Women Road Racers

Women keep up with — and sometimes beat — the guys in Mazda Motorsports Development Ladder

When historians look back at 2008, they may be inclined to call it the year of the woman. With roughly half the race season gone, several noteworthy accomplishments in a handful of professional series have dominated the news, illustrating that motorsports is no longer an all-boys club.

In April, Atlantic Championship graduate Danica Patrick won at Twin Ring Motegi in the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first woman to win a major auto racing event on a closed-course circuit. The accomplishment placed Patrick among the ranks of drag racer Shirley Muldowney, who won three NHRA Top Fuel Championships as a first female winner in the top tier of American motorsports.

Later in the month, Ashley Force nabbed her first-ever NHRA professional win, defeating her father John in the final round and becoming the first woman to earn victory in the Funny Car class. It occurred at the NHRA Southern Nationals, held at the Atlanta Dragway in Georgia.

Shortly after Force’s win, fellow Funny Car pilot Melanie Troxel became the NHRA’s second female driver to win a national event, doing so at the O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in May. She backed up her feat in June by becoming the first female driver to top qualifying at the Route 66 NHRA Nationals in Illinois.

Also in June, Hillary Will became the only woman in Top Fuel to win a national event. She did it at the NHRA Summer Nationals in Kansas.

While high-exposure professional racing has seen its share of females in the spotlight this season, it is only a reflection of what is going on in greater numbers in other less prominent levels of motorsport. Nowhere is this more evident than the Mazda Motorsports Development Ladder.

Over the same weekend Indy superstar Patrick won her first pro event, 19-year-old Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda ace Simona de Silvestro made her own mark by becoming only the second woman ever to win the Imperial Capital Bank Atlantic Challenge of Long Beach, and she did it with Mazda power.

De Silvestro joins Atlantic series graduate Katherine Legge as the only women ever to win the race in the series’ 35-year history (Legge earned her victory in ’05). De Silvestro did it in the No. 34 Newman Wachs Racing Atlantic Swift 016.a chassis, powered by a 2.3-liter Mazda-Cosworth engine, a chariot that carried the race’s lone female pilot to a P2 qualifier.

It was not de Silvestro’s first taste of success, however. As a rookie in the Atlantic Championship in ‘07, the Swiss hot-shoe earned two top-10 results and scored championship points in nine of 12 races with Walker Racing. In 2006 she completed a season in the Formula BMW USA championship, collecting a victory at Lime Rock, six podiums and 11 top-10 finishes en route to a fourth-place finish in the overall point standings. She also scored two third-place finishes at the U.S. Grand Prix and made history by becoming the first woman to ever earn a podium result at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

De Silvestro currently sits fourth in points in the Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda with 55 after three of 11 events, collecting a hard-fought tenth at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca race in May and ninth at Circuit Mont Tremblant in June. Eight stops remain on the schedule, including double headers at the Grand Prix of Edmonton in July and Road America Grand Prix in August, and a huge up-and-coming talent show on Thunderbolt Raceway at New Jersey Motorsports Park for Mazda Formula Zoom-Zoom, a unique event set for Sept. 12-14 with the Star Mazda and Spec Miata series.

Further down the Mazda Development Ladder on the open-wheel side is the Star Mazda Championship, another series where women have made their mark. Just last year, AIM Autosport’s Natacha Gachnang became the first female driver to score back-to-back podium finishes in the series, doing so at Portland and Cleveland.

Leading the X chromosome charge is Kester Racing’s Kristy Kester, a 20-year-old Texas native who has always seemed to be driven at whatever she does in life. In high school, she graduated as class valedictorian. Currently a sophomore at Texas A&M University, she plans on majoring in biomedical studies and charging into medical school.

Behind the wheel Kester is just as ambitious. Starting in karts some eight years ago, she has collected multiple first-, second- and third-place finishes. Kester’s also placed second at the 2005 IKF Road Race Grand Nationals and won several WTKA Karting Championships — all before she turned 19. Furthermore, she set fastest race lap, scored three pole positions, and won two races in the Formula E series.

In the Mazda Renesis-motivated Star chassis of the 2008 Star Mazda Championship, Kester has struggled in qualifying only to impress on race day, making up ten grid spots to finish 13th at Watkins Glen in June and earning a top-10 result at the season opener at Sebring, where she came home eighth. Currently sitting ninth in points, and with nine rounds still to play out, Kester has ample opportunity to mount a charge for the Star Mazda crown.

Kester is joined by a duo of young journeywomen who have intermittently campaigned the ’08 championship, Juliana Gonzalez and Michele Bumgarner.

Gonzalez hails from Mexico and began kart racing in 2002 at the tender age of 11. Until roughly 2005, she mastered karting and amassed an impressive record of wins and podium finishes. The same year she also made her open-wheel debut, competing in the Formula Renault series, where she nabbed one win, one pole position and four podiums.

In ’06, Gonzalez transitioned into the Formula Ford 2000 Series, where she finished tenth in the national championship, and the following year went to the F2000 Championship Series, shining again by placing 15th out of 53 drivers competing.

Currently 25th in the drivers table, Gonzalez drives the No. 11 car for Andersen Racing, which she piloted to 15th in her only Star Mazda outing thus far, Sebring. She lists a short-term goal as campaigning for Rookie of the Year in the series, and a monumentally big objective for her racing career, Formula 1.

Bumgarner was born and raised in the Philippines and has been dubbed “Asia’s Finest,” getting her start in karts, too, in 2002 and earning Junior Karter of the Year, following it up with Karter of the Year in ’03. She has continued to excel in karting throughout her career and transitioned to Asian Formula 3 open-wheel racing in ’06, as well as Star Mazda.

Now with John Walko Racing in Star Mazda, she has had a rough start to ’08. At Sebring in March, she was hit by an errant driver on the race’s first lap that damaged her suspension and forced her to retire early. Then at Miller, she completed her first full race and saw the checkers in 20th against a 31-driver field, and did one better in the following contest at Watkins Glen to come home 19th. Bumgarner does have one up on her female competition, though; she has a fulltime female race engineer in Kate Gunlach.

Women are blazing trails in Mazda sports car racing as well, evidenced by the five female hot shoes that were on the entry list for the Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup 2008 season opener at Road Atlanta. While we can’t say for sure where the affair fits into the records books, Mazda is pleased to have five talented women competing in a great series.

Currently 16th in points after just two events is Deborah Loth, who returns to Team MER after a season away from MX-5 Cup racing. An endodontist from Fort Worth, Texas, Loth has been racing since 2001 and finished fifth in the 2006 MX-5 Cup points with five top-five finishes.

Behind Loth on the drivers table in 17th is Alison Malkhassian, who was born in Portland, Maine, but has been a long-time California resident. She had no trouble picking which MX-5 team to join this season — her husband Ara owns Alara Racing. A successful real estate investor, Malkhassian has been SCCA Club Racing since 2000 and has more than 100 races on her resume. This will be her first full season in MX-5 Cup.

Further down the list in 25th is Laura Olson, who works as an operations manager for a healthcare company and has been racing for a decade, collecting several SCCA Divisional Championships along the way. The Californian was even selected to be in the popular SPEED reality show and racing competition “SETUP.” Racing with the Hooverspeed team, Road Atlanta was Olson’s fifth professional race.

Along with a famous racing name and background, Susan Krohn brings years of Panoz Racing experience to Team MER, as well as a second lady. The Texan made her MX-5 Cup debut in Atlanta, and currently sits 28th in points.

Right behind Krohn in championship points is 18-year-old Colbi Bradley, who’s been racing karts for a decade. When she’s not at the track, she’s a management student at Georgia Tech. Having raced previously at Road Atlanta, Bradley was selected to make a guest appearance in the ’08 opening round of MX-5 Cup courtesy of Mazda.

Just halfway through the 2008 race season, women have shaped history and announced to the world that motorsport is no longer simply for the boys. With so many females working up through the Mazda Motorsports Development Ladder, one can only guess there will come a day when hearing of the Patrick’s, Force’s and Troxel’s of the world won’t be such a big deal. The glass ceiling they have smashed will allow countless other women to achieve great heights, and the Mazda system will be there to help them keep reaching.

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