10 June 2026
Episode 357 - Racing at 150 MPH with Type 1 Diabetes: Tyler Cooke's Life in the Fast Lane
Diabetics Doing Things Podcast
About
Tyler Cook is a professional GT3 racing driver who has competed in some of
the most grueling endurance races on the planet, the 24 Hours of Spa, the
24 Hours of Nürburgring, IMSA, and GT World Challenge Europe. He's also
been living with type 1 diabetes since he was 11 years old. This episode
gets into what it actually looks like to manage blood sugar in a fire suit,
in a 130-degree cockpit, at 150 miles per hour, sometimes at 3 a.m.
Tyler takes us back to his diagnosis in 2006 — an ICU stay, four IVs, and a
very specific grief over the chocolate mousse at Epcot's France
pavilion. From there, he walks us through the journey from go-karts in his
dad's garage to GT3 race cars with 650 horsepower. Along the way, there was
bullying in middle school over his diet, sneaking to the bathroom to give
injections on dates, and a decision somewhere along the line to stop hiding
his diabetes and start owning it.
We get into the technical side, too: how OmniPod changed his race
management strategy, why adrenaline sends his blood sugar climbing instead
of crashing, what a 24-hour-race insulin plan actually looks like, and what
it means to have a Gatorade button wired into your cockpit as an emergency
low-blood-sugar protocol. Tyler also talks about the physical training side
of racing — heart rate zone work, neck day (yes, neck day), and why a GT3
driver can be pressing 1,200 pounds of brake force per pedal.
The episode wraps with something that's been sitting with both Rob and
Tyler: the idea of trusting the process. For Tyler, the lesson comes
through racing — you can't skip steps from spec Miata to GT3. For people
with T1D, it's the same. Wherever you are in your management journey,
that's where you are — and it's going to get better if you just keep going.
Chapters:
00:00 Climbing out of a race car at 2 a.m.
00:51 Introducing Tyler Cook, GT3 driver with T1D
01:52 Diagnosis at 11: ICU, four IVs, and Epcot chocolate mousse
04:16 Go-karts at three, racing in the family DNA
06:20 Racing pre-CGM: going off vibes and feeling lows
07:29 Bullied for his diet in middle school
09:53 Dating with diabetes and deciding to stop hiding it
12:29 Going public: from fear of losing opportunities to advocacy
13:35 A potential cure and why staying healthy now matters
17:19 What GT3 racing actually is — and why you should go watch it
23:02 The Gatorade button: CGM and cockpit glucose management
24:28 130-degree cockpits, adrenaline spikes, and pre-race hydration
25:39 WHOOP strain scores: practice vs. race stint
28:37 Training for the car: heart rate zones, neck day, 1,200-lb brakes
36:45 What Tyler would tell 11-year-old himself: trust the process
Resources:
* Tyler Cooke Instagram
* Breakthrough T1D
* Conor Daly (T1D IndyCar driver Tyler mentioned)
the most grueling endurance races on the planet, the 24 Hours of Spa, the
24 Hours of Nürburgring, IMSA, and GT World Challenge Europe. He's also
been living with type 1 diabetes since he was 11 years old. This episode
gets into what it actually looks like to manage blood sugar in a fire suit,
in a 130-degree cockpit, at 150 miles per hour, sometimes at 3 a.m.
Tyler takes us back to his diagnosis in 2006 — an ICU stay, four IVs, and a
very specific grief over the chocolate mousse at Epcot's France
pavilion. From there, he walks us through the journey from go-karts in his
dad's garage to GT3 race cars with 650 horsepower. Along the way, there was
bullying in middle school over his diet, sneaking to the bathroom to give
injections on dates, and a decision somewhere along the line to stop hiding
his diabetes and start owning it.
We get into the technical side, too: how OmniPod changed his race
management strategy, why adrenaline sends his blood sugar climbing instead
of crashing, what a 24-hour-race insulin plan actually looks like, and what
it means to have a Gatorade button wired into your cockpit as an emergency
low-blood-sugar protocol. Tyler also talks about the physical training side
of racing — heart rate zone work, neck day (yes, neck day), and why a GT3
driver can be pressing 1,200 pounds of brake force per pedal.
The episode wraps with something that's been sitting with both Rob and
Tyler: the idea of trusting the process. For Tyler, the lesson comes
through racing — you can't skip steps from spec Miata to GT3. For people
with T1D, it's the same. Wherever you are in your management journey,
that's where you are — and it's going to get better if you just keep going.
Chapters:
00:00 Climbing out of a race car at 2 a.m.
00:51 Introducing Tyler Cook, GT3 driver with T1D
01:52 Diagnosis at 11: ICU, four IVs, and Epcot chocolate mousse
04:16 Go-karts at three, racing in the family DNA
06:20 Racing pre-CGM: going off vibes and feeling lows
07:29 Bullied for his diet in middle school
09:53 Dating with diabetes and deciding to stop hiding it
12:29 Going public: from fear of losing opportunities to advocacy
13:35 A potential cure and why staying healthy now matters
17:19 What GT3 racing actually is — and why you should go watch it
23:02 The Gatorade button: CGM and cockpit glucose management
24:28 130-degree cockpits, adrenaline spikes, and pre-race hydration
25:39 WHOOP strain scores: practice vs. race stint
28:37 Training for the car: heart rate zones, neck day, 1,200-lb brakes
36:45 What Tyler would tell 11-year-old himself: trust the process
Resources:
* Tyler Cooke Instagram
* Breakthrough T1D
* Conor Daly (T1D IndyCar driver Tyler mentioned)