Welcome!

I'm Tedwilliam Theodore and this website is a record of my years founding and building Thunder Valley Racing into a strong Internet community that promotes hundreds of women race car drivers and reaches many thousands of their fans. All the material you will find here was first published on the Thunder Valley site, thundervalleyracing.com, from 1996 until 2007. Take a nostalgic trip with me back to the early years of the world wide web and to the archaic times when women in motorsports meant spandex and high heels and when women race car drivers were, at best, a curiosity.

 

 

I invite you to read my Editor's Notebook columns.

The navigation bar at the top of this page will take you to a menu of my favorite Editor's Notebook columns and to a complete collection of the columns that I've written over the years. I've written about racing, about women in racing, about Thunder Valley, the sweetest spot on earth, and about whatever else seemed important that I share with you. Some folks find them interesting. Perhaps you will as well.

You might also enjoy seeing how the Thunder Valley Racing website has evolved.

The earlier versions of Thunder Valley Racing provide a glimpse of the development of the world wide web as well as of the growth of Thunder Valley. You'll be amused, I think, to see what the website looked like in 1996, at the infancy of the world wide web. It was pretty primitive. You can also see how it has evolved over the years, changing themes and its look. What has never changed, however, is our commitment to showcasing women race car drivers and giving their fans a way to connect with them.

So, welcome to my little corner of the Internet.

I've enjoyed my work building our glorious community of women in racing and I'm proud of what we've achieved at Thunder Valley Racing. I'm even more proud, the way a parent is proud, about how far women have come since we began.


I'd be pleased if you'd contact me and give me your thoughts and impressions of what you've found here, about women in racing, about racing in general, or about anything else you think I'd like to know.

My Thunder Valley

That's a picture of Thunder Valley you see at the top of this page. It's the sweetest spot on earth. The ribbon of road starts at Canada Corner (turn 12) and ends at the Billy Mitchell Bridge (turn 13) of the race track at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, U.S.A. I've written quite a bit about this place, this most magical spot in the universe of automobile racing. You may have your own Thunder Valley. You may call it something else, but it is the racing place that, for you, means 'home'.

 

This picture was taken in the Fall of 1990 and that's me, T.W. Theodore, in the leading Formula Ford, at a race in the Midwest Series of the Skip Barber competition. I'm not leading the race, you understand, but just leading this pack of competitors somewhere back from the race leaders.

 

Thanks for visiting.

T.W. Theodore