Celebrating Women In Motorsport

May 13th, 2024

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It wasn’t that long ago that we celebrated International Women’s Day.  This got me thinking about the number of women involved in motorsport.  Are there any at present?  If so, who are they?  After a little research, it was revealed that there are some amazing female stars.

It’s great to see that there are many women enjoying motorsport trackside as well as women competing in racing, and they are having loads of fun along the way.  Women are actively involved in various roles as motor racing volunteers, as motor racing mechanics and engineers, and as racers; in fact, you name it, and there will be women involved. 

My recent experience of watching motorsport live brought me to the South Island of New Zealand in early February 2024.  Yep, it was cold, but watching motorcycle racing at Teretonga Park Raceway near Invercargill was a blast.  I can highly recommend the Burt Munroe as a great way to enjoy all things with two wheels, meeting heaps of great people while doing so.  Yes, the rain did play a role in the day’s proceedings, but there was still a full day’s racing enjoyed by all.  Winning her race in the motorcycling NZ Supersport 300, Billee Fuller, showed the boys how it gets done, covering the distance with precision and lightning quick times in the damp conditions.

Very much a level playing field, motorsport does enable men and women to compete together.  Back here in Australia, Brianna Barker races on the drag strip in her own AMC Rambler Hornet.  She grew up in the drag racing scene and wanted to jump in and give it a go herself.  She loves the sensation of going fast over the quarter mile in around 12 seconds or less. 

Erebus Motorsport’s Betty Klimenko in Australian’s V8 Supercars has had a lot of racing success.  Last year, she became the first female majority team owner to win the Supercars drivers’ and teams’ championship.  This followed her team’s memorable Bathurst 1000 win in 2017.

Renee Gracie has been racing cars ever since 2013.  Last year, Renee raced in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia series held at the 2023 Perth SuperSprint meet.  Renee raced in an Audi R8 GT3 LMS Ultra car and finished top of the racing board.  She was first in the GT Trophy Class, where in all of the 7 races that she contested she won.

Now on to something a little different.  Not all of us have the talent to race a car over all types of road surfaces, but this is Molly Taylor’s playground.  Molly has been racing in rally cars for quite some time, where she debuted proper in the Australian Rally Championship in 2007.  She won the F16 class, a feat she repeated in 2008. 

In 2016, Molly Taylor, with co-driver Bill Hayes, became the first female driver to win the Australian Rally Championship, also being the youngest driver to do so at the time. 

Mid-2020, Molly joined the Extreme E international electric rally car series.  The Extreme E racing series commenced in 2021, and since then she has partnered with Johan Kristoffersson with the Rosberg X Racing team. The pair won 3 of the 5 rounds of the season, on their way to becoming the overall series champions. 

In 2022, Molly Taylor joined JBXE and raced in the 2022 Desert X-Prix series.

Even at last month’s Thrifty Bathurst 500, women made up 65 of the full-time staff working on the ground between V8 Supercars and the Supercars’ teams alone.  Among the foremost women in the Australian Supercars is Romy Mayer, a key player in PremiAir Nulon Racing’s rapid ascent of the ladder.  Romy is one of the sport’s leading race engineers.

Driving a car is most definitely not just a man’s game!