Everything that Tom says here makes sense to me. Let me add my own two
cents' worth.
Having run international (professional) competitions in a different sport,
I'll tell you what we did there that encouraged (and still does)
participation by women without discriminating: everyone's entered equally
for overall finishes, but separate AWARDS are given for women, and for
other categories of competitors being encouraged to increase participation.
This way men and women have an even chance of winning and placing overall.
Personally, that makes sense to me with car classes as well. And maybe
this is already done, I'm not competitive enough to stick around for the
awards ceremonies. But a single set of overall winners and placers, with
separate awards for the different classes, seems the most egalitarian to
me.
I've handed out timeslips at past autocrosses, and seen street tires and
race tires, men and women, hondas and vettes finishing very close together.
Personally I measure my own humble times against the Vettes anyway.
The notion of cars running with "L" stuck onto them seems ready for
retirement, IMHO. :)
Richard Nichols
San Diego, CA USA
rnichol1@san.rr.com
86 Ford Mustang SVO (61B) - 1C
(The Thinking Man's Mustang)
72 Ford Pinto 2.0 (62B) - 3J
(Over Three Million Served)
----------
> From: Tom Maycock <tmaycock@interaccess.com>
> To: autox@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: Image Awareness
> Date: Tuesday, February 09, 1999 11:16 AM
>
> On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Rick Brown wrote:
>
> > >So why do women have an entirely seperate league? I don't understand
the
> > >logic behind this. Why the need to spererated the sexes??
> >
> > Umm, which planet do all you guys live on? (oh yea, Mars :-))
> >
> > While there may be equal opportunity in autox for women, to think there
is
> > even a remote amount in professional mainstream motorsports is
ridiculous.
>
> Exactly! As I understand it, the goal here isn't to provide a place for
> women to race without "having" to compete against men, it's about finding
> drivers and raising awareness--helping a few women have at least some
> chance of getting rides in the male-dominated big time series. If
> successful, I think the series also has the chance to increase interest
> and participation among women in all levels of motorsports, including
> autox.
>
> And the "image awareness" component shouldn't be dismissed either. The
> ability to attract and keep sponsors has been crucial for drivers with
> potential aspirations for many years now, and I'm sure all the major
> driver-training programs focus on this aspect. It'd be great if talent
> were the only factor, but St. James and the others involved know that
> drivers will need the whole package to have a realistic shot at
> advancement.
>
> It should be fun to watch, _especially_ if some of our fellow autox'ers
> can make the cut.
>
> Tom Maycock
>
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