June 11th marks 120 years since a woman first raced a motor vehicle in an official event.
Léa Lemoine won the Championnat des Chauffeuses at Longchamp racecourse, from seven other women. All of them drove De Dion-engined tricycles. You can read more about the Championnat here, and about some of the chauffeuses, including Léa, here.
This was no one-off. Later in 1897, Léa drove her tricycle in the Coupe des Motocycles. In 1898, Madame Laumaillé drove her own De Dion tricycle in the Marseille-Nice Trial. Every year since then, women have raced cars or motorcycles, somewhere in the world, with the possible exception of during part of the Second World War, when no-one raced at all.
Speedqueens are active in every continent of the world, in circuit racing and rallying, every week of the year. Here's to another 120 years!
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