Drive like a girl
anadian woman continues legacy of great female racing drivers
1924, Elfrieda Mais, who was billed as the “World Champion Woman Driver,” defeated four-time Indianapolis 500 starter Louis Disbrow in a special “Automobile Match Race” at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto Often called the “First Woman Racing Driver,” which may or may not have been true, the daredevil Mais started racing in 1912 (after working as a stunt pilot and wing walker) and was a star
attraction for the following 30 years at race meets in the United States and Canada. There was just one problem: she was never allowed to go up against the men in a real race. She was married to a racing driver, Ray LaPlante, but she couldn’t compete for money against him or other men. In 1930, promoter J. Alex Sloan, who employed Mais as an added attraction, put a “wooden wall crash” into his
racing show. Part of her job was to smash a car through it. Of course, the wood was soon put on fire and she had to drive through that. In 1934, at the Alabama State Fair in Birmingham, she was killed doing the stunt. Since then, there have been dozens of female racers — Doreen Evens, Kay Petre (a Toronto woman known as “Queen of the Brooklands” for her peed and derring-do at the old British race course), Divina Galica, Lella LomIn
bardi, Arlene Hiss, Lyn St. James and Juliana Chiovitti among them — and the list goes on and on. All, in their own way, have faced discrimination of one kind or another. Janet Guthrie, the first woman to make the field at Indianapolis in 1977, started the NASCAR World 600 the previous year in 27th position, just behind Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott.
She finally wrote a book in 2005 about what really happened in both places. It ain’t pretty,
“When I shook hands with Richard Petty,” she wrote, “I though I’d get frostbite. Later, he would be quoted as saying of me, ‘She’s no lady. If she was, she’d be at home.’ ” It’s a good thing H.A. (Humpy) Wheeler was promoting the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and not Petty. On World 600 race day, they had the biggest one-day walk-up crowd in the track’s history, all because Wheeler had the foresight to arrange for Guthrie to race (she finished 15th).
And then there was Danica Patrick. Let’s hope she doesn’t wait 20 years to write her inevitable book.
Which brings me to the subject of today’s feature, a young Canadian woman from Gormley, north of Toronto, named Samantha Tan. Called “Sam” by her family, she’s 21, studying economics, humanities and law at the University of California at Irvine and driving a BMW M4 GT4 in the SprintX class of the 2019 Pirelli GT4 American West Series.
And what does all this have to do with discrimination against women in racing?
“Although I’ve never had a really bad experience,” she told me in a phone interview we had recently, “there’s no doubt that some men think Asian women are bad drivers. And men don’t seem to like being passed by a girl. I often get bumped in a race and sometimes I get pushed right off the track. Maybe the guy was pissed that he was being passed by a girl. I don’t know...” Tan, who drives a BMW 1M as a personal car and takes gifts to the children at the Holland Bloorview Rehabilitation Centre when she’s home for Christmas, discovered her love for speed at a young age.
At 14, she became the youngest driver to attend the Ferrari Driving Experience at Le Circuit-Mont Tremblant, Que., and at 16, she went racing in the Canadian Touring Car Championship.
She drove a MINI Cooper S to fifth place among 22 cars entered in the Touring class that season, which earned her recognition as CTCC Rookie of the Year. Then it was on to seasons in the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) and the Pirelli World Challenge, leading to the creation of the ST Racing team and her entry in the west coast GT4 series.
Tan has a younger brother (“he’s not interested in racing; he’s into computer science, all that nerdy stuff”) and attended the private Pickering School in Newmarket before heading for the West Coast of the United States.
And why there, other than that, at the time of our in- terview, it was freezing in Toronto and much warmer in Southern California?
“There are a lot of reasons,” she said. “I stayed at Pickering College my entire life and I got my Grade 12, and I thought I might need a change of scenery, to branch out. I was researching schools and came upon the University of California, and I thought that being in California would also be great for racing because I could go out to tracks year-round. I have to say it, though: the weather is amazing.”
Tan said she found it harder to get into university in the United States than she would have at home.
“The process of getting in down here is much more extensive,” she said.
She finds, however, that at this point in her career, the GT4 West Series is the place to be. There are five race weekends — two races at each event — and after the first round held at the beginning of March at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, the ST Racing team is in first place in the standings. John Miller and Harry Gottsacker drive Car #28 for ST Racing and Tan shares Car #38 with Jason Wolfe.
“The cars are much faster and the races are longer than, say, what I was used to when I ran the CTCC,” she said. “There are also two drivers and that includes a driver change, which is relatively new for me.”
At COTA, the ST Racing team finished first (Miller-Gottsacker) and second (TanWolfe) in the first race and first and fourth in the second. Wolfe started the second race in Car #38 but was involved in a mishap toward the end of his stint that damaged the car. Tan had her hands full when she took over.
“When I hopped into the car,” she said, “the alignment was ruined, the steering wheel was turned to the right even when I was going straight. I just tried to finish the race, to get those points for the championship.” Which she was able to do, because she likes COTA.
There are two reasons Tan thinks the team will continue to do well this season (the next race is a week from now at the famous Laguna Seca circuit in California). Her father, Kenneth Tan, is team manager and she has a personal coach, Nic Jonsson.
“I didn’t have a coach last season,” she said, “and I felt I needed one. It’s my last year of university and I needed to get a handle on everything and so having another person there is a good idea. He came to see me in January to get me going on the training program I’m now following.
Tan says she would like to move up in 2020. “We’re thinking of going into IMSA racing next year,” she said. “They would be longer endurance races and I would like to work my way up to be able to run the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That is my big ambition now.
Although, as she said, she’s never had a bad experience and nobody has ever told her that she couldn’t race because she’s a woman, Tan admits to one insecurity.
“I think what’s bothered me is that I worry that people won’t take me seriously. That people won’t think I’m serious because I’m a girl. I see that all the other drivers are men and I sometimes doubt myself. I think, ‘Can I really do this?’
“In the end, though, I think a lot of people underestimate me, and to this point in my life and my career, I’ve proved them all wrong. And I plan to keep doing just that.”