About That Tirade on Women Drivers

Bonehead Comments Rebutted

by Susan Douglas, Associate Editor

Like everything else on this planet, there are advantages and disadvantages for men and women involved in motorsports, and--little surprise here--the advantages and disadvantages are different for men than they are for women.

The existence of these differences is something I've lived with all of my adult life, and something I had to get over a while back. So it was a truly unpleasant surprise for me to read Karl Fredrickson's opinion piece, "Women Drivers" in the January 2001 issue of Speedway Illustrated. On the reread, I counted eight different advantages (or disadvantages) that Mr. Fredrickson felt justified his assertion that a woman winning the Winston Cup Championship is a very long way off, if it will happen at all

For me, most of them were in the "So what?" category--I didn't see that it really backed up his point. The thing that brought me up short, however, wasn't that the assertion was published, but that the tirade that followed it was. I've decided to share the wealth on this one--here's to all of the bonehead comments women racers get to enjoy!

1. No woman has completed a five hundred mile race because they don't have the strength and endurance. This is the standard excuse that is dragged out every time a woman wants to do something that requires strength and endurance--like the Boston Marathon or Ironman triathlon. One major difference here-the car also has to be able to be competitive. So in order to actually complete a 500 mile race, women also have to have enough car and race team, and a 500 mile race event in their category, in order to complete a 500-mile race. Right now this isn't a frequently occurring combination. As far as I know, presently Mr. Fredrickson is right. I believe that we'll see Shawna Robinson do it, if not this season then next, and I believe we'll see Sarah Fisher or Lyn St. James as well. First, women need to routinely compete in series that offer 500-mile races to drive--and that hasn't happened either.

2. Women have to be their own mechanics to be able to compete successfully. If you can't qualify to compete in the upper echelons of racing without being your own mechanic, then someone needs to strip Jeff Gordon of his championships. Any volunteers?

3. Women drivers change their names to things that are more media ready, and men don't. I'm not sure what this has to do with the ability to drive a race car, but maybe revelation will come with time.

4. Women don't have the passion to race. Somehow this was the conclusion after Mr. Fredrickson read where Lyn St. James believes the solution to sex discrimination in racing is to encourage more women to get involved.

Mr. Fredrickson thinks that unless women want to get involved on their own, they won't have what it takes. Based on what I read, apparently every man involved in the sport decided on his own to venture forth and build his own race car on his own from scratch without encouragement.

Right.

Actually Mr. Fredrickson is safe on this one--here is where one of those "built-in safeguards" he likes so much comes in. If a woman doesn't have a true passion to race, one that will carry her past all the men who do their best to demoralize her, she'll get blown out every bit as quickly as any wimpy man ever did.

5. Women have unequal access to sponsorship money because of the notoriety of being a woman driver. When considering this, I think it’s worth making a good if obvious point--women drivers are not common and therefore are normally noticed more than most of the individual men in a race. However, if a driver isn't considered competitive, then sponsors are going to be very hard to come by because few businesses want to be associated with a loser. Did I miss something here? Notoriety cuts both ways, and the extra visibility can be an extra negative as well as an extra positive.

6. Women drivers get more attention because they're women. Another side to the previous obvious point: as far as the article about featuring Tracie Bellrose and not the other 899 A- division champions, maybe its because she was available for an interview--along the lines of the type of reasoning Mr. Fredrickson gave for choosing himself for the "Does the Driver Matter" article. Maybe the management at Speedway Illustrated felt having an article about the first woman to win an A-division track title would sell more magazines, which is what they're in business to do. In the final analysis, I guess Mr. Fredrickson will have to ask his boss about the choice.

With respect to Sarah Fisher getting too much ink, it is clearly the notoriety thing that for her has cut both ways during her rookie season. Is it fair? A good question here might be, "Fair to whom?" Coming up the curve in the glare of the spotlight might not be the optimum way to develop long term as potential sponsors certainly have been given a ringside look at any mistakes as well as the good moves of the season. Personally, based on what I've heard and seen from her, I believe Sarah would like the media to knock off the woman stuff and focus on the driver stuff.

7. Women don't get punched out when they screw up. I'm not sure that being willing to punch someone out/be punched out is a valid criterion for a driver.

I do think that someone who is as much of a menace as the driver described by Mr. Fredrickson-pulling stunts and wrecking someone after the checkers-needs to be dealt with immediately by the track officials. While I don't doubt the existence of the unwritten law that big guys get dumped less often, to universally expect drivers to beat on each other to enforce good driving habits seems dumb.

8. Women have to get ahead in racing the same way men do. I actually agree with this. There are enough different models of how to do this out there that I think any woman who wants to race badly enough can find a model that even Mr. Fredrickson will admit is valid (even if its not his personal preference).

No, I haven't given up my subscription to Speedway Illustrated. I just finished reading the February issue, cover to cover barely coming up for air. I still like Karl Fredrickson's writing--his technical contributions to the magazine are on the whole well worth reading.

But I hope I never race against him.

To Distant Thunder front page

To Distant Thunder Archives