{"id":6705,"date":"2011-08-01T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T08:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/?p=6705"},"modified":"2013-05-31T16:17:28","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T15:17:28","slug":"secret-diary-of-a-female-petrolhead-the-swimsuit-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2011\/08\/01\/secret-diary-of-a-female-petrolhead-the-swimsuit-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Diary of a Female Petrolhead: the Swimsuit Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day whilst sat at the side of the racetrack, I asked a fellow motorsport aficionado why there were so few women racing drivers. Actually, I\u2019d sort of thought that maybe the female competitors had their own events like women\u2019s 100m or women\u2019s football, which involved precisely the same conditions and effort, but with added frills on their flame-proof suits. This lasted until the first multi-car pile-up, and I noticed that one of the cars freshly turned into car-putty had a woman\u2019s name emblazoned on the bodywork.<\/p>\n

\"Print<\/a>

Vintage print by Rene Vincent, 'Women Join The Racing Driver Fraternity'<\/p><\/div>\n

So, if women compete in the same events as men \u2013 and why not, given that it is just as much about the cars as it is about the drivers \u2013 why are there so few women racing drivers? After all, there\u2019s an entire association out there promoting women in motorsport <\/a>with handy lists of everything you\u2019ll need to buy to get started, and it\u2019s not like lack of body mass would be a disadvantage in what is essentially a test of lightness and speed. OK, at the top ends you\u2019re going to need some neck muscles to prevent you being spontaneously decapitated by your own car as you hit maximum G, but no more so than a female bodybuilder needs to achieve, surely. So why the lack?<\/p>\n

To the internet! The wonders of googling \u201cfemale racing drivers\u201d yielded this pertinent thread<\/a> where I didn\u2019t learn much other than the names of four female drivers in the history of the entire sport. Thanks, guys, that totally answers my question.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I decided to do a little more research. How do you become a racing driver? Surely you can\u2019t just turn up outside Ferrari\u2019s headquarters and demand to join their team? (Why hasn\u2019t anyone tried this?) Silverstone\u2019s driver testimonials<\/a> are unsurprisingly all by men. They do have one thing in common, though: they all started young. The official site for the Ginetta Challenge, one of the many races I\u2019d watched that day, has a helpful flowchart<\/a> showing what it takes to get to the top of the league, as well as a price list. The Independent <\/strong>interviewed a young Porsche driver<\/a> and explained the top wage (\u00a360k) and the likely costs (thousands of pounds if you don\u2019t get sponsorship).<\/p>\n

So, to summarise: this is a sport where you have to start investing hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds into a pre-teen child, shepherding them along and making them practise every waking hour until, in their mid-teens, they get signed up to a racing team that then commandeers their careers until they\u2019re 35, at which point they\u2019re expected to retire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

I WANT TO BE JUST LIKE DANICA PATRICK WHEN I GROW UP. Image courtesy of Hot Fresh Pics and numerous dodgy sites.<\/p><\/div>\n

This is all well and good, and we can assume that no families on income support are ever going to produce the next Monaco GP winner. However, there is more to it than that. Starting that young, a child has to show a pretty strong preference for the sport, and the parents have to be supportive\/pushy enough (delete as appropriate) to pour their savings into karting and rallying and fire extinguishers. They have to want it just as much as the child.<\/p>\n

So there you are, eight years old, going up to mummy and daddy and saying, \u201cI want to be a racing driver! Will you sign my permission slip?\u201d And mummy and daddy look down on their precious little one and say, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we buy you a new dolly instead?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s not what happens to every little girl. Some undoubtedly come from racing families, and just as much effort is poured into their motorsport careers as would have been done for a male child. In some circles, with the right family emphasis, girls in motorsport can flourish. I\u2019m guessing that this is about the same ratio as male ballet dancers.<\/p>\n

To answer my own question, there are<\/em> female racing drivers. Sabine Schmitz<\/strong><\/a> is queen of the Nurburgring. Danica Patrick<\/strong><\/a> rocks IndyCar and NASCAR. Amanda Whitaker<\/strong> <\/a>won the National Formula Ford Championship. Wiki has a list of five \u2013 five! A veritable cornucopia of choice! \u2013 Formula 1 female drivers<\/a>, including Desir\u00e9 Wilson<\/strong>, the only female F1 driver to actually win anything<\/a> in Formula 1.\u00a0 You can see an entire bevy of them in this poll listing the “10 Sexiest Women in Motoring and Motorsport<\/a>“. Now not only am I armed with names, I also have cup-sizes. MY QUEST IS COMPLETE, GUYS.<\/p>\n

I will leave you with the baffling sight of Top Gear<\/strong> – not precisely the bastion of political correctness – pointing out that this is insulting and patronising in the extreme:<\/p>\n