Elena Samsonova

Elena Samsonova was one of Russia’s earliest female racing drivers, active before the 1917 Revolution.

She was born in 1890 and began competing shortly before the First World War, having learned to drive Warsaw after graduating from high school.

In 1913, she was tenth in an off-road trial near Moscow, driving an American Hupmobile. The trial was run on a dirt track over 2.134km, which equates to two versts in old Russian measurements. Elena was one of two Hupmobile drivers, both of which were using 12hop models. She was not really competitive on her first time out, finishing tenth from fourteen starters and over three minutes behind the ninth-placed car. 

In 1914, she drove the Hupmobile in a race and another trial, on roads this time. Both events were held near St. Petersburg; the trial was on Volkhonskoe Road and the race may have been in the same area. 

Her run in the seven-lap Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de St. Petersburg ended on the third lap due to a damaged wheel. She had been in sixth place. Only seven of the fifteen cars that started made it to the end.

She set a time in the trial but her position is not recorded. The record runs were marred by the death of another driver and no other times seem to have been published. Interestingly, she raced against another female driver, named Suvorina, in an Excelsior.

Not long before her first race in 1913, she earned her pilot’s license. After her racing career ended in 1914, she studied medicine, later working as an Army nurse and then taking the exams for the transport corps.

She escaped the purges of the 1917 Revolution and may even have served in the Bolshevik air force as an observer, although this is debated as her name does not appear in official military records. 

She died in 1958.

(Image copyright Miron Dolnikov)