My husband took me aside recently. Pulling me into a corner of our kitchen, away from the ever-pricked ears of our son, he warned me gently that my latest vagary – a burning desire to become a racing driver – was making my family nervous. I paused, then responded: “Oh, thank God.”
Whether skiing the Rockies, moving to Bahrain or bungeeing off South Africa’s Bloukrans Bridge, I have always known that I feel most alive when doing the sort of thing that might worry other people. Call it capricious, maybe even selfish, for a 37-year-old mum to hurl herself into car racing – a dangerous and expensive pursuit – but after years of wading through the deep waters of buttoned-up parental responsibility, it seemed like a return to form.
I am an adrenaline fiend. I am also a contrarian. Among the pastimes I love to excel in, are the things that might raise eyebrows. I am 5ft 3in, long-haired, fashion-obsessed and as at home sipping martinis at the Connaught as I am diving off bridges. Being underestimated is my rocket fuel. And motorsport being one of the last bastions of male dominance, makes it intensely appealing. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to be part of a movement that proves you can know both what to pair with a Prada slingback and how to throw around a Nissan Skyline GT-R.
Racing is among the few sports in which women can compete against men, and yet we make up less than 10 per cent of motorsport participants globally. This has little to do with talent and more to do with the lack of early exposure for girls. I have always loved anything on four wheels. One of my favourite amusements as a child was to fire up my uncle’s tractor mower, seeing how quickly and tightly I could wind it round his apple trees. But like so many other parents, it never occurred to mine to take me go-karting – the motorsport proving ground.
Ribald and unethical behaviour permeates the darker recesses of the paddock
There are efforts to redress this balance, but a long way to go before women feel welcome in these spaces. The only time I have been to an indoor karting track, I faced a racing grid of 10 mostly grown men, all of them staring at me like I had stepped off a spaceship. Even for me, it was intimidating. Imagine what it would feel like to a young girl.
