Women & Horsepower

Melyssa Grace: model turned drifter.

You will see them draped over the hood of Silvias and Chasers and Skylines in import magazines, sultry poses and curves in all the right places. You will see them next to brand new cars in manufacturer booths at auto shows, attracting photographers and press like moths to a flame, followed by glossy spreads in magazines dedicated to these show queens. In this male consumer dominated world of ours, these models help sell everything between car magazines and cars themselves.

Danica Patrick: making waves all over.

Modelling aside, there are those women who would rather be behind the wheel and take the cars to their limits instead of standing stationary and posing for pictures.
Meet Melyssa Grace. She grew up wanting to be a model, and in the giant farm of fame and opportunity that is California, she found the fame she was after. Gracing (excuse the pun) the covers of the most popular import magazines in the world (Import Tuner, Super Street, D-Sport), this head turner of Fillipina-German descent is no slouch behind the wheel of a car. She uses her Audi R8 to do drift demos, and has been part of a drift video series titled "Drift Days with Melyssa Grace". She hopes to break into pro-drifting soon, but for now, she's drifting at amateur competitions with her team, Team MelygRACE.

Vicki Butler-Henderson: Fifth Gear's female presence.

"Driftcat" Catherine Coleiro: Australia's finest.

One woman who has already made it to the top of the drifter food chain is the Australian "Driftcat" Catherine Coleiro. Wrenching on and setting up her car on her own with minimal help is just one of Driftcat's achievements. Driftcat is Australia's first female pro- drifter and is the highest ranking female in Australia's Pro Series. After a four-year break, she's back, and is competing internationally. She placed 3rd in the DriftChile GrandPrix 2013.
Drag racing has forever been regarded as a man's corner in motorsport. Candyce Marsh was not daunted by the lack of female prescence in the drag racing circuit when she started racing in the amateur ranks, at only 17 years old. She became the first ranked African-American female drag racer when she turned pro in 2012, and she's working away to get better and faster with each day. She is currently managing Candyce Marsh Racing, a racing team she founded with her father, and a team responsible for making sure her 2300 horsepower car is in competition shape.

Sabine Schmitz, Queen of the Ring.

There are a few things even the best male drivers won't try, so what do you do? You bring in Sabine Schmitz. Called the “Queen of the Ring”, she is infamous for having mastered the toughest racetrack in the world, the Nurburgring Nordschleife in Germany, and her level of mastery is so high, she set a record at the track, driving a…van. Featured on Top Gear (with a scared looking Richard Hammond in the passenger seat), Sabine learned the notorious twists and turns of the Ring while driving the Ring Taxi, a modified BMW used to take tourists on the scariest ride of their lives. She is also the first woman to have won the 24 Hours of Nurburgring race, while driving a BMW M3. Sabine has also driven professionally for Porsche.  

Overhaulin's latest TV presenter, Jessi Combs.

There are the rookie leagues and there are the big time competitions, and women aren't scarce in the big races either. Whether in race engineer guise or behind the wheel, women are increasingly playing a bigger role in the world of motorsport.
Danica Patrick is possibly the most well known NASCAR racer in recent years, her prowess behind the wheel and in front of the camera mainly responsible for shooting her to fame. An extremely successful driving career aside, she has been making waves in the modelling world as well, having been featured in magazines like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, Maxim, and more. She started out in kart racing, moved up to Formula Ford in the UK, and competed in the top flight at Indy 500, and with a distinctive lime green NASCAR mimicking her Indycar racer when she moved to oval racing in 2012, Danica has grown into a household name in the US and a brand, mostly by herself.

Sisters Leena and Teena Gade, and the cars they built.

Ana Carasco, the first woman in Moto GP.

It's even more heartwarming to see women from close to home, making it big at the pinnacles of motorsport. Leena Gade, a 38 year old woman of Indian descent, grew up in England and was fascinated by cars and engineering from a very young age. After repeated failures at entering Formula One as a race engineer armed with a degree in Aerospace engineering, she finally made it into the oldest motorsport discipline: Le Mans. In 2011, when the venerable Audi Sport Factory team took home the top prize, Leena Gade was at the helm as lead race engineer, a massive achievement in a field almost completely dominated by men. Leena Gade's sister, Teena, is also a successful engineer, wrenching on cars at the highest echelon of rallying, with the Mini WRC team.  
Move away from motorsport a little and you have all the female TV presenters, most of whom have their roots in motorsport anyway. Vicki Butler-Henderson is one of the most influential women on automotive television, having been a member of the original Top Gear presenter crew, and a permanent feature on Fifth Gear, after the BBC canceled the original Top Gear series. Fifth Gear was very recently taken off the air, but her impact on the motoring world was still paramount, and her unique standing as a female professional race-car driver as well as a journalist won her the respect of her peers. VBH has also been associated with print media, having contributed to automotive publications like Auto Express, Performance Car and Max Power. In her personal garage, she has a VW Golf GTi Mk II, a Honda S2000, and a Ducati Monster bike.  
These are just the women who made the limelight. There are countless women out there, working and toiling away on their project cars, building road and race-cars with the same blinding passion that bites and infects men, and are doing a brilliant job at it. Our utmost respect goes out to these women, who are breaking the shackles, which seek to tie them down to kitchens and baby-making, and are stepping forward into the garage to pick up the angle grinder or grabbing the wheel of a high-horsepower car. Who says women can't love speed?

…and the cars they drove

Danica Patrick's Go-Daddy NASCAR
Chassis: Steel tube frame with safety roll cage, NASCAR standards.
Body: Chevrolet
Engine: 5,800 cc naturally aspirated Pushrod V8.
Transmission: 4 Speed Manual.
Power Output: 700 hp       
Torque: 520 ft-lb

Melyssa Grace's Audi R8, and others
Some say you need to have hair on your arms and nerves of steel to take your exotic supercar to a drifting event. Melyssa Grace does it without batting an eyelid. She also owns a Silvia S13 and a BMW M3, which she regularly takes to the limit in all the amateur drift competitions she takes part in.

Sabine Schmitz's Ford Transit van
When Jeremy Clarkson set a time on the Nurburgring after being coached by Sabine (her first appearance on the show), she claimed she could go faster with a van. She was back in another episode to try and take on the challenge, and set a time of 10 minutes and 8 seconds with a Ford Transit diesel van, only modifications being door and window lines sealed off with tape. Since then, a VW T5 transporter van broke her record, but the car featured modified suspension and engine, so Sabine's lap time is still significant.

Catherine Coleiro's Drift Holden HDT
Engine: LS1 V8 5700cc, Twin 10cm TD06HL2-20g turbos
Gearbox: T56 6 speed gearbox
Suspension: Coilovers (custom damper rates), sway bars, adjustable upper control arms, lower arms and caster rods, manual power steering rack.
Tires: Achilles 123S 265/35 ZR18