Thunder Valley Proud
Editor's Notebook, April 2001
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I’m proud of Thunder Valley Racing. Over the past six years, we’ve become the recognized authority on women-in-racing all across the English-speaking world. The web site and this online newsletter are read by a fan base that approaches 70,000 readers a month. When magazine editors and writers are looking for feature stories on women who excel in unlikely arenas, they call us. When television producers have an idea of doing a piece on a woman race car driver, they call us.
Six years ago, it was my hope to combine my twin interests in automobile racing and women-in-athletics. I thought that I could use my skills and experience in the marketing or intangibles (I’d just finished a five year stint that included marketing national public television programs to corporate sponsors) to help women race car drivers find sponsorship to take the next step up the racing ladder.
| half right... |
I thought that women drivers would be interested in working with me. I also thought that corporate marketers would be interested in working with me. (I was half right and we're still working on the other half.)
The Internet was in it infancy six years ago. I started the Thunder Valley Racing web site as a way of promoting the concept of women-in-racing and attracting some attention to what we were trying to do. First slowly, then with ever increasing speed, a community of women race car drivers and their fans began to emerge on the web site.
This community of women-in-racing is, perhaps, the grandest achievement of Thunder Valley Racing. We feature forty women drivers on the web site. We host an ongoing dialogue among more than eighty-five women drivers. We bring together open-wheel drivers, stock car drivers, drag racers, sports car drivers, oval track drivers, road course drivers, off-road drivers, drivers from the United States, drivers from Canada, drivers from England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and fans from everywhere in the world that English is spoken (and a few places where it is not).
| believe in the Vision... |
A great deal of credit goes to the many hundreds of women drivers who have added their energy, commitment, and wisdom to the ongoing dialogue. Credit belongs to the dedicated volunteer staff of Thunder Valley Racing. Credit goes to all who believe in the Vision of a larger racing community that embraces the talents and strengths that women bring to the sport.
We are still and always in the Vision business. I am proud of Thunder Valley Racing, proud of its history, proud of its achievements, and proud, most of all, of the Vision that it lifts up and puts forward as the highest and best future for the sport of automobile racing.