Fearless All-Girl Rally Teams Compete Against Men
April 2, 2008
KANCANA Nanda Kumar of the all-female GSR Pennzoil Racing Team, has no fears competing in the Felda-AAM Malaysian Rally this weekend.
“Rallying is thrilling. It gives me a rush. Of course I am concerned about damaging the car but I have no fear when driving the stages inside the plantations,” said Kancana.
Kancana, a newscaster with Bernama TV, drove in her very first rally in the final round of last year’s Malaysian Rally in Perlis and the experience has prepared her well for the muddy conditions she anticipates in Bahau, Negri Sembilan this weekend.
“Perlis is one of the toughest courses as it was very muddy and slippery which gives me a good idea on how to handle the car in Bahau,” she said.
Kancana and her new co-driver Dzainurhayati Mohd Daud hope to compete and finish all six rounds in their Proton Satria this year with limited mistakes and car damage.
More than 20 cars, including teams from Japan, Indonesia and New Zealand, will compete in seven categories.
Shelley Jory steps into P1 for a World Championship quest.
March 25, 2008
March 2008 Powerboat P1 Awards Landmark Hotel, London - Shelley Jory of Team Raymarine announces she has joined forces with the LUCAS OIL American Powerboat Team to compete in the Powerboat P1 World Championship Series.
Shelley Jory, one of the UK’s leading powerboat racers and top female in her sport, has been signed as driver of the LUCAS OIL team. She will race with team owner and throttle man, Nigel Hook.
The pair will compete in the P1 Evolution class in the P1 powerboat race series. [Read more]
Racing against the Mullahs Part 2
March 12, 2008
By Maik Grossekathöfer
Part 2: ‘They Should Stick to Washing Machines’
The car racing stadium in Tehran is in Asadi Park, next to the football stadium. The steel tubing of the stands is rusted, the wooden benches are greasy and the roof leaks. Eight long-distance races are held here every year, with nine categories per race, always on Fridays. Prize money is awarded in the first three categories, with the winner taking home up to €2,700 ($3,900). Anywhere from 15 to 22 drivers compete in each race, and the races consist of 10 rounds around the track.
Two small cars are tearing down the track in an informal race. The smell of burnt rubber is in the air. A couple of bearded men in windbreakers stand on the sidelines, chain-smoking. One of them, who is also a racecar driver but prefers to remain anonymous, says: “If Laleh and Zohreh so desperately want to operate a machine, then they should stick to washing machines.” Then he spits onto the asphalt.
During a rally through Iran’s eastern Lut Desert, Vatankhah was leading in the first stage when someone smashed the windshield of her Toyota at night. The next morning, a wooden club lay on the driver’s seat like a threat.
Seddigh placed third in her first race. Not unexpectedly, none of her competitors congratulated her. When she waved to her female fans, who had climbed up on the fences, screaming, the management ordered her to behave properly. She had to wear a black coat over her overalls during the awards ceremony.
A year later, when she won the championship in her engine class (smaller than 1,600 cc), there was no mention of her victory in the media. Even today, the television networks suspend live coverage whenever she receives a trophy. The newspapers print her name the next day, but without any photos.
During the penultimate race of the 2006 season, the stadium announcer called out Seddigh’s name, ordering her to appear at the starting line, but guards refused to allow her through the gate, citing orders from above. She was later told that the head of the racing association had decided that she would never be allowed to race again.
He was afraid of the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative extremist. “They wanted to prevent me from capturing the championship again,” says Seddigh.
She sits in the hotel lobby in a yellow armchair, laughing between sentences, fluttering her painted eyelashes. Her espresso has been cold for a while.
Then she tells the story of how she and her father went to see an ayatollah in Tehran. They asked him for a fatwa, and the cleric complied and issued a religious ruling stating that there are no religious reasons to prevent women from competing in races against men. The only condition was that the Islamic dress code had to be adhered to.
The drivers wear a fireproof suit, gloves, a hood and a helmet. When the race begins, not even their eyes are visible behind their visors. They couldn’t possibly be covered up any further. This explains why women were allowed to race.
Nevertheless, the religious fanatics routinely pull them out of circulation. At times, they must feel like the characters in a puppet theater, controlled by invisible strings.
Seddigh is currently barred from racing because she supposedly broke the rules in her last race. “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” she insists.
The office of the national racing association is hidden away on the second floor of a squat building with dark corridors. The vice president, a somewhat heavy-set man with a lot of gel in his hair, sits bent over his desk. Hossein Shahriahi claims Seddigh was driving an unregistered car.
How do you know this? the journalist asks.
“Everyone has his little spies.”
He serves up an improbable story about a broken engine seal, car numbers that were moved, mechanics who repainted the car and a hidden camera that recorded the whole thing.
Can he show us the pictures, we ask?
“No.”
Why not?
“Must there be a reason for everything?”
Did you discuss the case with Laleh Seddigh?
“No.”
Why not?
“I don’t like your questions.”
He informs us that the interview is over, and that his time is, regrettably, precious. The next day the paramilitary Basij, the group that was on the front lines of the revolution, celebrates its anniversary. Thousands of young men and women march through the streets, staring rigidly ahead, carrying assault rifles and dressed in camouflage uniforms or the chador.
Vatankhah bought gasoline on the black market that morning. Iranians are only permitted to buy three liters a day legally — not enough for her Corolla. Then she drove the car to a shop for an oil change.
She has competed in 37 rallies so far, and has stood on the podium 27 times. She has been a professional racecar driver for 15 months. She has a corporate sponsor that pays her €5,000 a year. It paid for the Toyota, and it pays the costs of spare parts, repairs and travel to races. If she needs more money she asks her father, who owns a marble and granite business. “He helps me, so that I can live the way I think I should live. He doesn’t want me to have to hide myself.”
She dreams of racing in other countries like Seddigh, who has raced in the Formula 3 in Italy, at the Autodroma Nazionale in Monza, and has been to California for trials. To race abroad, Vatankhah would have to take a special examination in Dubai, at a cost of $1,000. But the Iranian racing association turned down her application — and sent 11 men to the Persian Gulf instead.
Now she is trying to make her own arrangements to go to Dubai. She has obtained a visa and has asked the examination committee in Dubai whether it will allow her to attend the driving school without the racing association’s sponsorship. She is still waiting for a response.
She goes to a party that evening, wearing brown, skin-tight trousers, black leather boots and a black top. Of the 40 or so guests, more than half are women. None of them is wearing a headscarf.
There is dancing and necking. A text message makes the rounds: “Why does Ahmadinejad wear his hair parted on the side? So that he can separate the male lice from the female lice.”
Vatankhah chain-smokes Winstons and eats potato salad with pine nuts. She drinks shots of vodka from bottles smuggled into the country. There are five bottles of Smirnoff — at $30 a bottle on the black market. Isn’t she worried about the police?
“That’s not a problem. If they show up we’ll buy our way out of it. Each of us pays $80 to make the problem go away.”
She takes a taxi home at 2 a.m. She’s tipsy. The next morning, she plans to go to the gym after breakfast, to get in shape for her next rally, a 350-kilometer (218-mile) race from Tehran to Sari. But first she checks her emails.
She’s received an answer from Dubai. The officials write that she is welcome to come and that there is nothing to prevent her from taking the examination. They add that they are looking forward to meeting her.
It’s only a partial victory — but an important one.
Racing against the Mullahs
March 12, 2008
By Maik Grossekathöfer
Women are second-class citizens in Iran, barred from singing or dancing in public, unable to travel without a permit. Car racing is another no-no for Iranian females, but that hasn’t stopped two women from finding emancipation behind the wheel.
Zohreh Vatankhah steps into the elevator on the fifth floor, takes it down to the ground floor, turns right and walks through a heavy steel door into the garage where her 2006 Toyota Corolla is parked. But this isn’t your ordinary Toyota. It’s a dented affair in pink, complete with a roll bar and bucket seats. She snaps on the seat belt, turns the ignition key and the engine roars to life, causing the hood to tremble like the membrane on a bass speaker. Not exactly the kind of car that would pass inspection for driving on the roads in most Western countries.
Then she puts the pedal to the metal and her pink car shoots out of the garage, tires screeching. The janitor sweeping the courtyard stares after her, his mouth agape. Vatankhah inserts Christina Aguilera’s latest album into the cassette player and drums her fingers to the beat on the steering wheel. She drives toward the bazaar in downtown Tehran, crosses a bridge and passes graffiti instructing passersby to “Destroy Israel” and a poster of a burning American flag.
Five minutes later Vatankhah is stuck in a traffic jam — nothing short of torture for a person who loves driving as much as she does. Speed is her profession. Vatankhah is a professional racecar driver. In Iran, of all places — where the profession is not only dominated by men, but also practically owned by them.
Mirdamad Boulevard is normally a three-lane street, but by two in the afternoon it becomes a parking lot with cars jammed in six abreast. Nothing is moving in Tehran today, including the elevated roads, tunnels, downtown highways and beltways. It’s total gridlock, and Vatankhah is desperate to get out of the city so she can train in the mountains. She’s 29 and wears Gucci sunglasses and Max Mara perfume. Her hair is coffee-brown with blonde streaks and she wears a bold lipstick. She expects no less from life than to be able to navigate her way through it at a breakneck pace.
t’s dusk by the time she’s driving her Toyota through a puddle on a track in the Elbur Mountains. Today she is practicing negotiating tight curves at high speeds. Her co-pilot is standing on a hill, her hands buried in the pockets of her red-and-white overalls. She squints, observing her friend’s maneuvers with a critical eye. The Corolla pulls to the left, Vatankhah yanks the car to the right, hurling gravel into the air, and then she slams on the brakes and rolls down the window.”How was I?”
“The radius is still too wide.”
She nods, glances in the side-view mirror and reapplies her lipstick.
Iran is a country in which women have been considered second-class citizens since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. In a court of law, a woman’s testimony is worth only half as much as that of a man, and sons inherit twice as much as daughters. Women are not permitted to sing or dance in public, or even ride a bicycle. They cannot travel without a man’s permission. A man can forbid his wife from working, and if he catches her with another man, he can kill her without fear of punishment. Wearing a headscarf is mandatory, while the chador, or full-body veil, is preferred.
Vatankhah is the embodiment of sin for Iran’s religious fundamentalists and radical mullahs, but for the country’s urban youth she is a vision. She reflects the kind of country the children of Iran’s upper and middle classes want to be living in: modern and self-confident, embracing life and cosmopolitan.
In Iran, a country where women and men sit in separate sections on buses, trains and subways, how has a woman like Vatankhah managed to pull off this feat — competing against men in rallies? “Ask Laleh,” she says.
Securing an appointment with Laleh Seddigh is no easy feat. She doesn’t respond to e-mails, sometimes doesn’t answer her phone for days and doesn’t return calls.
Nevertheless, she does appear promptly, as agreed, at 11 a.m. at the Hotel Esteklal, which she has suggested as a place to meet. Seddigh, 30, is an icon of feminism and without a doubt the country’s most controversial female athlete. When she walks into the lobby, conversations stop for a moment. She is surprisingly short. Her skin looks artificially stretched, her nose almost too perfectly straight and her cheekbones unusually high. Other than the hands, the face is the only part of the body that women are not required to
keep covered, and having cosmetic surgery is a form of silent protest. She wears a leopard skin-patterned silk scarf draped loosely over the back of her head, a blue turtleneck sweater under a brown coat and a Rolex watch. She extends her hand in greeting, a taboo in a country where women are only permitted to shake hands with men who are members of their family. But Seddigh isn’t interested in taboos. She has a strong handshake.
She is a pioneer in Iran, the first female athlete to have competed against a man in the 25 years since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established the theocracy. It was in 2004, during a long-distance race in Tehran. “I broke a taboo. I’m proud of it. Why should Iranian women be weak? I don’t know,” she says in fluent English. “Our Prophet Mohammed never claimed that women should be locked up at home and doomed to watch the children while the man enjoys himself outside. On the contrary: He wanted men to encourage their wives and daughters to develop their personalities to the fullest. To be a successful country, we need strong women.”
A wrong sentence can mean prison or a whipping in Iran, and yet Seddigh is not afraid to speak her mind. She is clearly fond of pushing the envelope.
She is the oldest of four children. Her father, who studied in Switzerland, owns four companies that produce furnaces and engine parts. Seddigh drives a black Mercedes S 350 with leather seats and lives in Tehran’s Niawaran district, where the air is better and the price of real estate astronomical.
She learned to drive at 13, secretly took her father’s Buick for a spin at 14 and totaled her first car at 17, when she drove into a tree and broke her left leg in four places. Her father calls her “Laleh Agha,” or “Mr. Laleh.”
Four years ago she applied for a racing license with Mafiri, the Iranian racing association. Mohammed Khatami, a moderate intellectual, was Iran’s president at the time. Internet cafés sprang up in the cities, the reformers in the government tolerated Western pop music and women were still wearing brightly colored headscarves.
Seddigh says: “I explained to the board of Mafiri that separating the sexes was not in keeping with the president’s ideas, and that it was high time for a change. I told them that they would go down in history if they allowed me to race with the men. Officials are vain people.”
Three months later, Zohreh Vatankhah applied for a license to race in rallies.
Seddigh and Vatankhah have a lot in common. They even look like sisters. Both are from affluent families and they made the pilgrimage to Mecca together. Both are still single in a country where girls can be married off at 13. They are strong women, but without being hard-edged. Vatankhah studied electrical engineering, while Sadigh holds a doctorate in industrial engineering and teaches at the university two days a week. More than 60 percent of the students at Iranian universities are women, but the unemployment rate among women is even higher.
Shelley seeks Rallye Sunseeker success
February 20, 2008
Bentham’s Shelley Rogerson will contest her second rally of 2008 when she heads to Bournemouth on Friday (22nd February) to compete on the Rallye Sunseeker. The rally is the opening round of the MSA Gravel Rally championship.Shelley, 22, will be partnering Kington’s Andrew Burton in his Peugeot Cosworth. After taking victory on the Wyedean Forest Rally recently the pairing are hoping for another good result on the Sunseeker although with several top crews in World Rally Cars also contesting the event the competition will be tough.”It’s going to be hard to repeat our Wyedean victory, we know from last year how close the competition can be in the Gravel Rally championship,” said Shelley.
“We’ll do our best to be on the pace though and hopefully get a good haul of points to kick-off the championship. I’d like to thank my sponsors Co-ordSport, Legend Fires, AMG TV, Nicky Grist and Songasport and my friends Gary, Tim and Jason for their support.”
The rally starts on Friday night with a short stage in Bournemouth town centre. The bulk of the competitive mileage is on Saturday with 70 miles of gravel tracks in Wareham and Ringwood forests and the grounds of Somerley Park.
[Source]
Female driver makes inroads in monster truck
February 14, 2008
When Jennifer Campbell goes to work, she suits up in a one-piece jumpsuit, tucks her long blond hair under a helmet, secures a neck brace and five-point harness.
Campbell drives a monster truck - a 12-foot high, 12,000- pound beast with 66-inch tires and a moose on the side - that makes her 5 foot 10 inch frame look petite by comparison.
When she straps herself into that driver seat, she’s in complete command of the truck that flies, churns, grinds and growls.
“When I’m on the floor (performing), I know that I’m the safest one out there, but I get nervous,” she said in a telephone interview as she prepared for Friday and today’s shows at the Budweiser Events Center.
“My biggest fear is being a letdown and looking stupid … because no matter what you do in the truck it feels like you’re doing something big. But then sometimes I’ll watch a video of it and think, ‘Wow, that was lame.’”
Being a woman in a small community of 100 to 120 mostly male drivers is a novelty, she admits, but often pays off.
“It varies a lot per region,” she said. “Sometimes I get things handed to me because I’m a girl and people automatically cheer for me.
“And sometimes the women are all, ‘you go girl’ and ‘girl-power’ … for the most part people think it’s really cool.”
Campbell and her husband, Brad, a fellow monster truck driver, drive for Big Toys Racing, their own independent team that owns two monster trucks.
The newlyweds - married only since July - met at a show in their hometown of South Prairie, Wash.
She answered a want ad for someone to do marketing and promotions for a motorsport.
He was putting on a show in South Prairie. They met, went on a date and eventually married.
The couple spends 48 weeks a year on the road trucking from show to show.
At the time, Brad Campbell had another guy driving on his team.
“We were in Oklahoma and the guy called and said he was not going to make it,” Jennifer Campbell said.
“So I strapped myself in and I’ve been driving ever since. It was a little scary at first.”
Days later she was jumping motorhomes, buses and cars, doing wheelies, doughnuts and races.
She loves the wheelies best, she said.
Driving down the road in their 93-foot trailer that holds two monster trucks and sleeping quarters, they look like a train, Jennifer Campbell said.
The couple passes the time on the road stopping at “every Six Flags amusement park they drive by,” visiting car museums and occasionally going shopping.
“We’re pretty unexciting,” Campbell said. “We wake up when we want. We go to sleep when we want.”
It may not be a lifelong career, depending on whether they want a family, but she expects to keep driving for another 10 years.
“I love it and it’s fun and I get to be with my husband and we get to do things that we love together.”
Wyedean delight for Shelley
February 12, 2008
“Bentham’s Shelley Rogerson opened her 2008 rallying season last Saturday (9th February) taking a brilliant victory with Andrew Burton in his Peugeot Cosworth.Over 150 cars started the Chepstow-based event which took place mainly in the Forest of Dean. Burton and Rogerson were immediately on the pace, setting the quickest time on the opening 5.6 mile Chepstow Park stage with Nik Elsmore and Daniel Barry in second and third places respectively.
The second stage of the rally, Serridge, saw the Peugeot Cosworth lose some time with a small excursion off the road. Despite the off Burton and Rogerson still set second fastest time on the stage.
“The opening stage was very muddy and slippery but Andrew drove well and we were pleased to set the fastest time,” said Shelley. “We were lucky on the second stage, we overshot a corner and went off the track. Fortunately we were able to reverse back onto the road with no damage to the car.”
The twisty Sallowvallets stage was next, Burton and Rogerson stopping the clock with a time 3 seconds slower than Elsmore, who now led the event from the Peugeot Cosworth crew with the World Rally Cars of Hugh Hunter and Will Nicholls in third and fourth.
A short stage at Chepstow racecourse saw Burton and Rogerson regain the lead by a second as the crews headed to the main service halt of the event.
Following service there were three more stages in the Forest of Dean, the first of which, Speech House resulted in the Peugeot Cosworth crew extending their lead, beating the Mitsubishi of Elsmore by 21 seconds. Two more fastest times followed, Burton and Rogerson arriving at the rally finish with a lead of 41 seconds.
“With Nik only one second behind us we really pushed in Speech House and, although we had some problems with the brakes near the end of the stage, we managed to pull out a good lead,” Shelley said. “We kept the pace up on the last two stages and extended our lead further. I’m delighted with the result, it’s a brilliant way to start my season. I’d like to thank Co-ordSport, Nicky Grist, Legend Fires, AMG TV, Songasport and friends Gary, Tim and Jason for their support and Andrew for asking me to co-drive for him.”
Burton and Rogerson’s next event will be the Bournemouth-based Rallye Sunseeker at the end of the month.”
Speed ace Sarah aims to go Supersonic
February 11, 2008
A HAMPSHIRE powerboat racer could about to go supersonic - by travelling at 800mph in a bid to smash the world land speed record.Race ace Sarah Donohue has been shortlisted to drive the 48ft Fossett Land Speed Racer following the disappearance of millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett.
If the former European offshore and American national powerboat champion gets picked to drive the US-built, jet powered machine, she could find herself travelling at a top speed of 800mph - beating the 763mph record previously set by RAF pilot Andy Green driving Thrust SSC in 1997.
And the 35-year-old from Hamble has revealed to the Daily Echo that if she was asked to pilot the car, she would say yes.
“I think they are going to pick a fighter pilot because they are used to travelling at those speeds and the forces that go with it,” she said.
“But if for whatever reason I was asked to be the driver, I would say yes.
“I’d be a fool not to. But there would be a lot of questions I would have to ask and a lot of people to speak to before making the final decision.
“If it goes wrong at 800mph, it’s going to go very wrong.” [Read more]
Shelley set for Wyedean season opener
February 8, 2008
Rally co-driver Shelley Rogerson, 22, will kick off her 2008 rally season next weekend (9th February) when she contests the Wyedean Forest Rally with Andrew Burton.
After a successful 2007, which saw her take three overall victories, Bentham-based Shelley is aiming for a good result on the event in Burton’s Peugeot Cosworth, although they will face tough competition with a high number of World Rally Cars taking part in the event. The pairing previously contested the event in 2006 when gearbox gremlins halted their rally early.
“Last time we did the Wyedean it was very disappointing to retire not far into the rally, hopefully we can build on the results we achieved in 2007 and get a good finish to start the year well. It will be great to be out in the Peugeot Cosworth once more, I’m grateful to Andrew for asking me to sit with him again and also to my sponsors, Co-ordSport, Nicky Grist, Legend Fires, AMG TV, Songasport and friends Gary, Tim and Jason for their support.”
The Wyedean Forest Rally is the first round of the BTRDA championship and takes place mainly in the Forest of Dean with around 45 miles of gravel stages. Over 150 crews are expected to start the event, which is based at Chepstow racecourse. More information on the rally can be found at www.wyedeanrally.co.uk
Shelley is hoping to contest most rounds of the MSA Gravel Rally championship in 2008 with Burton, starting with the Sunseeker Rally at the end of February.
[Source: GirlRacer.co.uk]
Gravel Girls 2007 Calendar
January 7, 2008
”
Former local rally driver, Barbara Armstrong from Castle Douglas, was normally known for competing in the British Rally Championship. Her major claim to fame has been twice British Ladies Rally Champion. Now, in support of a good cause; Barbara is taking part in a project which will reveal her to the world in a whole new light!
In the tough, dangerous sport of rallying it can be hard to tell the few female competitors from the men. Once they are kitted out in race suits, crash helmets and two layers of fireproof underwear there is little scope for femininity. Now the new “Gravel Girls” calendar will leave no doubt that Barbara and her fellow competitors are female. These fearless motorsport competitors have been persuaded to face a new challenge by revealing all for a project that’s sure to get male hearts racing all over the country. But Barbara and other “Gravel Girls” from all over the UK would not have agreed to strip off unless there was a very good reason.
Nicola Parker, an up-and-coming young rally competitor, suffered a severe head injury in a horrific rally accident last November. The powerful Subaru Impreza she was driving crashed off a gravel forest track and became stuck 30ft down a steep ravine. The crash could easily have proved fatal, but Nicola and her co-driver were rescued from the wrecked rally car by the Wales Air Ambulance. A reconstruction of the dramatic events has been made for a television documentary.
Nicola, 28, is now fighting fit again and well on the way to a full recovery. The “Gravel Girls” calendar was her brainchild, to raise funds for the Air Ambulance charity that literally saved her life. Nicola has received outstanding support from fellow competitors nationwide. Along with Barbara the calendar will feature reigning British Ladies’ Rally Champion Lorna Smith, along with 2 other previous holders of the title including rally driver and television presenter Penny Mallory. Many other female competitors from all levels of the sport joined them during two days of intensive photo shoots.
Barbara and the other “Gravel Girls” have rallied round because many rally teams from all over the UK compete in Wales on a regular basis. All motorsport can be dangerous and rally driving especially so. Far away from the relative safety of a race track with its gravel traps and crash barriers, rallying takes place on narrow forest tracks in remote locations. Rally competitors know that the gravel “rally stages” of Wales present a particularly hazardous challenge. With slippery surfaces and steep hillsides, a small mistake or mechanical problem could easily put any competitor in difficulties.
Knowing the risks of their sport only too well, Barbara and her fellow “Gravel Girls” are grateful for the important role played by the local Air Ambulance charity. The Wales Air Ambulance provides a life saving service without any government help or funding. About 40% of all incidents attended are Road Traffic Accidents. In the last 5 years they have responded to 5000 missions, and the air ambulance only works an 8 hour shift! This year they have been exceptionally busy and rescue missions have been double that of any other summer. Speed of rescue is paramount to the recovery of any casualty
The “Gravel Girls” project has already received financial sponsorship from major motorsport companies including Pirelli, Kumho, Speedline, Proflex, Geoff Jones Motorsport, VK, Prodrive and Demon Tweeks as well as the Sun newspaper. With such great backing, the girls are confident that their calendar will be a huge phenomenon. The combination of fast cars and the female form has become so popular that it’s almost a cliché, but Barbara and the other “Gravel Girls” are offering something truly unique. They are not airbrushed models, but real women who actually compete in the tough sport of rallying, and the high-performance cars they will be appearing in, on and under are their own.The “Gravel Girls” calendar aims to emulate both the fundraising success of the famous WI “Calendar Girls”, and also their fun style of presentation. Expertly-lit monochrome photos will give the calendar the same cheeky yet artistic look. The major difference is that Barbara and friends will have their modesty tantalisingly preserved by car parts, wheels, tyres maps and other rally paraphernalia instead of cakes, knitting and jam.
The 2007 “Gravel Girls” calendar will be available to purchase by visiting www.gravelgirls.co.uk, or from motorsport mail-order giant Demon Tweeks, price £10 with all proceeds going to the Wales Air Ambulance charity.
For an interview, please contact Barbara at b.armstrong@racingline.com for further information about “Gravel Girls” or to obtain publicity photographs please contact Nicola Parker on 07970971664, or email nicola.parker@virgin.net”
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