been setting aside 3% of all Grandstand Project sales since launching and is partnering with Women in Motorsports North America, a group that, as its name suggests, supports women in the motorsports world.

The number of women involved in motorsports is only going to grow, Ma predicted.

“Women are the ones who have started this community,” she said. “Thanks to women going to the internet to talk about everything, making it such a comfortable and more positive environment, it’s the only reason why F1 and racing in general are blowing up right now.”

Racing toward the risk

For Ma, the Grandstand Project is more than just a passion project.

It was a risk that she took, for herself and for other women — and even for her family.

“I dove head first,” she said. “I didn’t really have a plan. I had a very strong vision of what I wanted, and I just knew I could get there.”

Ma was home from college and turned on the TV to a Formula 1 race, filling her house with screeching tires, purring engines, buzzing pit crews.

That was how she learned about the connection racing fostered between her mom and her grandfather, who had died before she was born.

“My mom laughed,” Ma said. “She was like, ‘That’s so funny because I used to listen to this all the time growing up. I haven’t heard the racing sounds in so long.’”

Through the Grandstand Project, Ma is honoring, in a way, other women in motorsports, from her mom and other fans, to those who highlight the sport on social media for other women to enjoy, to those who drive and work on the actual pit crew.

“I want to be able to give something to these women who are working in this space, where they can fit in and they can feel comfortable, and they can do the work that they need to, but they’re still showing that, ‘I’m a woman in motorsports.’”

Like many new businesses — and even seasoned ones — Ma is still figuring it out: the organization, the financials, the management.

“Every day,” she said, “has been me pivoting somewhere where I learn I need to try different tactics so this can be efficient.”

But that’s OK, she said. That’s life.

“If you believe in it, that’s enough,” is her mantra.

And it’s worth it, she said, because of the community.

“I’m a fan, but I didn’t have friends who were into F1,” Ma said. “So now, I have so many and that is so beautiful to me because whenever I go to these events, I always bump into someone and I’m able to talk to people about races and race results and news that drops.

“That’s what made me decide this is what I want to be doing with my life,” she added. “Because that’s a community I’ve never had before, and it’s just so sweet.”