www.rceracing.com

Motor racing has always been a boys’ club. NASCAR, in fact, is often seen as a good old boys’ club. Female drivers are rare, as are women in the pits.

In European racing, however, women are very visible. Generally edited out of American coverage of the races, grid girls stand next to each car. In hot weather or rain they carry umbrellas to shade the drivers. Other than that they stand there and look pretty. They are, of course, models, and unlike cheerleaders, who demonstrate real, hard-earned skill, all they have to do is look good in revealing outfits. This site is too family friendly to discuss some of the outfits that have been seen on recent grids. These grid girls or grid bimbos are the only women one normally sees associated with Formula One or MotoGP. In the entire history of Formula One, only five women have climbed into a cockpit. Only two of them started a race.

American racing, on the face of it, does a little better. Even non-fans have some clue who Danica Patrick is. Good, right? Except that the reason non-fans know who she is is not her racing ability (competent, but not brilliant), but her pretty face looking out of a Go Daddy ad. One has to suspect Go Daddy sponsors her not because she can drive a race car but because she is hot. She even played a female race car driver on television. She also made the news for chick fighting in the pits with fellow driver (and ex model) Milka Duno. Like all of the female drivers so far, she has been seen as a woman who happens to drive race cars, not a race car driver who happens to be female.

NASCAR has seen, over the years, nineteen female drivers, including Danica Patrick. The greater proportion reflects mostly that there are more NASCAR drivers. As for women behind the scenes…none are seen on pit road, although that would be difficult given the large amount of physical strength required. There are some female engineers, but who even mentions them?

Whether motor racing is truly sexist or not, it certainly appears to be to anyone on the outside. Perhaps, though, all it would take is one really good female driver to start changing the trend.