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Speed Queens is a history of women in motorsport, from the very beginning in 1897 to the modern era. Tracing the different ways that women have found into motor racing and rallying, it covers over a century of stories across the world. Each chapter takes a particular event as an introduction to a racer and her contemporaries, taking a different theme each time and moving forward through history. Circuit racing and rallying are both covered. Much more than a collection of profiles and lists of achievements, it explores ideas including sportswomen as performers in the early 20th century, women, death and risk and how the expansion of small car production in the 1960s benefitted female drivers. Some of the best-known female competitors such as Michele Mouton (rallying) and Lella Lombardi (Formula 1) make appearances, but Speed Queens is not just concerned with big names and historic “firsts”. For every woman to be the first to do something on wheels, there were usually several others vying for that honor. In this book, they are given back their place in the story and their relationships to one another examined.
This book explores the history and politics of motor racing, one of the most popular and lucrative elements in the international sport industry. Written by a group of international scholars and motor racing specialists it discusses the sport’s origins, the relationship of motor racing to nation building and modernity (noting its links to fascism and dictatorship), the links between motor racing and the automobile industry, motor racing and the politics both of gender and of race, motor racing, the media and postmodernity, and motor racing, the spatial and globalization. This book speaks to scholars in history, politics, sport studies, the sociology of sport, sport management and cultural studies, along with the many lay readers who are interested in the relationship between motor sport and society.
Imagine driving 16,000 miles in 25 days over some of the roughest terrain in the world, at altitudes up to 16,000 feet, where engines and lungs gasp for air. Imagine 500-mile speed trials over rocky mountain tracks, racing against the clock and 95 other cars. Imagine attempting this more than 50 years ago, without GPS or cell phones or modern safety equipment. In April 1970, 241 men and women from more than 20 nations did just that, setting out from London in cars ranging from a dune buggy to family sedans to Porsches, Rolls-Royces, camper vans and a Jeep Wagoneer, determined to get to Mexico City. Drawing on personal recollections of competitors, organizers, marshals and mechanics, this book recounts the ecstasies and agonies of perhaps the toughest endurance motorsports event ever--the London to Mexico World Cup Rally.