Durango95 would like to offer belated congratulations to 2019 Formula W winner and new Williams F1 test driver Jamie Chadwick. We hope to cover 2020 Formula W in detail as the new season starts. But we are a little mystified why in the rush to recognise women in motorsport as part of the hype for Formula W, the existing heroines of motorsport don’t get more attention. Here are some of them.
Shirley Muldowney was the first woman to receive a license from the US National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a Top Fuel dragster. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980, and 1982, becoming the first person to win two and three Top Fuel titles. Heart Like A Wheel, the biopic of Shirley Muldowney is covered here.
Anita Makela, is the current European Top Fuel Dragster champion. See also 2000, 2016, and 2018.
Danica Patrik, on April 20, 2008 became first female winner in IndyCar racing history
Jutta Kleinschmidt is the only woman to win Paris Dakar Rally and the only German to win the car category
Ana Carrasco Gabarrón is the first female rider in history to win a World Championship in solo motorcycle road racing
These women are champions, in some cases case multiple champions, so why are they not getting any attention from the wider female empowerment industry? This list is far from definitive and there are doubtless others out there – but based on the lack of coverage how would we know? These names were not mentioned in any of the W Series coverage I saw last year. Multiple European dragster champion Anita Makela doesn’t even have a Wiki page in English. I only know of her myself thanks to the Autosport podcast. Could it possibly be that the W series coverage I watched and read was British? And these women are not British?
In the British media’s depiction of successful women does nationalism outweigh sexism? Perhaps not. Please consider the strange case of…
Jenny Tinmouth, ex British Superbikes star, is now the ‘real’ Ilsa Faust
Tinmouth is the current female Isle of Man TT lap record holder, the and only female to have competed in the British Superbike Championship. Unlike the illustrious names above she is not a champion as yet but she has another seemingly newsworthy feature, she’s made the transition to Hollywood stardom. You may not have seen Jenny Tinmouth in any mainstream news reporting but you will have seen her if you are a fan of the recent Mission Impossible franchise. Those incredible Ilsa Faust motorcycle chase scenes? That’s BSB’s Jenny Tinmouth.
If we take the gender out of this story, what we have here is a rider in fairly high level motorsport, who has made the transition to stunt motorcycle rider in very successful high profile Hollywood movies. The character of Ilsa Faust, magnificently played onscreen most of the time by Rebecca Fergusan, is not some cast away Bond Girl in the MI franchise, there is a high chance she will actually take the lead role from Tom Cruise in the franchise going forward. It would be legitimate news for anyone to be named as the stunt person for Ilsa Faust, in this case it turns out to be an ex British Superbike rider. If Scott Redding was doubling for Tom Cruise this would be news – why not Jenny Tinmouth?
