Eric Thompson: Why women are pants at motor racing

I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb so I'll continue in the 'women and motor car' theme of last week.

Now, before some of the more vocal of you out there start giving yourselves a self-imposed wedgey and getting you La Perla knickers in a twist, read the whole piece.

Before I get to my main point, I'd just like to say that many of the 90-plus people who kindly took the time to post a comment on the website re women and 4x4x, actually got the point.

Off-road vehicles should be used off-road (hence the name) and not in cities for shopping or running little Hugo and Tiffany around.

This week I want to explain why women are pants at motor racing. Though a few have tried, in the grand scheme of things they've all pretty much been pants. If anybody reading this thinks the organisers of F1, V8 Supercars, GP2 or any of the many other racing class want to keep women out of motor sport, you're stark barking raving mad.

Most of the blokes who run the sport would give their right testicle to have a woman who could win races in their series. Yes, yes, yes, I can hear some of you wailing about how good IndyCar driver Danica Patrick is. Crap. She's only won one race and that made her the first woman to win a major open wheeler event.

I could just about finish this piece right now - because that pretty much sums up just how bad it is for women trying to race. Patrick only won that race in Japan, because she was driving so slow she didn't have to make the final pit stop to top up on fuel like the majority of the rest of the field.

To make my point about how bad women are wanted in motor racing, God knows how much money Nascar has had to pony up to get Patrick to race in the Nationwide Series (feeder to the main Sprint series) this year. And she crashed in her first race. If there was a super quick female F1 driver out there, Bernie Ecclestone would break the bank at Monte Carlo to get her a drive.

Why you might ask? All of sudden you've doubled your audience and opened the door for a whole new raft of sponsors to come on board.

Why are men better at motor racing you may wonder? Easy, we can concentrate on mindless things, like racing around in circles for hours, and still think it's fun. A woman on the other hand, would probably die of boredom if she had to race in a 24Hour Le Mans - and anyway, the mirrors are way too small on race cars to preen in to pass the time.

Blokes are hard wired to play with toys with engines and we never really grew up from playing with Corgi or Dinky cars. Along with us, the cars also got bigger, louder and faster. Women on the other hand, grew up realising there's more to life than dolls, swooning over actors and scrap-booking - well most anyway.

There are exceptions to every rule and a few women have tried Formula One over the years. Maria Teresa de Filippis, Lella Lombardi, Divina Galica, Desire Wilson and Giovanna Amati. Only two actually made it to the starting grid on race day; De Filippis and Lombardi and only Lombardi gained a point, well half a point anyway.

Come to think of it, I can't recall any female mechanics at the top level either but I'm sure someone will let me know if there is.

I have come across numerous women who are fans and like watching motorsport. I'd almost guarantee though, if had a ticket to the Australian F1 Grand Prix in one hand, and an invitation to an exclusive showing of the new line of Manolo Blahnik shoes, the shoes would win out.

I'll say one thing, however. Women racing drivers are far more fun to interview than the blokes. One of my all time favourite interviews for the Herald was with Janet Guthrie, the first woman to race at the Indianapolis 500 and Nascar. She was entertaining, lively, articulate and utterly fascinating. Whereas Ecclestone and Max Mosley were, well a bit bland in comparison really.

So there's the possible trade of. If you want to be a fascinating creature with a lot of personality be a woman, if you want to go motor racing successfully, be a bloke.

Eric Thompson