Liliana de Menna

Liliana de Menna was a stalwart of the Italian touring car scene who was active between 1963 and 1994. 

Her first efforts were in races for small-engined saloons, when she competed under the name of "Liliana" in the hope that she wouldn't worry her family. She had got into motorsport after visiting the Vallelunga circuit with friends who raced; throughout her career, Vallelunga would remain her favourite circuit. She had seen world karting champion Susy Raganelli testing with her father and decided to try it for herself.

She won a saloon championship in her first year of racing, winning nine races outright. Her car was a 600cc Fiat 500 Montecarlo. 

The following year she won Class 2 of the Coppa Carotti hillclimb. She did several hillclimbs during her career; the Italian touring car championship was a combination of hillclimbs and circuit races at the time. In 1968, she finished the Cesano-Sestriere climb, in the middle of a group of Giannini Fiat 500s, as well as winning her class in the Bolzano-Mendola event.

She was the Italian ladies' champion in 1968. Her marriage to Italo Cantera did not slow her down and the pair even raced together in the Vallelunga 2 Hours one year. 

Some time at the end of the '60s, she had a daughter and took a lengthy hiatus from motorsport. She stopped attending race meetings because she didn't enjoy them without being able to compete herself. It wasn't until the late '70s that she came back. According to her, Giancarlo Naddeo asked her to join the Renault 5 one-make series, and she agreed. She also raced in single-make series for the Fiat 127 and MG Metro. This was the car she shared with her husband.

One-make racing led back to the Italian Touring Car Championship in the 1980s. In 1989, she raced at Pergusa in a Renault 5, coming 11th. She was then tenth at Vallelunga. For the second Vallelunga round, she shared an Audi Europa-run VW Golf with Michele Rayneri, but did not finish. 

She even raced for Lella Lombardi's team in the Italian Supertouring series in 1991, using a Ford Escort for the Pergusa 2 Hour race. Her team-mate was Walter Santus and they finished 18th. Earlier in the season, she had raced a Toyota Corolla in the Trofeo Mario Angiolini at Monza. 

Later in her career, she raced sportscars, including a Nissan 300ZX in 1992, which she used for that year's Vallelunga 6 Hours. She and Francesco Ramacciotti were 2st overall. In 1994, she entered the Italian Supercar GT championship in a Mazda RX-7, driving solo.  She was disqualified from the first meeting at Monza, but won her class twice at the next round, held at Magione. Her overall results were a fifth and fourth place. The next race she appeared in was round 5, at Varano, but she could only manage one twelfth place.

She raced in America for the first time in 1999, more than 30 years after she made her debut, when she did some rounds of the all-female Women's Global GT series, driving a Panoz Esperante. Her programme consisted of two guest appearances. 

She died in 2021.

(Image from Il Messaggero)

Amy Ruman

Amy with the Corvette in 2015

Amy Ruman races in Trans-Am in the United States. In 2015, she made history by becoming the first woman to win the Trans-Am championship.

Before Trans-Am, Amy was a multiple SCCA Regional champion, and has been active on circuits since 1995, after a couple of seasons of autocross and Solo. She is from a motorsport family, who race as a team: Ruman Racing. Her father, Bob, is a stalwart of the Trans-Am championship. Amy’s elder sister, Niki, also raced on and off.

Among the series Amy raced in was the SCCA Spec Racer Ford championship, sharing the car with Niki and their father for the endurance races. Her performances in SRF in 1998 were enough to catch the attention of Lyn St. James, and both sisters were invited to join the Women’s Global GT Series for 1999. That year, Niki was the faster of the two, and Amy found the races rather hard going. She was thirteenth in the championship.

Her second season of the WGGTS was somewhat more successful. She had a best finish of sixth, at Sebring, and was tenth in the championship. However, the series was cancelled at the end of the season, so there were no more chances for Amy to carry on improving.

After another season in Spec Racer Ford, Amy branched out into GT-1 racing in 2002, driving the family GT-1 Corvette. She finished third in an SCCA race at Sebring, one of her best tracks.

Her second season in GT-1 racing proved that she had found her niche. She was in the top five for every race, and scored her first win, at Beverun.

After managing runner-up spots in previous years, she won her divisional GT-1 championship in 2006 and retained it in 2007. During the 2007 season, she scored five wins in seven races.

In 2005, she had begun doing some Trans-Am racing, after substituting for her father in a race he was scheduled to drive. The race was at Cleveland, and she was tenth. Her second Trans-Am race, at Topeka in 2006, gave her a fifth place.

The Trans-Am championship itself did not run for a few seasons, and when it did reappear in 2009, Amy was part of it. Her best finish was third, at Road Atlanta, in her first race of five. Another part-season in 2010 saw her consolidate her top-three credentials, with three thirds from six races

In 2011, she committed fully to Trans-Am, and won her first race, the last round of the season at Road Atlanta. This was the first win in the series for a female driver. Three further third places were enough for third in the championship.

In 2012, she won in Trans-Am twice, at New Jersey and Brainerd. Five more races ended in podium finishes; she was only out of the top three for three of her seven races. She was second overall in the championship, and was now one of the leading drivers of the series.

She ran in Trans-Am again in 2013, but could not manage a win, although she put together enough of a challenge to finish fourth in the championship. Her best finishes were two third places, at Brainerd and Sebring.

Amy was very successful in 2014, notching up another two wins, and coming third in the 2014 championship. The first victory came from her first pole position, at New Jersey, and her second, at Daytona, was the first win for an individual female driver in a professional race at the circuit.

She made even more history in 2015, by winning the championship outright, with eight race victories from twelve starts. This was a completely dominant performance, and she was 34 points (and five wins) ahead of her nearest rival.

Amy still drives the Ruman Racing Corvette. She defended her title in 2016, after winning three races and scoring three more podium finishes. 

She did not manage to make it three in a row in 2017, and had to settle for third place. Her best finishes were a pair of seconds at Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta. Contact between her Corvette and cars from other classes was a problem this year. 

In 2018, she had a solid year and finished fifth in Trans Am, now running as the Chase for the Trigon Trophy. She picked up two thirds and one second place, the second coming from Indianapolis, but she was not able to secure another win. Winner Ernie Francis Jr's dominant form kept her off the top spot.

She was third in the 2019 Trigon Trophy, with more consistent results and a best finish of third at Road Atlanta.

Despite motor racing being limited in some places in 2020 due to coronavirus, Amy did the whole Trans Am season in her Corvette. She was fourth in the championshipm with one second place at Brainerd and two thirds at Sebring and Virginia. In 2021, she added another podium finish to her impressive list, coming third at Watkins Glen. She was fifth in the TA championship.

There were no more wins in 2022, but a trio of podium finishes and a consistent overall performance gave her third in the championship. This was repeated in 2023, when she had a best finish of fourth at Road America in her Corvette.

The Corvette came out again for the 2024 Trans Am season and Amy was back on the podium, finishing third at Sebring, Virginia and Road America. She was fourth overall.

(Image from http://americancarsamericangirls.com/)

The Women's Global GT Series

Belinda Endress, Sonja Bayer and Milka Duno

This championship ran in 1999 and 2000, and was organised by Don Panoz and Lyn St. James. It consisted of a series of races for female drivers in Panoz Esperante sportscars, and supported the ALMS. Up to 41 cars per meeting competed during the first year. Drivers were selected by the organisers, and came from all over the world. There was a mix of seasoned professionals, up-and-coming racers and enthusiastic amateurs from various walks of life, including Kiki Wolfkill, a video game designer and amateur racer, ex-F1 driver Divina Galica, sportscar specialists Amy and Niki Ruman, and young American hopefuls, such as Sara Senske.

The winner in the first year was Cindi Lux, after a close-fought battle. A little-known German driver, Sonja Bayer, won in 2000, after several years in one-make championships in Europe.

After 2000, Panoz decided that the series was uneconomical and opened it up to male drivers, renaming it the Panoz Racing Series. The cars remained the same.

The WGGTS attracted mixed opinions during its two-year tenure. At first, it was not taken seriously by the press or spectators, but some of the competitors earned the respect of doubters by taking on their male counterparts in other races. One such group was Cindi Lux, Divina Galica and Belinda Endress in 1999, who entered the main ALMS round at Petit Le Mans.

The series appears to have been a reasonably successful training ground for future female racing professionals, although many of the entrants were already into their careers, and it is hard to gauge whether the WGGTS helped them or not. One beneficiary was Milka Duno, who used the WGGTS as a springboard into sportscar racing in the USA, after some success in South America. She also competed in the Panoz Racing Series, after the demise of the WGGTS.

1999 Championship:
1. Cindi Lux
2. Divina Galica
3. Milka Duno
4. Sara Senske
5. Kiki Wolfkill
6. Audrey Zavodsky
7. Allison Duncan
8. Belinda Endress
9. Niki Ruman
10. Nikki LaRue
11. Bobby Marshall
12. Dana Moore
13. Amy Ruman
14. Judy Ray
15. Sonja Bayer
16. Jennifer Tumminelli
17. Sarah Wahl
18. Giovanna Amati
19. Melanie Snow
20. Jennifer Bretzel

Also entered: Renée Eady, Pat Enzman-Alspach, Terri Hundertmark, Janet Pendergraph, Liliana de Menna, Wendy Davis, Leslie Davis, Shauna Marinus, Linda Lemelin, Donna Lisciandro, Jenny Sheehy, Sunny Hobbs, Jenny Hohfeldt, Vickie Kinder-Fritz, Kandy Lynn, Patty Sledge, Whitney Young.

2000 Championship:
1. Sonja Bayer
2. Divina Galica
3. Belinda Endress
4. Milka Duno
5. Audrey Zavodsky
6. Cindi Lux
7. Nikki LaRue
8. Terri Hundertmark
9. Dana Moore
10. Amy Ruman
11. Sarah Wahl
12. Sherri de Coursey
13. Niki Ruman
14. Alisa Kincaid
15. Kiki Wolfkill
16. Shauna Marinus
17. Renée Eady
18. Karen Salvaggio
19. Liz Boeder
20. Rayner Taylor

Also entered: Helen Bashford, Bobby Marshall, Melissa Grunnah, Jenny Sheehy, Wendy Lee.

Below are short profiles of some of the more successful WGGTS drivers not featured elsewhere on the blog.

Sonja Bayer - winner of the Women’s Global GT Series in 2000. This came towards the end of her career, which started in 1994. She tried both single-seaters and touring cars, including Formula Ford and Formula BMW, before gravitating more towards saloon racing, which she did exclusively between 1997 and 1999. In 1998, she raced a BMW M3 in the VLN, with Robert Bayer. Between 1997 and 1999, she also raced in the Citroen Saxo Cup in Germany, with a best finish of eleventh, in 1998. After her WGGTS win, she did some races in the Panoz Pro Series that followed it, in 2001, as well as two rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup in Germany. Her last major race seems to have been the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2004, driving an alternative-fuel Volkswagen Golf.

Belinda Endress - began motorsport in SCCA club events, winning four championships between 1995 and 1998. She moved up to national circuit racing in 1999, via the Womens’ Global GT Championship. Driving a WGGTS-spec Panoz the following year, she won a round of the Panoz GT Winter Series. The same year, 2000, she teamed up with her fellow WGGTS alumni, Cindi Lux and Divina Galica, for the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta. They were 20th, sixth in class, in their Porsche 911. In 2001, she contested the Panoz Pro Series, winning one race and finishing third overall. After that, she drove in some rounds of the Grand-am Cup in 2002 and 2003, with mixed results. In 2005 and 2006, she took part in SCCA stock car races, finishing second in the championship.

Cindi Lux - one of the stars of the Women's Global GT Series, winning it in 1999. Since then, she has won additional regional and national titles in touring and sports cars. During her time in the WGGTS, she also took part in two ALMS races, finishing in the top 10 of the GT class. These were the Petit Le Mans races at Road Atlanta in 1999 and 2000. In 2000, she was 20th in a Porsche 911 GT3 with Belinda Endress and Divina Galica. In 1999, she, Danny Marshall, Steve Marshall and Chris Hall were 24th in a Carrera RSR. She returned to the ALMS in 2007, driving a Dodge Viper at Mid-Ohio with Stan Wilson. They were 22nd, seventh in class. Away from the ALMS, Cindi has competed extensively in SCCA events in a variety of cars. She has won ten national championships between 1988 and 2006. In 2007 and 2008, she raced in the SCCA World GT Challenge, and was its highest-performing female driver, with one fifth place. Between 2015 and 2017 she competed in Trans Am in a Dodge Viper, winning two races. In 2018, she used the Viper in the Chase for the Trigon Trophy TR3 Series, finishing seventh with one win. She did two races in this series in 2019, finishing second in one of them at Circuit of the Americas.

Dana Moore - competed in the Women’s Global GT Series in 1999 and 2000. Her best finish was ninth in 2000 and her best race finish was fifth. Prior to this, she raced historics and in 1998, Formula Ford. After the WGGTS folded she struggled to get a major ride and raced Legends on both asphalt and dirt, winning races at her local Cajon Speedway. In 2005 she attempted a comeback after a neck injury, signing up for a motorsport-based reality TV show in an attempt to win a NASCAR Busch Series drive.

Niki Ruman (Skinner) - sister of Amy Ruman, but competes less frequently. They occasionally share a car. Her normal car is a Spec Racer which she uses in SCCA events. Her first win came in 2005, at Sebring, but so far, she has not repeated it. She was also part of the WGGTS for two years, in 1999 and 2000, with a best finish of fifth. In 2011, after several years of limited seasons, she was second in a race at Summit Point. Every year, she makes guest appearances at Summit Point for the SCCA Majors.

Jennifer Tumminelli (Lefler) - US racer with ALMS and Womens’ Global GT experience. In 2000, she drove in both the Grand-Am and ALMS championships, in different Porsches. She and her Racer's Group team-mates were ninth in class in the Road America 500 Mile race and the Grand Prix of Mosport. With Dick Barbour Racing, she was eighth in class at Portland. Her best overall finish was eighteenth, at Sears Point. She took part in four ALMS races. On the Grand –Am side, she raced at Mid-Ohio and Road America. Driving for Racer’s Group, her best finish was 30th, ninth in class, at Road America. Previously, she raced Mazda single-seaters in the States, and then took part in the WGGTS in 1999 and 2000.

Kiki Wolfkill - raced sportscars in the USA and did some major events in the form of the Grand-Am Cup in 1999. She was one of the competitors in both seasons of the WGGTS. For several seasons, she drove in various SCCA series, including regional races in a Porsche 924 in 1999. Outside racing, she is a designer of motorsport and other games for consoles. She took a sabbatical from motorsport in 2002 and since then, has restricted herself to non-competitive driving events such as the Cannonball Run and One Lap of America.

Audrey Zavodsky - one of the major players in both runnings of the Women’s Global GT Series, and the winner of the first race, in 1999. She was sixth in 1999, and fifth in 2000, despite not repeating her win. Later, she also competed in the Panoz Racing Series that replaced the WGGTS. In 2003, she was third in the championship, with one win. She made one appearance the following year. Before her Panoz exploits, she raced in SCCA Regional events for four years, with some successes. She does not seem to have raced much since 2004, although she has remained somewhat in the public eye. Outside of motorsport, she is an occupational health nurse.

(Image from www.theracesite.com)

Tamara Vidali

Tamara as an Audi driver

A star of the Super Touring heyday of the 1990s, Tamara has raced all over Europe, in a variety of saloons. Born and raised in Italy, her career commenced with the then all-female Nordauto team in 1991, driving an Alfa Romeo 33QV in Italy. Her team-mate was "fellow" Italian Romana Bernardoni. While Bernardoni took a while to get used to the tracks, Tamara really developed as a driver, and carried off the Italian CIVT (Campionata Italia Velocita Turismo) championship the following year, only her second year of serious competition. By this time she had advanced to driving a powerful Alfa Romeo 155. She campaigned various versions of this car in Italian touring cars for another two seasons. She was sixth in the 1993 Italian Super Touring Championship, and tenth in 1994, for Nordauto.

It was time for a change in 1995. Tamara defected from Alfa to the Audi works team, who were keen to buy into the new Super Touring formula. Alongside Hans Joachim Stuck and Frank Biela, she contested the German Super Touring Cup, and some rounds of the European championship, in an A4. She made an excellent start to the season with a string of top-ten finishes, including a fourth at Zolder and third at Hockenheim. However, during the season her performances tailed off somewhat, and she was not the only team member to have this happen. The new car was fast, but fragile, and still had some development to be done on it. Still, her results were good enough for ninth overall in the championship. Italy had not been forgotten: she made two guest appearances in her home Super Touring series, driving a works Audi.

The following year she raced in Germany again, driving the A4 for the Roc Competition AZK team. She repeated her stellar start. In the first three meetings she was placed in the top three drivers. again, she and the A4 could not keep it up for the whole season, but a more consistent year gave her seventh in the championship, her best finish. Her links with the works team remained strong, and they ran her in four Spanish Touring Car races as well.

1997 was a let-down. The other teams had started to catch up with Audi, and Tamara was somewhat off the pace. Her terrible year was compounded by a nasty crash, which led to her replacement in the Audi squad while she recovered. One of the few highlights of this year for her was her participation the Bathurst 24 Hour race in Australia, driving another Audi with Brad Jones. She did not return the following year.

Tamara was not finished with motorsport yet, though. In 1999, she was one of the few European drivers to enter the Womens' Global GT Championship, which supported the American Le Mans Series. The following season she returned to Germany as part of the all-female Sakura team for the Nürburgring 24 Hours. She drove a Honda S2000 with fellow touring car ace Ellen Lohr, Vanina Ickx and 'Ring champion Sabine Schmitz (then Reck).

After this, Tamara became something of an occasional driver. She did very well in the Bercy Kartmasters events for professional drivers, winning a couple of them, and drove in selected touring car races as a guest driver. She was then seen doing some ice-racing for charity in Monaco, beating some of her old Super Touring sparring partners.

She announced her official retirement in 2002, and was off the scene for a while. She reappeared in 2005, unusually in a sportscar, to contest some rounds of the Trofeo Pirelli European Ferrari Challenge.

For the 2006 season, Tamara made a triumphant return to saloon competition, in the Italian Campionato Superstars, a high-profile touring car series. In race two of the season at Imola, she drove a works Audi RS4 to victory against BMWs and Jaguars, a first win for the marque in Italy since 1997. She won two more races during the year, including one at Varano, and was second overall behind Massimo Pigoli in a Jaguar. Throughout the season, she was never off the podium. As well as supporting her Italian winning streak, Audi sent Tamara to Russia, to take part in a few touring car rounds there.

Tamara’s comeback in 2006 looks to have been a temporary one, as she does not seem to have raced full-time since. In 2006, there were rumours of guest drives in an Audi in the Russian Touring Car Championship,  and there are reports of her struggling somewhat with the first two rounds. Apparently, she drove in four races, and was 18th in the championship, but her actual race results are proving very hard to track down.

(Image copyright Audi Sport)

Sara Senske

Daughter of a racer, Sara Senske started young. She began karting at seven, won her first race at eight and her first championship at nine. During her seven years in karts, she won the prestigious IKF Gold Cup three times, and won or scored well in several other state and club championships.

After her illustrious karting career, she was signed by the Lyn St James Driver Development Program, where she honed her racecraft and media nous further in 1994 and 1995. At the age of eighteen, in 1996, she enrolled at the famous Skip Barber racing school, in order to move up to cars. In that year's Skip Barber Western racing series, she won one race and collected five podium finishes. She ended the year as the school's Most Improved Driver.

The following season she stepped up to the popular Star Formula Mazda single-seater series for the last six races. Having learnt the car, she came back the next year for a full season and ended it eighth. Eighth was her final position in 1999 too, after a string of top-ten placings, some podium finishes and two fastest laps, at Irwindale and Pike's Peak. That year she also tried sportscar racing in the Women's Global GT Series. She won once, from pole, at Portland, and came fourth in the championship.

For 2000, Sara decided she had learnt enough from Formula Mazda. Showing her typical self-discipline and determination which she attributes to her Christian faith, she put together funds for a ride in the Barber Dodge Pro Series with Lynx Racing. She had been running with the team for a while and it was a logical step. Her first year was not spectacular, with one top-ten place to her name, but she was a steady and reliable finisher. The following year, her confidence and experience grew and she was rewarded with more top ten positions. starting with a sixth at Lime Rock. Her biggest achievement was at Chicago, where she was second behind Nicolas Rondet, having kept by him for the whole race. That was the first time a woman had mounted the podium in the Pro Series, and Sara joked later about the lack of "podium guys" laid on for her.

At first, Lynx Racing were keen to capitalise on her success with a move into the Toyota Atlantic series, the next step towards CART or the IRL. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, Sara was passed over by the team in favour of someone else. She tested for a few other teams, and tried out for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in a Dodge, but nothing came of it. This must have been a big blow, especially as she gave up her university studies to focus on her racing.

Sara still had ambitions of reaching CART or the Indy Racing League, and kept her hand in by driving the official Pace Car at CART events. She also drove in the 2001 Toyota Pro/Celebrity race as a Pro.

She has now retired from motorsport, and works as a mental health counsellor.

(Image from www.thunval.com)

Divina Galica

Divina at the 1976 British Grand Prix

Born in Bushey Heath in 1946, Divina Galica had an adventurous childhood spent mostly outdoors, in common with many other speedqueens. She proved to be a competent sportswoman at an early age, but it was skiing rather than motor racing that was her first passion. She was one of the best British female skiers ever and had entered three Winter Olympic games by the time her racing career started in 1974, at the wheel of a Ford Escort. By this time, she was the fastest woman on skis, having reached 125mph on a record run. She was invited to take part in a celebrity Escort race at Oulton Park, and surprised many with a second place.

On the suggestion of Brands Hatch and Shellsport race promoter John Webb, Divina took a driving course at Motor Racing Stables, and at the age of 28 became a full-time professional racing driver, in 1975. She raced both a Ford Escort and a Formula Ford single-seater, coming second in the Shellsport Ladies' Escort Championship and scoring some good overall placings in the main Escort series. All this happened in spite of a disastrous start to the season, when Divina wrote off her Escort Special during her second-ever competitive lap in it.

Not content with saloons and junior single-seater action, John Webb and Nick Whiting took the extraordinary step of acquiring a Formula One car for Divina to use during the 1976 season. She entered the Shellsport Formula 5000 championship in a Surtees-Ford TS16 and delivered the goods once again. At the end of the season she was fourth, with one fastest lap at Donington and one "Driver of the Day" award at Thruxton, awarded for a battling performance in the wet.

What was more remarkable was that she was entering Grands Prix in only her first full year of competition. Her Shellsport/Whiting-sponsored Surtees was out of date and well off the pace and she failed to qualify for the British Grand Prix, but it was a brave effort nonetheless. The Italian Lella Lombardi had also registered a DNQ in the same event, making it the only time that two women had entered a Grand Prix in the modern era.

There were no more GP attempts in 1977, but Divina was still racing hard. The TS16 had now been replaced by a TS19 and she returned to Formula 5000 alongside Tony Trimmer. She was sixth this time and her best performances were a second at Donington and a third at Brands Hatch, where she led for a time. She and Trimmer also scored a number of joint fastest laps. In addition to single-seaters, the enterprising Brit was now racing sportscars as well, and she was runner-up in Sports 2000 driving a Lola.

1978 was a very mixed year. Divina was back driving a Surtees TS19 F1 car for selected rounds of the Aurora F1 Championship, and was an excellent second at Zandvoort in the Netherlands. She was also seventh at Thruxton in the same car. However, Formula One proper was beckoning again. She had secured sponsorship from Olympus Cameras and the Hesketh team, which had had so much success with James Hunt previously, provided a car for her. She decamped to South America for the Argentine and Brazilian rounds of the championship. Unfortunately, she failed to qualify for either race. She did manage to start the non-championship Daily Express Trophy at Silverstone, but did not finish, like her team-mate Derek Daly. Hesketh was by this time without its founders, Lord Hesketh and Harvey Postlethwaite, and did not last much longer. This was also the end of Divina's involvement with Formula One, but certainly not the end of her racing career.

Moving north, she tried Formula Atlantic in Canada, and steered her Chevron to fifth overall, then moved back to England for the 1979 season. She stayed with the powerful single-seater racing she loved and acquired a Hart-engined March, which she used for Formula Two competition. Her results were unspectacular apart from one drive in the Hitachi Trophy at Brands Hatch. Despite a one-minute time penalty, she was able to clinch second spot.

Sticking with the same car in 1980, she continued to enter Formula Two races and also took part in some Aurora F1 rounds. This time she was overshadowed by the success of another lady driver, Desiré Wilson, but she was still a respectable sixth at Oulton Park and ninth at Silverstone. F2 was more disappointing; the normally-reliable March suffered tyre trouble during the Marlboro Trophy at Silverstone and put her out of the race.

For the next few seasons, the former Olympian accepted drives in a number of vehicles and championships. She took her March F2 car to Japan for a time, and also took up sportscar racing again, in enduros and shorter races. By 1985, sportscars had become the focus of her competition career. She and Gary Brabham drove a Shrike for TechSpeed Motorsport in the British Thundersports series. Their best finish was fifth at Oulton Park and they came second in their class five times.

After a quieter 1986, Divina returned to Thundersports in 1987, mainly piloting a Fulmar Racing Royale RP42 with Mike Taylor. They scored some good midfield finishes, mainly around the sixth place mark. However, when Divina changed to an Ibec car for the Oulton Park round, she was fifth - her best finish.

Truck racing was Divina's next challenge. She took to the trucks like a duck to water and carried off the British Class A title two years in a row, in 1988 and 1989. She also entered some European truck racing meetings, but the results have proved difficult to find.

Never shy of a change of direction, Divina's next move was pretty extraordinary. After more than fifteen years as a racing driver, she returned to her first love: skiing. At the age of 46, she qualified for the Albertville Winter Olympics in 1992 and went on to set some more hair-raising ski speed records, including a 120mph run that would rival her four-wheeled antics.

After the Olympics, she moved to America and was involved in motorsport administration and training. Along with Don Panoz and Lyn St. James, she was instrumental in setting up the Womens's Global GT Series, a one-make sports-racing series for women which supported the American Le Mans Series. The WGGTS attracted some good drivers from the USA and Europe and was successful in its first year. Divina raced one of the Panoz cars herself and came away with two wins. She entered the WGGTS again in 2000, and at the end of the season, decided to race in the main ALMS draw too. Divina, plus Americans Cindi Lux and Belinda Endress, entered a Porsche into the ten-hour Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta. They qualified in 37th and came home 20th overall, sixth in class, to the delight of many female fans.

After the WGGTS was disbanded in 2001, Divina returned to her role as a senior instructor for the Skip Barber Racing School. However, she had never retired completely and still likes to test herself a few times a year, often in historic races. In 2005, she dusted off a March F2 car and pedalled it to third in the Zippo US Vintage Grand Prix. In modern machinery, she raced a new Mini with Julie Allan for DWD Racing, in the Grand-Am Cup.

Despite being in her seventies at the time of writing, Ms Galica shows no sign of slowing down. She still competes in historic races in America on occasion, and is both a director and a writer of iracing.com, a US-based motorsport news site.

(Image copyright Getty Images)

Giovanna Amati

Giovanna in 1992

Much like the Wacky Races heroine Penelope Pitstop, Giovanna was a wealthy girl who was once the victim of a kidnapping plot. Like Penelope too, she had an adventurous streak from an early age. At fifteen, she used her allowance to purchase a 500cc motorcycle and secretly ride it around the streets of Rome at night, although she was not old enough to hold a licence.

It was not many more years before she got herself a racing licence and was competing in Formula Abarth, Italy's junior single-seater series. She stayed with Abarth for four years, before moving up to Formula Three in 1985. Here, she proved herself to be an able and quick competitor; she was described as having won a race outright in 1986, but further details are not forthcoming. Her Coperchini '85-spec Dallara was a regular presence on the Italian F3 grid and although she experienced some problems in qualifying, she was a regular top-ten finisher in a strong field.

Giovanna always looked to push herself forward in her motorsport career, and with a win under her belt in Formula Three, it was time to prove herself at the next level. Her debut year in Formula 3000 was not a success; she found sponsorship for four races but only managed to qualify for her first one, at Donington. She finished sixteenth out of twenty.

There was more disappointment to come in 1990. Giovanna raced for three different F3000 teams and used two different chassis types, but still only made two starts out of ten entries.

Things began to look up in 1991. again, she entered ten F3000 rounds, but she qualified for seven of them this time, and scored her best ever finish, at Le Mans. She was seventh after starting second from last. Her ninth place at Oulton Park was also impressive. At this time, she was rumoured to be in a relationship with Benetton team principal Flavio Briatore, and the thirty-lap test she undertook in one of their Formula One cars was put down to this.

However, at the beginning of 1992 she became a bona fide Formula One pilot, after receiving her Superlicence. She was hired by the dead-in-the-water Brabham team to drive alongside Eric van der Poele, mainly as a publicity exercise. Rather embarrassingly, she failed to qualify for the three races she entered: South Africa, Mexico and Brazil. In fairness, van der Poele did not qualify either, but Giovanna's appalling lap times and multiple spins made more headlines than his. She was promptly replaced by Damon Hill, and it took several engine changes and other improvements, plus more seat time, before the future World Champion was able to qualify the Brabham either. The team folded at the end of the season.

Giovanna as a Brabham driver

Giovanna's single-seater career ended there. Perhaps if she had allowed herself more time to progress through the ranks, or stayed with an F3000 team long enough to learn the car, she would have stood a better chance of a decent F1 drive. She was now rather maligned as a spoiled little rich girl playing at being a racing driver, and lurid rumours flew around about her alleged relationships with a number of important men in the sport.

Putting her F1 debacle behind her, she took refuge in the Porsche Supercup in 1993 and began to carve out a new career as a sportscar driver, like many F1 has-beens before her. Between 1994 and 1996 she raced in the Ferrari Challenge and in some international GT races in a Corvette. She took a break from motorsport in 1997 and started to commentate on races for Italian TV. However, she could not stay away for long and was back in sportscars for the 1998 season. Her racing programme took in the Ferrari Challenge, and some International Sports Racing Series in a Giudici Gaiero Alfa Romeo, and an Alfa-powered Lucchini. She did not finish the Misano race in the Gaiero, but was eleventh, third in class, in the Lucchini, driving with Giovanni Gulinelli and Guido Knycz.

Her biggest challenge was probably the Sebring 12 Hours, in which she shared a BMW M3 with Carter and Petery. They did not finish. She was also involved in the Women's Global GT Series in America.

1999 was a year in which she proved some of her doubters wrong. She was driving the works Tampolli prototype in the FIA Sportscar Championship with Angelo Lancelotti. They were eleventh at Barcelona, sixth at Monza and tenth (first in the SR2 class) at the Nürburgring, after three non-finishes due to technical difficulties. In the last race of the season, at Kyalami, they were fifteenth. Giovanna also drove a Pilbeam-Nissan for a different team in the Magny-Cours round and was a superb fourth overall, with Hennie Groenewald and Nicolas Blomm.

It was here that Giovanna's full-time racing career came to a close, thankfully on a high. In 2000 she was offered a seat as a reserve driver for the works Cadillac team at Le Mans, but declined. She took up TV work full-time and remains a sports presenter on Italian screens.

Until now, she remains the last woman to have attempted to qualify for a Formula One race.

In 2014, Giovanna made a small comeback, accepting a drive in the Italian GT Championship, with GDL Racing. She made a guest appearance at Misano, driving a Mercedes SLS AMG, and finished twelfth and eleventh in the GT3 class. Her team-mate was Gianluca de Lorenzi. At the time, she was almost 55 years old.

In November 2015, she commented on the retirement of Susie Wolff, describing the frustrating nature of life in top-line motor racing, and its physical difficulties, for female drivers. She also announced that she would be returning to the circuits, although she did not say which series she would be joining. As of the end of 2016, this does not seem to have happened.

(Image copyright Sutton Images)