The Speederettes

Helen Summersby at Ascot Park

The Speederettes was the name given to a group of women who took part in a high-profile all-female dirt-track event in California in 2918

During the First World War, motorsports ceased almost entirely in Europe. This was not the case in the USA. Although racing was quite limited, the dirt speedways and board tracks, many of them in fairgrounds, continued to operate.

Women had been banned from official, wheel-to-wheel motorsport competition since 1909. They were allowed to run in speed trials, during which they were the only car on the track, but not in actual races. However, in 1918, promoters had the idea of putting on women-only races, which circumvented the prospective scandal of women racing against men. The group of drivers hired to take part in these events became known as “The Speederettes”.

“Speederettes” itself sounds like the title of a B-movie, and the story of these drivers would go some way to creating a plot for a film.

The first all-female race of this period took place in February, 1918, at Ascot Park, a dirt track in California. It was not a single event, but a series of speed trials and qualification sessions on Saturday, in support of a “big race” on Sunday, itself part of a four-race schedule. 

It was promoted as an exciting spectacle, and billed as a “Carnival of Femininity”. Newspaper reports claim that all the race officials and marshals were female as well as the drivers, with only a few male mechanics and spectators permitted to join in. Ruth Weightman ran without a riding mechanic, claiming she was saving weight. The starter for the meeting was Mrs Barney Oldfield.

Following official practice sessions the previous week, the first race was a match race for cyclecars held over five miles, between Ruth Weightman, Rose Harmon (possibly Marmon) and Nina Vitagliano. Ruth Weightman was the winner, having led from the start. Nina Vitagliano was second and Mrs Harmon did not finish, skidding off during the fourth lap and crashing through a fence. She was not seriously injured but did not figure in any of the other races.

Two heats were held for the five-mile feature race, of two miles each. Mrs CH Wolfelt, in a Stutz, defeated Nina Vitaglioni's Roamer in the first. Bertie (or Birdie) Priest was the winner of the second, from Mrs Cecil George in another Stutz.

The “big race” was won by Mrs. Wolfeld, from Mrs George and Bertie Priest. She was awarded the Katharine Stinson Trophy, named after the pioneering young aviatrix. Katharine herself provided extra excitement by landing her plane at the racetrack. As well as these races, there was a handicap billed as a “Women’s International Championship”, which was won by Mrs Wolfeld again. All five women raced, including Ruth Weightman who had been barred from her heat due to her Mercer being a racing model rather than a touring car. 

Helen Summersby apparently won a time trial during the weekend, driving a Roamer. Other women who attempted to qualify included the actresses Bebe Daniels and Anita King, both famous for their driving stunts, and Mrs Willie Hoppe, who was married to a billiards champion and had also taken up shooting recently. Her car was a Simplex. Mrs Frank Chance, Mrs William Watts Jones, Ora Carew and Margaret Allen (not the Brooklands racer) apparently practised, with Mrs Chance taking tuition from Barney Oldfield. Ora Carew was another actress and singer who was famous for doing her own stunts, including a parachute jump.

 

Not much is known about most of the first batch of Speederettes. Ruth Weightman, as mentioned previously, was a pilot. She was only 18 years old at the time, but had connections in the racing world through her cousin, Bill Weightman. Pictures show them together with his cars. Bertie Priest was apparently a pilot too. Nina Vitagliano was an Italian-American, married to a shipping company boss, with ambitions of more racing, becoming a pilot and driving an ambulance in Europe. If the “Marmon” spelling of her name is correct, it is conceivable that Mrs. Harmon/Marmon was part of the Marmon family, which owned the car manufacturer of the same name, but she may well have been someone completely different. The others are more obscure: Mrs. Wolfeld was married to a shoe shop owner.

The first Speederettes event was a great success, bringing in 10,000 or more spectators. Omar Toft, a sometime racer himself, quickly set about organising a second meeting. It was held in March, at Stockton Park, a mile-long dirt track. The meeting was billed as a “World Championship” for women drivers. At least four women took part. Among them were Ruth Weightman and Nina Vitagliano, who were building up something of a rivalry between them. There was talk of Joan Newton Cuneo coming out of retirement to take on the winner in a "women's world championship", but this did not happen.

The Ascot Park race had utilised lightly-tuned stock cars and some very small cyclecars, but this next instalment of Speederette action was set to involve far more horsepower. Nina and Ruth had the use of what appeared to be some genuine racing cars: Nina had a well-known Stutz (“No. 8”) belonging to Earl Cooper, and Ruth was to drive a Mercer owned by Eddie Pullen. There is now some debate as to whether one or both of these cars were the genuine article, and it is fair to say that a fair amount of downtuning had happened before the event, to allow amateur drivers to get these temperamental machines around the track. Promoter Omar Toft himself is said to have told the Speederettes to be careful, especially when overtaking on turns.

Nina Vitagliano

The first race on the programme was a single-lap sprint, which was won by Nina Vitagliano in the Stutz. The second race was run over five laps, and Ruth Weightman took the lead. Nina tried to overtake her on a bend, lost control of the car, and crashed through a fence and over the bank and ditch surrounding that part of the circuit. It was quite a similar crash to the one she experienced at Ascot Park, but far more serious. She was killed instantly. Her riding mechanic, Bob Currie, and three spectators also died as a result of the accident. The cause of the crash was never fully established, but a tyre blowout may have been the catalyst.

The meeting was not halted, although according to the Oregon Daily Journal, which reported the event quite thoroughly, most of the spectators left. Ruth Weightman won an Australian pursuit race from another driver called Eleanor Baumbauer and was also the victor in the final two-lap "free for all for the woman's championship."

This ended the Speederettes. Newspapers report that the promoters of the Stockton event placed a ban on women drivers in their competitions, but this may have been short-lived. Ruth Weightman went back to aviation, and the other women who had participated seem to disappear back into their own lives. The events of March 1918 did not help the cause of female drivers with the AAA, the motorsport sanctioning body in the USA, as there was considerable media reporting of the accident, and the accompanying disapproval.

Nevertheless, the Speederettes did manage to inspire some other women to race; in the 1920s, there were other events for female drivers organised, and even some international drivers attended them. However, women would remain prohibited from major competitions in the States for many years, and barred from top-line open-wheel racing until the 1970s.

Nina Vitagliano was apparently much mourned by the California Italian-American community. Interest in her, and the Speederettes, has increased since the publication of some articles about them by Patricia Yongue, Harold Osmer and others. These articles have formed the basis of the research for this post.

Patricia Yongue in Veloce Today: http://www.velocetoday.com/people/people_39.php

(Images from www.coastal181.com and www.velocetoday.com/Stockton Library)