Alternative Racing Facts

“The entry list for VLN1 is online!”
“Is it any good?”
“Yes! Very! Over 180 cars in total and a massive number of entries for SP9.”
“And the drivers? Any big names?”
“Loads. But that was to be expected.”
“How so?”
“Now we’ve lost VLN3 there are only two races before the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring instead of three. So if a driver wants to practice or get his Nordschleife permit, he now has less opportunity to do so. Ergo, more people will want to race in VLN1 and VLN2.”
“VLN3 is lost…? Where did it go?”
“Who knows! I’m not good at philosophical questions.”
“Hang on. VLN3 isn’t lost. It’s right here on the racing calendar, see? 24th of June, 2017.”
“Yeah, but that’s just what the calendar says.”
“Huh?”
“We all know the race on June 24th isn’t really VLN3.”
“I’m going to regret this, but okay: explain.”
“The VLN season has always been ten races long, but this year the organisation has reduced it to nine.”
“I know. So you lose VLN10. Not VLN3.”
“Wrong. For as long as I can remember, we’ve always had three races before the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring.  Teams can use those races to put in practice time. It’s like a tradition. But in order to reduce the calendar length, one of those three pre-24 Hours races has been removed. Do you see it now?”
“No.”
“Goodness… do I have to spell everything out? The organisation has removed one of the pre-24 Hours races, but has left everything else in its traditional time frame. VLN1 is raced around the time when VLN1 has always been raced. The same goes for VLN2 and for every single one of the post-24 Hours races as well. The race organised on June 24th, the one that you call ‘VLN3’, is sitting in the exact time frame where VLN4 has always been. Likewise, this year’s ‘VLN4’ is sitting in the time frame that traditionally belonged to VLN5 and this pattern runs all the way through the season, straight up to ‘VLN9’ – which is held at the exact time you would expect VLN10. So, if no timeslot has been changed except for that of VLN3, which was deleted, logic demands that VLN3 was dropped. Not VLN10.”
“But the calendar says…”
“…exactly what they want you to believe. This season, all VLN-races after the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring will be run under a false name and because people like you aren’t willing to see what is right under their noses, they are getting away with it!”
“But…”
“They are getting away with it!”
“Honestly…”
“You are letting them get away with it.”
“Don’t you…”
“IT’S A CONSPIRACY.”
“I need a drink.”
“What you need is more resilience.”
“Will you be bickering like this the whole season?”
“Like this? Nah. It’s only March. I’m still warming up.”
“I need two drinks.”

The new VLN season is kicking off on Saturday March 25th, at 12.00h. Follow the race at www.vln.de, commentary will be available in both German and English.

Representation Is Everything

Motorsport is a very giving sport. It not only provides us with weekend entertainment, it also gives us insight into technology, weekly strategic brainteasers, excitement, stuff to talk and write about, events to look forward to, new friends to share the fun with and, above all, heroes to support.

 

Often people find their first racing hero in formula 1. I’m guessing it’s because of the massive worldwide coverage of the series. When I was young, I was no exception to the rule. My first motorsport hero was Finnish F1 driver Mika Häkkinen. (Yes. I know. My childhood dates back to the stone age…) I was very fond of Mika. He always came across as fast, focused, and fair, all qualities I believed were important for a driver to have. There was just one downside to Mika. He was male. As were all the other F1 drivers of his time. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

 

As a little girl, there were many days I wished for a female F1 driver. The reasons for that were varied. Sometimes I wished so, because I thought that maybe then the boys in my class would stop pestering me that racing wasn’t for girls. Sometimes I wished so, because I wanted someone to prove the adult men wrong when they told me that women weren’t capable of doing such a job. And sometimes I wished so, simply because I wanted to see someone in the sport who was a bit like me.

 

Photo borrowed from @marylinracing (twitter)

 

It didn’t feel like it at the time, but looking back I think that last reason was the most important one of all. Research in the field of psychology has proven time and time again that, in many ways, representation is everything to a human being. We have a basic need to feel recognised. We have an innate desire to see people who we consider to be ‘like us’. When we don’t, we feel disconnected and alone. When we do, it makes us feel like we belong. There are few things that can make a person happier. This is illustrated perfectly by a famous YouTube video of a girl that is gifted a doll that has been customised to look like her. Recognising herself makes her cry in gratitude.

 

Although motorsport gave me many gifts during my childhood, representation was sadly never one of them. When I was a girl, the only women I ever saw on F1 coverage served as decoration. They wore high heels and make-up and risqué tops that showed off their cleavage. None of these things were ever me. I was always the no-boobs, no make-up girl with the flat shoes.  (I probably always will be, by the way.) As a result, I always felt more drawn to the athletes of the sport; but with all the reminders of how they were doing “a man’s job”, I didn’t really feel represented by them either. I ended up hovering around the sport a bit, always enjoying it, but never feeling a real connection.  

 

Having lived that as a girl, I can’t say how happy I am that times in motorsport are now finally a-changin’. Women are finally beginning to creep into motor racing from multiple directions and new female faces are popping up regularly. For this weekend’s Dubai 24 Hours, Reiter Engineering has even entered an all-female car for four of those new faces: Caitlin Wood from Australia, Anna Rathe from Norway, Naomi Schiff from South Africa, and Marylin Niederhauser from Switzerland.

 

Photo borrowed from @annarathe (twitter)

 

I am incredibly excited about this line up. These four women have come from all over the world, proving beyond doubt that racing talent in girls is now truly being fostered on all continents, and they’ve found a racing team in Reiter Engineering that will give them a chance to do mileage in a real, properly big event to improve their crafts. I have no words to describe how rarely that happens. There used to be another all-women car in the Dubai 24H, run by Las Moras for the Dutch Racing Divas, but they haven’t shown up to the event since 2015 and I honestly thought it would take ten years or more for another such car to surface. The fact that we already have another one so soon feels like nothing but a gift to me.

 

I’m not sure what goals the four Reiter women have set for this weekend, but I hope they’ll manage to meet them. If not for themselves, then for all the little girls around the globe who’ll be watching the race this weekend. They may not be numerous, but they exist. And they deserve to see themselves represented in motorsport as athletes. Just ask the little girl that still lives inside my heart, if you don’t believe me.

 

So crew of car #246, feel free to go and rock this thing! 

Nothing to See Here

"There is a danger if one makes any remarks about females in motorsport that one will instantly be abused by fervent feminists and self-righteous male do-gooders."

 

These aren't my words. These words form the opening line of a recent Joe Saward blog. I can't blame him for starting his article like this. The format of 'when you say A then group B often responds in manner C' is an effective way to placate the more critical members of your reading audience and convince them to at least give your article a chance, even though they may not agree with all of its content. Many writers use this technique, at times myself included, and I love the way it gently encourages people to open their minds to new opinions and broaden their worldview.

 

Even so, the manner in which Mr Saward uses the if-A-then-B-does-C-technique instantly set my hair on end when I first saw it. I would have thought nothing of reading an opening sentence along the lines of "there is a danger if one makes any remarks about females in motorsport that one will instantly be criticised by those who dearly wish to see a woman compete at the highest racing level". That sentence would’ve had a fairly neutral tone. And moreover, I would've agreed with its message. There truly are people in the world who are so invested in their wish to see a woman race in F1 that they sometimes get carried away.

 

However, Mr Saward's decision to use the words "fervent feminists" and "self-righteous male do-gooders" gives his opening sentence a decidedly different undertone - one of anger and threat. As a reader, I instantly felt attacked. There I was, on the verge of reading an article, not even having the faintest idea yet what it was going to be about, and I was already being told that if I dared to have the audacity to not agree with the author, that then my entire personality - everything I think and say and do and am - would automatically be downgraded to that of a stereotypically negative, irrational feminist.

 

I was severely tempted to quit reading right there and then, but after some deliberation I didn't. I've been taught not to judge a book by its cover nor a blog by its opening sentence. So I read on and discovered that the article was about Susie Wolff's OBE, given to her by Queen Elisabeth II for raising awareness for women in (motor)sport. The news of Wolff's royal decoration was announced a few days ago and has since sparked quite a bit of controversy. Some applaud the Queen's decision, while others, like Mr Saward, are infuriated by it. All this made reading Mr Saward's article an interesting activity. His words gave me a lot of food for thought. I instantly came up with several things I would've loved to say about them on my own blog.

 

I would've loved to say how I was intrigued by Mr Saward's quote of the Women in Motorsport Commission's chairperson. How I agreed with him that Wolff's awareness-raising foundation Dare To Be Different is perhaps still too young to already have its effectiveness judged correctly. How I was surprised by his argument that women in motorsport shouldn't "be rewarded for anything other than their actual achievements". How I can't understand why he defines 'achievement', without any supporting argumentation whatsoever, as something that can exclusively be realised in a race car, on a race track. How it puzzles me that he compares the world titles of Button and Hamilton to Wolff's off-track women-in-motorsport promotional work; surely those are apples and pears? How I fail to understand his constant implications that Wolff's on-track results played a role in her getting an OBE, even though the official announcement states she got the OBE solely for raising awareness. How I think Wolff has actually done a great job raising awareness for women in motorsport. How I can't help but remember a past conversation with someone working for BBC F1 who told me that Wolff was the most wanted female racer for TV items because no woman driver had ever managed to attract as much attention for the sport in the UK as she had. How I can't help but wonder if the real point of Mr Saward's article should perhaps have been that race car drivers aren't awarded equally by the Royal House, especially compared to other types of athletes, with some getting an OBE, others an MBE, and again others nothing. How I can't help but feel that maybe it would have been better if Mr Saward hadn’t used Wolff as the main topic of his article, but simply as an illustrating example. How I believe that, had he done that, his article would have been a lot stronger.

 

The problem is, however, that I can't say any of these things. The moment I do so, thanks to the opening line, I will degrade myself to the stereotype of "fervent feminist"; a woman who is half-crazed and unstable, who probably hates men and everything they do and write, and who - for goodness' sake! - should never be listened to. So instead of arguing with Mr Saward, I won't say anything. Nothing at all. Everyone can consider me mute. In fact, let's just pretend this entire blog page is a blank, shall we?