Quarter Midgets: Girls

Racing is a male dominated sport. There's no getting around that. Most sports are, but I feel racing is even more so, probably partially because there isn't a separate league just for women. But I digress. Females account for probably less than 10% of racers. The percentage of girls who race past the age of 16 is even more slim. I can barely consider myself one of them, having only raced until a few months after my 17th birthday.

In quarter midgets, it was usually the boys with their dads who came to the track. Sometimes a mom would show up, occasionally a sister. My family was never like that. We stuck together, unless I had an ice skating competition. Upon such an occasion, there was much fanfare on if we would go to the race, if we would go to the competition, could we find a way so everyone could be both places at one point in time? I think that helped me feel comfortable at the race track. I always knew my family would be there.

I also made friends with the few sisters who showed up to their brother's races. There was one family I particularly liked because the daughter my age looked like me, and it was the older sister who raced, not the older brother. Back when we started, I think there were three female racers at our club. I looked up to these girls so much. I still remember their names, their faces, their cars. I remember seeing them, always sitting together in the stands, always hanging out, just the three of them. Maybe sometimes a boy would sit with them, but that was usually one of the girl's brother. They were separate from the rest of the competitors. It's not like this was eons ago. This was the very late 90s. Girls in quarter midgets were considered somehow slightly less significant.

Now, for the most part they were. The stereotypes ring true. Most girls can't drive. I can't tell you how many girls just stayed in Sr. Honda or a 160 class until they couldn't race anymore, never placing above 5th. But there were a handful of girls who wanted those wins. Those track records. That validation that came from each and every boy whom we made cry just because we placed higher than they did.

But a girl couldn't cry at the race track. That was too feminine. But a girl had to be super polite and super nice to everyone. If she wasn't, she was just rude, a bitch. A girl had to consistently succeed, otherwise it was a fluke. If she didn't, she wasn't serious about racing. All the generic pressures of being a women were amplified at the race track.

The fathers were the worst. See, when most kids start racing quarter midgets, they don't pay much attention to gender. Yeah, she's a girl and he's a guy, but they can still play in the sandbox together just fine. By the time you hit your pre-teen years, you've been around these kids for so long, gender doesn't really matter. But the fathers care. If a girl wins, the fathers will make comments, will yell at their kids for letting a girl beat them. Call the son wimpy. Weak. And then you've lost a friend. It swings the other way too. If a girl wins, the sons are forced to go hug the girl, to do something slightly more than the usual good job handshake. Creates sexual tension. Makes you acutely aware of the gender difference. And then you've lost a friend.

In my last post I mentioned overhearing comments about not worrying about the girl in the race. I was lucky because most of the time I raced with another more outspoken girl who did well, so these comments weren't as concentrated. I still heard them frequently enough. When I started racing two classes, I overheard a conversation that can be summed up in a sentence: girls aren't strong enough to handle racing two classes in one day. When I raced Hvy. B, people were shocked. A girl in a Deco class? She can't handle that power, she'll crash. When I broke a track record, it was always, "She must have cheated. What are they putting in the fuel?" It was never that way with my brother. I left out something when I talked about winning the Sr. Honda Monza championship. On the video tape my mom's friend took after the race, my friends surrounding me, all celebrating our collective success, you can hear in the background, "Damn women, taking 1-2." That comment forever tarnishes my memory of that moment.

You can't undo that sort of thing. I try and justify it, saying those comments were mostly done in jest. Even if that were true, even if "damn women" was just a joke, do you think that makes it any better? Do you think I can look back and laugh about that? I won a championship, I obliterated the competition during a season where my group broke a track record every race in the series and just one person with two words ruined everything for me. That is the one time I cried at the race track, if you consider less than 10 tears crying. I did so privately, hidden in my dad's truck while changing out of my race suit and back into my street clothes. You learn to steel yourself. I've crashed, I've broken walls, I've been hit so hard I've had bruises on both my hips, I've almost blacked out. Sometimes you get whiplash just from people banging on your bumper. I've pulled dumb moves and taken myself out of the race. I've been taken out. You do not cry. You do not complain. You take it, you move on. I, for whatever reason, cannot move on from that.

It's no wonder women in higher levels of racing are either over sexualized or butch. Either meek or bitches. It's all we're allowed to be.

If you feel there is something I didn't explain, or something you'd like me to delve into more, please do not hesitate to leave it in the comments, or email me about it. This series of posts is done, but I realize your opportunity to learn about my experience in racing is not.