KEEPING THE SPIRIT ALIVE SINCE 1999
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Achieved successes both as a racing driver and as a rally driver in the 1930s especially in Mother Gun, the 6½ litre Bentley.
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Only the fifth woman to enter a Formula One. She failed to qualify in South Africa and Mexico and after failing to qualify in Brazil she was replaced.
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One of the best known female racing driver in France in the 1950's. She was both a rally and circuit driver, sometimes sharing the wheel with her close friend Gilberte Thirion. Perhaps over enthusiastic at times, during her short career from 1952 to 1956, she had several accidents. She was killed...
/With thanks to the BRDC
Raced in Sprints and Hill Climbs. In 1961 she became the first British driver to compete in a full season of the European Mountain championship and in 1968 became the first woman to win the Brighton Speed Trials.
/historicracing.com with thanks to Christabel Watson.
In a comparatively short career, Lady Watson impressed with her natural talent competing on equal terms with her male counterparts in saloon car and sports car racing as well as rallying.
/historicracing.com
Sara Christian has a number of firsts: the first woman to drive in a NASCAR race, the first and only woman to record a top five finish in NASCAR with 5th at the Heidelberg Raceway in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the first and only husband and wife to compete in the same NASCAR race.
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Camille Du Gast, the first woman to achieve fame as a racing driver, also excelled at ballooning, fencing, parachuting, tobogganing, shooting with rifle and pistol and mountaineering. She was also an excellent horsewoman and later, when racing was banned to women, she raced powerboats. She became...
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Michele Dubosc was the first ever professional time keeper in Grand Prix Racing. In the days before computers the art of timing in Formula 1 was a much more complicated business than it is today.
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Milka Duno is a Naval Engineer with four masters degrees. She was a leading female racing driver best known for holding the record of highest finish for a female driver in the 24 Hours of Daytona, coming second in 2007. When Milka won the Rolex Series Miami Grand Prix sharing the Howard Boss...
/historicracing.com with thanks to Anthony Whitmore
Eileen Ellison became interested in racing in the late 1920s. Her main racing achievement came in 1932 when she won the Duchess of York's race for women drivers at Brooklands. Eileen married Squadron Leader Brian Lane in 1940 but he was killed in action in 1942.
/hr with thanks to Liane
Top female Dutch racing driver, she drove in the European Touring Car Championship as a works driver with Ford and with Auto Delta scoring some fine top-five finishes at the Zandvoort, Nurburgring and Spa.
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Renée Friderich was daughter of Bugatti driver Ernest. She was killed during the Paris-St.-Raphaël Rally at the wheel of a Delage D8S. Her brother, Paul competed in Grands Prix in 1946 and 1947.
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Divina Galica MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) is best known for her Olympics career and her motorsport racing career.
/Thanks to Gary Horstkorta
Judy Ganley was an accomplished driver, race team member and race team administrator. She raced a Sprite and Mini-Cooper with the San Francisco Region of the SCCA in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1970 she drove a Le Mans Sprite Prototype with Janet Guthrie and Rosemary Smith to a class win and...
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Janet Guthrie is the first woman to qualify and compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500.
/www.lizhalliday.com
UK based Californian, Liz Halliday, is an international motor racing driver who competes in Sportscar and GT endurance racing and is also an international equestrian in Three-Day Eventing.
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Sunny Hobbs is an accomplished female racecar driver with diverse racing experience on both oval tracks and road courses, sports cars and stockcars.
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Regarded as one of the greatest female drivers in Grand Prix motor racing history. However with communist rule in Czechoslovakia she was largely forgotten by the motor racing world until recently. She nearly won the 1928 Targa Florio in her Type 35B Bugatti but rocks mysteriously appeared in front...
/Speed Queens
Nettan Lindgren, a feisty female Swedish racing driver well known for her broad experience in various formulae, most notably Swedish Touring Cars. In Britain she is most famous for her contretemps with former F1 driver Jonathon Palmer after he had punted her off the track.
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Lella Lombardi was a female Formula One driver from Italy. She participated in 17 grands prix, debuting on July 20, 1974. She is the only female Formula One driver to date to have scored a top 6 finish in a World Championship race, the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. She later raced sports cars with some...
/www.cindilux.com
Cindi Lux is a professional racing driver and high performance driving instructor. She competes in the SPEED World Challenge GT Series. She has also competed in the Petit Le Mans endurance series.
/www.winfield.50megs.com
Elfrieda Mais drove in sped trials and did exhibitions of stunt driving as she was not allowed to compete against men. She married Johnny Mais who drove at Indianapolis in 1915. She was killed when a stunt went wrong at the Alabama State Fair in 1934.
/historicracing.com
Violette Morris's story is a not comfortable tale. Indeed some historians have shied away from her completely. Disturbing and bizarre she is never the less worth including if for no other reason than to illustrate the full spectrum of people involved in our sport.
/Franca Davenport
Pat Moss-Carlsson was one of the most famous women in British motorsport.
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The first woman to win a round of the World Rally Championship. Twice French Rally Champion, she nearly won the World Rally Championship in 1982. She also won the Pikes Peak hill climb twice in an Audi Quatro.
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A postmasters daughter who moved to Paris and became a famous dancer. She became involved in motor sport and became a very competent Bugatti driver. Denounced as a Gestapo agent by Louis Chiron after the Second World War she died in abject poverty in Nice in 1984.
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Irish-American Lucy Schell, the only child of an American multi-millionaire of Irish origin, Francis P O'Reilly, was most famous as the owner of the semi-works Delahaye racing team from the 1930s onwards. She lived in France where she met her husband was pre-war driver, Laury Schell. Their son...
/historicracing.com
Italian rally and touring car driver of the 50s and 60s. Drove in the Targa Florio several times and was a top ten finisher in touring car races.
/historicracing.com
Anna Maria Peduzzi was one of the best female Italian drivers of her time. She won her class in the Mille Miglia in 1934 and raced in the Targa Florio five times.
/wikipedia.org plus other information.
Born in Toronto, her husband bought her a Wolseley Hornet in which she started racing. She also raced Austins, Invicta, a Bugatti and the ex-Cobb 10.5 litre Delage. She had a serious crash on the Brooklands Byfleet banking during practice for the 1937 BRDC 500 and though she raecovered completely...
/Speed Queens
Monique Proulx was a Québécois driver who raced mostly in Canada in the 1970s.
/wikipedia.org
Shawna Robinson is a female NASCAR driver. Currently without a ride, she made history in 1984 by becoming the first woman to win a major super speedway points race at the famed Milwaukee Mile Bobtail 100.
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Anni Roosdorp started racing in 1947, driving a Veritas single-seater at the Grenzlandsring in Germany. Her father, Hermann Roosdorp, also raced.
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Averil Scott-Moncrieff started out racing a Bugatti but soon switched to one of the first Lotus VIs. She competed in a lot of races with great reliablity and usually finished near the front.
/historicracing.com
Louise Smith was one of the true pioneers of early stock car racing, running Modifieds from 1946 thru 1956 and actually competing in the first stock car race she ever saw.
/historicracing.com
Gwenda wore her hair in a mannish cut to disguise her femininity. She started racing motorcycles but switched to cars. She raced at Le Mans in 1934 and 1935 but prefered record breaking and held the ultimate Brooklands Ladies Outer Circuit lap record at 135.95 mph.
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Amanda is a well known radio and television presenter who also writes for a number of newspapers and motoring journals. She has been involved in motor sport all her life competing in historic racing as well as ASCAR and the FIA GT Championship.
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Christina Surer was married to Formula 1 driver Marc Surer. She races touring cars, recently competing in the SEAT Leon Supercopa and the Nürburgring 24 Hour race.
/Hugh Oram
Fay Taylor was the most famous female motorcyclist in the late 1920s and a champion speedway rider. She switched to racing cars in 1931 and continued racing in the UK and America until she retired in the late 1950s.
/Kat Teasdale
A professional downhill ski racer Kat was sidelined with a knee injury in 1980. She turned to racing and worked her way up to racing for the Factory Corvette and Pontiac Teams. She became the first woman to race in a NASCAR BUSCH Grand National North series event. She retired in 1998 and has since...
/historicracing.com with thanks to Jacques Mertens
Gilberte Thirion raced between 1951 and 1957. She drove Porsche, Gordini, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Renault in rallies and sportscar races. She is one of the few women to win a World Rally Championship event, taking the Tour of Corsica in 1956.
/Dictionary of National Biography Life of the Day
Involved in the foundation of the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club, she won the first race held there for women drivers, the Ladies Bracelet Handicap, in 1908.
/scotsman.com
Motor-racing driver and theatre manager (She oversaw London's Windmill Theatre), Van Damm will always be associated with Sunbeam, winning more than 50 trophies in their cars.
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Became the first woman to win an F1 race when she won a round of the Aurora F1 series at Brands Hatch in 1980. In 1981 she finished 6th in the non-championship South African GP.
/speed-queens
Affectionately know as "Bill", Elsie Wisdom was one of the first female winners in a mixed race at Brooklands, the 1932 JCC 1000 Mile Race with Joan Richmond. Aside from winning on the track she was also successful in rallying, winning the International Alpine Trial in 1936.
