Hmmm - how many competitors were there in that class? Not many, I'd bargain. Evidently she must have improved since I saw her at Rufforth earlier in that year - the spinfulness was terrific. Perhaps Mr Meek had been giving her some of the benefit of his experience....

Anyone remember the ladies only Celebrity Race, on the "Motor-Racing 70s Style" video. I think they were in Granadas, in about 1970-71. Great fun to listen to the commentary, maybe Neville Hay, and very un-PC (sorry am I getting into Roebuck areas). Some of the ladies mentioned on here starred in the race, if thats the right word.

Aren't the 4 Shocks great, Lori Boughton too. I recall her in an F4 GRD, was she partnered with Jeremy Gambs in this ?

There was also a ladies only Granada race at Brands supporting the Rothmans 50,000 in 1972.
I was looking through the programme the other day.

This is not a piece of nostalgia, but I deem it worth registering.

Bia Figueiredo put a very nice fight for this year's Brazilian Formula Renault Championship, which she finished in third place. Bia, who's merely twenty-year old, score four pole positions and won three races. By doing so she became the first woman ever to win a Formula Renault race.

Bia has already signed with top-notch Cesário Racing for a campaign in the 2006 Codasur Formula 3 Championship.

Parabéns, Bia!

Well then here are some souvenirs of Ms Taws. The pictures were taken in Trois Rivières in 2002.

Careful what you say chaps, both Lorina and Julie Thwaites are now reading this thread !

Oooh , I don't know, I thought it was very artistic !

A couple more names from the recesses of one's memory...

Emily Newman/Dunlop Star of Tomorrow competitor (does Mallory Dan remember her?)



and Wendy Satterley ( I believe she was the girlfriend of Mark Peters)

I can't imagine Lorina looking "frumpy"...




And Regarding Valli,


artistic by page 3 standards?

Paul

Not sure if it has been mentioned before, but Jenny Birrell, when she was still Jenny Nadin, co-drove/navigated for Pat Moss IIRC in 1964-ish in a Lotus Cortina after Mrs Carlsson moved from BMC.

Prior to that, Jenny Nadin, as was, lived a few miles away from us, and she hurtled round the lanes over the moors to where she worked in Harrogate in her Spridget reg no JN 1030 , just the sort of detail that would be remembered by an impressionable callow youth, (then not now.... Oh I don't know)

Again IIRC, there was a PR write up on her in the Sunday Express motoring pages in those days, just prior to her Moss activities.

Still, she was a good racer. Was she not involved in a Talbot Horizon series in the seventies? Something to do with alternative fuels or something? Perhaps the memory is playing tricks.

Roger Lund



PS Don't forget the one make. MG Midget, race at Brooklands in the mid thirties for a gang of the society ladies/girls, on video here somewhere. IIRC Barbara Cartland was to the fore in the video along with a white Russian princess.

RL

"Race" by Barbara Cartland's definition only, I suspect

Yes,this was a publicity stunt set up by Cartland.Not at an actual race meeting.

Jenny Birell was in the Granada race mentioned earlier , which was televised by BBC.
Ten years ago she was running the Formula Vauxhall Junior series for Vauxhall which was for 16 year olds , I have never heard anyone swear like that before or since ! that year the current 'Stig' Ben Collins was doing his first year in cars.

The Barbara Cartland 'race' is in several videos still available.

Blimey, that Emily is a bit....."attractive" (expecting lifetime ban on account of sexism....).

I think not!

(I had the same, ahem, *reaction* to Wendy's pic... )

I actually met her,a lovely girl.Progressed fron FF to FF2000,then dissapeared. Unfortunately some time later I read that her father had been jailed-turned out he was sponsoring the sport,not only his daughter, from the proceeds of something very illegal.

1963 - because when Pat Moss left BMC for Ford, Stuart Turner had kept all the regular UK female co-drivers on BMC retainers!

Jenny Nadin of course also drove an Imp in the Motoring News rally championship at the end of the 60s.

Pleased to learn that some of you were touched by the pictures of Mss Newman and Satterley..

What about the talented Claudia Huertgen who stepped down from modern single-seaters to race Klaus Werner's Maserati 300S at Historic Monaco 2000, and showed a clean pair of heels to seasoned - and tough - campaigners like Frank Sytner. What has become of her since?

A few more from the box of forgotten photos:

Cheshire-domiciled Dane, Kirsten Kolby, who was pretty competitive before a Formula Renault accident hastened her retirement




and Irish lady Sarah Kavanagh who progressed from Formula Ford to BOSS Formula

Claudia is still peddling a BMW 320i quickly. Champion in the German DTC Championship 2003 & 2004, don't know about 2005.
Rob

Here are some pictures of Yvette Fontaine from her scrapbook:

In one of her first appearances, the 1964 Ixelles 12H Rallye:


Spa 1967:


Zolder 1969, where she became Belgian Touring Car Champion in a Ford Escort, beating JP Gaban (Porsche) fair and square:


With a portrait of Jim Clark:


and with Jacky Stewart:


In a F.Ford during the Hill Climb of Houyet, year?


Breaking some records in a Ford Transit Van (Monza) :


Finishing 11th, 24H Le Mans 1975 (with female co-drivers Verney and Tarnaud) :


Finishing 2nd, 1976 Spa-Francorchamps 24H with "Pedro" in a BMW:


and Yvette in 2003, when we visited her for an interview:

A nice collection of pics, Pedro.

Vanina Ickx, daughter of :

Spa 1000kms 2004

Mentioned very early in this thread but without a photo, so here 1980s single-seat pilot Cathy Muller.


(Sutton Image)

Kirsten Kolby is the daughter of a Danish former rally driver, and sister of driver Kristian and (former?) McLaren Press Officer Ellen Kolby.

Cathy Müller was Kris Nissen's girl friend for a while, IIRC.

Whatever happened to pretty little Swede Monica Stråth, BTW?

And Vanina Ickx dated Chad McQueen (Steve's son and a weekend pilot and car nut himself).

Look, can we please call a halt to these pictures of lady racing drivers? It's more than my heart can cope with. Show them in full overalls and wearing a helmet by all means, but not anything else.

Sorry Ian,have not yet have time to search my boxes of 40 years of old photos.Think I have a few not yet seen here,plus Lori without overalls!

Rob, Rob!!!! DO NOT DO THAT PLEASE!!!!!

Wellington,

That 'Barbie' pink No. 72 Formula Ford (I suspect) in the 2002 Trois Rivières shot of Ms. Taws - what make is it?

Ian - the cardio-vascular exercise of those non-helmeteted-and-overalled shots should be good for you!

I think it is an AIM Autosport Aero II/Ivey. I will have to dig my GP program of that year from somewhere and see if it is mentioned there.

Thanks, Wellington.

I Googled AIM racing and learned that only two Aero II chassis were built (in 1990-91) - and were stolen after a race in August 2002, but fortunately both cars wer quickly recovered.

Sadly, Ashley Taws was later badly injured in a road accident (she was a passenger), but she recovered and returned to racing in 2003.

I know she have already mentioned many times in this thread but I thought I would share a photo with you:


(Stuart Knibbs)

Giovanna Amati in the paddock at the Birmingham Superprix in 1990 for the F3000 race.

And there's more.....

First, one of Divina in her F2 March 792 (note BRDC badge on cockpit side)



and one of Jan Brise without her helmet

Can anyone find a photo of Tina Cooper, she won a number of races from the front to win the 1993 Mini Seven national championship beating all the blokes to the title. She was genuinely quick and aggressive and as I know this mini variant can be very unforgiving!

Tall,slim, long fair hair, came from Essex. Such a shame she went no further

Good post Richard

IIRC one of those blokes against whom she raced was her brother, running as a two car team, but cannot remember the team name, other than Cooper, but a very fast girl.

RL

Best I can do.

One of my favourites-Heather Baillie

That's very good.

Extraordinary really, she was a genuine achiever on merit with no real backers, got little recognition or publicity, someone with the wherewithall really should have put her in a single seater, she unlike a few of the others had real driving ability and might well have become a well known name............sadly no surprise there are few pictures. After her championship year I think she did just a few Fiesta races and then packed it in altogether, great shame.

The most interesting thing to flow from this thread is that none of the girls seem sad enough to sit for hours in front of computers making daft (some not all of you...) comments about racing drivers of the other sex !
As when they were racing they just got on with it and despite what you may think being a female was NOT the answer to a maidens prayers in terms of sponsorship. In the so called liberated days of the sixties and seventies there was more sexism than anything else and it really was tough for them to make it.
I believe strongly that Desi had all that it took to succeed in Formula1, her performance in the Tyrrell in South Africa demonstrated clearly that she had the pace. She was only fractions off the likes of Nelson Piquet in the ultimate ground effect car, the Brabham BT49, proving the point. Sadly, Ken could not get the package together to run her. Desi's recent outings in the yellow Cobra at Goodwood prove she still has it.
I can tell Rob 29 that there is a very select group pf lady racing drivers who are FULL memebers of the BRDC and that Lorina is justly proud of her membership. She is equally proud of a number of feats during an accomplished career.
Lorina was nominated as Man of the Meeting at Mallory Park and caused them to change the title to 'Driver of the Day' thereafter. She finished a close second in the Formula Junior Historic Championship beating many of the supposed male heros of the day.
In recent times Lorina has competed in her McLaren M23, the car which James Hunt drove to the infamous 'win' at Brands in 1976 on his way to his World Championship. She is justly proud of her performance in that car in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix in 2004 finishing 12th overall out of thirty cars in a drive which impressed many watchers and lapping very competitively with the Historic (male) hot shots.
With luck she is pictured here blasting past the Gucci shops on the way into Casino Square and I can assure you she was not window shopping ! Focused does not even come close to describing it.



This season she hopes to run the McLaren again and will also be racing a Formula 3 Ralt RT1 in the HSCC Classic F3 series.
The REAL lady racing drivers simply just want to get on with it and be considered on their own merits, they always go blank when folk ask..oh, we didnt know there were races for girls...I am sure even today in this so called enlightend world the very talented Katharine Legge cringes when Autosprot yet again starts a piece...'Female racing driver Katharine...'
The day she simply becomes 'Racing Driver Katharine Legge' then the efforts and sacrifices of all those listed in your thread will have been worthwhile.

C'mon guys its the 21st century

Mind you, I still look forward to the pics !

Lori without overalls as promised!



OT question for Ian Senior; What is a 'leghorn' I only know this as an english name for the italian town of Livorno.

Teach yourself poultry time: A white leghorn is a type of chicken. There are also brown and black ones. The best known example of the white variety must be the Warner Brothers cartoon character, Foghorn Leghorn I say Foghorn Leghorn. Just to fill you in on the background to my signature (the footless path has many leghorns...), it's the title of a chapter from Harry Pearson's highly amusing book "Around the World by Mouse", which I cannot recommend highly enough. The phrase comes from something in a foreign language that was (badly) translated into English by a translation program on a computer.

Nice pic Rob, but are you sure ???

Sorry? Sure of what?

Desire taking a turn in Siggi Brun's Porsche 908 in an Oulton Park Thundersports race

I rather think that is a case of mistaken identity.

Any more details on where,when in what connection the photo was taken ?

Oh dear! I think taken at Lydden about 25 years ago. We were on quite friendly terms around that time so could not have been mistaken identity!

I think these were taken at the same meeting.

Have we mentioned Ewy Rosqvist?

RL

Ellen's still there.

Rob,
Question was, are you sure that pic is Lorina !