NORM FROSCHER: GOD BLESS THE LADIES
The ladies, God Bless them!No, this isn't about Hillary Clinton.
Or even one's wife as a means of making up after an argument.
This is about the fairer sex, some pretty danged hard-nosed, in the rough and tumble world of racing. Yep, driving, riding, publicizing and writing about.
As you probably realize, it wasn't always so.
Far from it, in the arena or even in the garage or on the media side of things.
The tough road to acceptance was never easy
The ladies, God Bless them!
No, this isn't about Hillary Clinton.
Or even one's wife as a means of making up after an argument.
This is about the fairer sex, some pretty danged hard-nosed, in the rough and tumble world of racing. Yep, driving, riding, publicizing and writing about.
As you probably realize, it wasn't always so.
Far from it, in the arena or even in the garage or on the media side of things.
You know, today you have Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher and Katherine Legge wheeling open cockpit Indy or Champ Cars in competition. Time was when they couldn't have gotten out of the spectator area at Indianapolis, much less into the press room or...or heavens, any garage area, with a "press" sticker.
Drag racing probably led the way for opening up competition and the pits and press rooms to the ladies. We'll look at the distaff competitors in a minute, but first to the media.
The '70s climate at the time of Shirley -- yeah, the competitor once known as "Cha Cha" -- and her rise through the ranks in Top Fuel, was not friendly. For example, Don "Big Daddy" Garlits, who was maybe feeling his domain invaded, referred to her simply as "That girl". She countered with calling him Donald. Not The Donald as in Trump, but just plain Donald.
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Today we have ladies in racing public relations and those include Susan Arnold of the Bernstein camp, Joyce Stropus, formerly of sports cars, now a mainstay with Don Schumacher Racing, Lisa Powers with Doug Herbert, Joanne Knapp of ACDelco and Lachelle Seymour with NHRA. The pace setting Arnold has already won the coveted Jim Chapman Award for racing public relations people.
And on the actual reporting side, many women are in the fold, covering races in virtually all of the sanctioning bodies. In drag racing, one would be remiss without mentioning Susan Wade, who does work for publications, Internet and her 1320TV on the web.
But there were a couple of other media trail blazers from out west, one of whom we'll look at in a minute.
And the quarter mile has to lay claim to probably the No. 1 most successful distaff competitor. Right, in Shirley Muldowney and there were others, some in match racing and some shortly afterward.
Let's not forget Paula Murphy and Judy Lilly.
The '70s climate at the time of Shirley -- yeah, the competitor once known as "Cha Cha" -- and her rise through the ranks in Top Fuel, was not friendly. For example, Don "Big Daddy" Garlits, who was maybe feeling his domain invaded, referred to her simply as "That girl". She countered with calling him Donald. Not The Donald as in Trump, but just plain Donald.
That changed and one day Garlits was even hired as an advisor to Muldowney. Talk about the Odd Couple?
"That Girl" is credited by many to have blazed the way for women in drag racing other than as a beauty queen on the back seat of a convertible in pre-race ceremonies. Ah Yes, Linda Vaughn.
Today women competitors as quarter pounders don't turn a head. Well, yes, they do, but not as a novelty.
You know them -- in no particular order -- Melanie Troxel, Angelle Sampey, Karen Stoffer, Ashley Force, Hillary Will, Peggy Llewelyn and Erica Enders.
And only the week before Christmas former jet car driver Jessie Harris obtained her Top Fuel license.
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In NASCAR, Janet Guthrie played much the same role as Muldowney and she was also the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.
That development meant the traditional, "Gentlemen, start your engines", wouldn't be proper, so after a week of suspense as to how the command would finally be tailored, we heard something to the effect of, "In company with the first lady to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, 'Gentlemen, start your engines' ".
Old ways die slowly.
Then when Guthrie qualified for the Charlotte NASCAR race, the 600, Junior Johnson was asked his thoughts.
"I didn't think it was possible for a woman to wait that long without having to go to the bathroom," or words to that effect.
Ouch.
Today, Guthrie is in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
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And hey, it was not just as competitors that the ladies were frowned upon years ago.
They had no business in the garage area, period, even as a member of the working press or what today we call the media.
And an excellent example of that situation is Norma Brandel, of California, whom we promised you earlier to hear from.
Her editors even tagged her with another moniker in applying for press credentials and that name sticks today, because Brandel is now "Dusty" Brandel and of all positions, she is longtime president of the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association (AARWBA).
A couple of her thoughts, recently put forth in National Speed Sport News:
"There were only a handful of women covering motorsports when I started at the Hollywood Citizen-News in the mid 1950s. There not of lot of men sports writers who wanted to cover auto racing...
"I was happy to get the opportunity to write about auto racing, even if I had to change my name. In those days sports editors did not want women to write about men's sports, so Norma became Dusty -- something to do with the male ego or who would believe a woman could write about motorsports? I could and did."
Brandel says that after a lawsuit threat by a New York publication in 1971, she was one of the women to gain access to the pits and Gasoline Alley at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and it was still another year before NASCAR allowed women to cover their races.
She says women are now team owners, publicists (as we've seen), driver reps and presidents of major speedways and there is no more discrimination.
Not even in the cockpits.
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