Female Rally Drivers Around The World: Bulgaria

Diana Stoyanova in 2015

Women have been part of the rally scene in Bulgaria since the days of Communism and are still a strong presence now. The best-known Bulgarian female rally driver is multiple European ladies’ champion, Ekaterina Stratieva, who has her own post.

Elena Apostolova - Bulgaria’s leading female driver in the 1980s and early 1990s. As she was active during the Communist era, her cars were always VAZ Ladas. Her career began in 1972, driving a Trabant with her husband Stoyan. She competed in Bulgaria itself, including the Albena Rally which was a round of the ERC, and sometimes in Yugoslavia. Her best finish was probably a 25th place in the 1985 Rally Vida, also an ERC counter. Both of her daughters, Pavlina and Gergana, are involved in rallying. After her retirement, Elena began organising a women-only rally in Bulgaria. In recent years, she has returned to co-driving for Stoyan.

Gergana Apostolova - rallied in Europe in the 1990s. She is from a notable Bulgarian rally family and began her career as navigator to her father, Stoyan. This was a job she alternated with her sister, Pavlina. In 1996, she began driving herself, and competed in Germany. She was 59th in the ADAC 3-Städte Rally, driving a Suzuki Swift. In 1997, she drove a Ford Ka in the Monte Carlo Rally’s Prince Albert Challenge. Unusually, her navigator was her mother Elena, an experienced driver herself. They did not finish. “Geri’s” best overall result was 29th in the 1997 Rally Albena. Her car was a Nissan Sunny and Elena was co-driving once more. 

Victoria Garkova - Bulgarian driver who started competing around Eastern Europe in 2017. Her car is a Hyundai r20 Coupe and she contested the Hyundai Trophy, as well as the Romanian junior championship and a Turkish rally. In terms of major events, her best result has been a 27th place in the Rally of Bulgaria, assisted by Velislava Pavlova. Her best outright finish was 15th in the Tvardica-Elena Rally. She was fourth in the Hyundai Trophy standings.

Tsvetomira Georgieva - rallied a Renault Clio, mainly in her home country of Bulgaria. She began competing in major rallies in 2009, and posted top-twenty finishes from the beginning, with a fifteenth place in the Rally Trayanovi Vrata. She also finished her first rally abroad, the Prime Yalta Rally in Ukraine. In 2010, she was ninth in the Hebros Rally, and finished the Vida Rally in fourteenth. Her other events, including the Serbia Rally, ended in DNFs. In 2011, she only managed two major rallies, including the IRC-counting Prime Yalta Rally, which she did not finish due to mechanical problems. She was also twelfth in the Rally Stari Stolici. She did not compete after that, and died in early 2015, aged 33.

Maria Gocheva - rallied a Lada VAZ 2105 in Bulgarian rallies in the 1990s. She was most active in 1997, when she entered several rounds of the Bulgarian championship. Her best finish that year was eighteenth in the Rally Stari Stolici. Her programme included two European championship rounds: the Albena and Hebros rallies. She was beaten to the ladies’ award in the Albena event by her chief rival, Gergana Apostolova. 

Diana Stoyanova - Bulgarian driver who usually uses a Citroen Saxo VTS. Her first rally seems to have been a women-only event in 2007. She has been competing in national and international rallies in Bulgaria since 2010, including the Rally of Bulgaria itself in 2012, although she did not finish. The Hebros Rally has given her her best results so far: eleventh in 2010 and twelfth in 2011. In 2012, she did not finish any major events, although she entered at least three. In 2013, she was thirteenth in a Rallysprint event in Greece, driving the Citroen. In addition to rallying, Diana also competes in hillclimbs in the Citroen, and has concentrated on this in recent years. A return to the stages in 2016 gave her the Bulgarian ladies' title, driving a Saxo. She won her class on the Serbia Rally, and was fifteenth overall. In 2017, she only ran a limited programme in the Saxo, and did not retain her title. 2018 was a much better year; she was fourth in Rally Bulgaria and ninth in the Serbia Rally. Her car was a Honda Civic. Using the same car, she won her class in the 2019 Balkan Rally Trophy, picking up two top-ten finishes: eighth in the Serbia Rally and tenth in the Rally Sliven in Bulgaria.

(Image from www.dro4cars.com)

Maggie (Margaret) Anderson

Renault 5 ladies' race at Monaco

Maggie Anderson raced saloons in the 1970s. She was the first person to win a Renault 5 one-make race in the UK and raced the same car in Monte Carlo.

She came to prominence as part of John Webb’s Shellsport promotions in the mid-1970s. As she had been a professional hot-air balloonist, Webb was keen for someone of her background to get involved. Her first races were at the Brands Hatch racing school in 1973. This was then part of Webb’s operation. Maggie’s debut outings in a Ford Escort Mexico led to Driver of the Meeting awards and podium positions. Her first public event was a Shellsport Celebrity Escort race and she was fourth behind male drivers from other areas of motorsport, including Tony Lanfranchi and Bernard Unett.

Maggie did not just impress Webb with her interesting background. Her fast learning and early speed led to a test in a Shellsport Formula 5000 car in 1974, but a puncture meant the session was a short one. 

In 1974 and 1975, Maggie raced a Renault 5, backed by Elf. She won her second ever public event in the car, a one-make race at Brands Hatch. This was the first Renault 5 race ever held in the UK. The championship lasted for 30 years and was superseded by the Clio Cup. That year she finished runner-up in the British Renault 5 Trophy. 

She drove the 5 in an invitation-only ladies’ race at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1975, against eleven other women including eventual winner Marie-Claude Beaumont, Christine Beckers, Judy Witter, Gabriel Konig and Eeva Heinonen. Maggie was extremely aggressive in the opening laps and made up several places, but she outbraked herself at the chicane and went off-track.

Still backed by Elf, she also raced a Renault 17, in which she won the Ladies’ class of the Avon Tour of Britain, with Susan Tucker-Peake. They were 22nd overall. 

She became a regular in the BWRDC Ladies’ Shellsport Escort series after proving her mettle in other one-make series. This eventually led to her winning the Shellsport Ladies’ Escort Championship in 1977. 

Maggie’s career was short, lasting just four years. After her time in active competition ended, Maggie married Wilf Loynd and alongside him, worked as an organiser for the Tour of Mull rally for many years.

She came out of retirement for the 2004 Renault Festival at Thruxton, driving a 5 among past Renault 5 championship and race winners.

(Image from renault-5.net)

Camilla Antonsen

Camilla Antonsen is a rallycross driver who was the  winner of the North European Zone 4WD Championship in 2010. Her car was a Ford Fiesta ST. This was the first of two rallycross championships she has won.

Rallycross is the discipline for which she is best known, but she began with a mixture of autocross and rallying in the 1990s. Her first car was an Opel Corsa which she used in 1992 and 1993. 

Her first season as a rallycross driver appears to have been in 1998, when she entered the Norwegian series.

She continued to try out different motorsport opportunities in Norway. Between 2002 and 2004, she also made various starts in the Norwegian Touring Car championship, driving a Vauxhall Vectra. Her best results were two podiums in 2003, leading to a seventh place in the series. 

Her name first appears in the NEZ Rallycross entry lists in 2007, driving a Skoda Fabia. She was fourth overall in the Open class at Nysum in Denmark. At the same meeting the following year, she was third in the Open class but also raced a Vauxhall Astra in the Super 2000 class, finishing fourteenth. She later appeared at her home round in Norway and was fifth in Open, driving the Fabia. 

A switch to a Ford Focus brought her a debut NEZ Open class win in 2009, at her lucky Nysum circuit in Denmark. This was followed up in 2010 by another win at Vilkycial in Lithuania, driving a Ford Fiesta in the 4WD class. This was her first of two wins as she also came out on top at Riga, as well as a second place at Nysum.

In 2011, she was second in the NEZ 4WD championship, as well as taking part in the Scandinavian rounds of the European Championship and the top-level Norwegian series. She scored one NEZ win in Lithuania.

She won the renamed Supercar division of the 2012 Norwegian championship, in the Fiesta. This was a clean sweep of wins. She was also seventh in the NEZ 4WD championship after winning the Norwegian round. 

She switched to rallying in 2013, in a BMW M3. Rallying had been part of her motorsport schedule on and off since 2011, when she drove a Volvo in Norway and occasionally, Sweden. The Volvo had been in her possession since about 1999.

The BMW was another car that she returned to over and over again between 2013 and 2019. In 2014, she scored her first top twenty finish, coming 19th in the Numedalsrally. Later, the M3 proved very suited to rallysprint events. The Gardemosprinten in Norway was her best event; she was eleventh in 2017 and runner-up in 2019. This came in the same year as a fifth place in the Mjavannsprinten and sixth in the Kongsvinger Rallysprint.

She rallied a couple of other cars during this time, including a Renault Twingo in 2014 and a Subaru Impreza in 2017, although she was not as successful as she was in her BMW.

Rallycross had not been forgotten either. In 2014, she raced a Ford Fiesta in the European championship for part of the year, in the Touring Car class. She won one round at Buxtehude in Germany. This was the first win for a woman driver in the Touring class and only the second-ever female European rallycross win ever, after Susann Bergvall in 1994.

She was back in the European rallycross championship for 2015, in the Fiesta. Her best finish was sixth in Belgium and she was eleventh in the championship. 

Her 2016 season in the ERC Touring class was an indifferent one and her Fiesta looks to have been sold at the end of the year. She switched to a newer Citroen DS3 for 2017 but was only able to enter the Norwegian round of the ERC. Another new car in 2018, an Audi A1 this time, was a more successful substitution. She was fifth in the ERC Touring championship , with a best finish of fourth in Sweden.

She did not compete in the 2019 ERC and concentrated on rallying the BMW. Her 2020 plans were sent into disarray, thanks to the worldwide disruption of motorsport in 2020 by the coronavirus epidemic, but she did manage the Grimstad Rally in Norway in her BMW. She and co-driver Anniken Storsveen were 22nd overall.

In 2021 she did two rallies in the BMW, including a sixth place in the Kongsvinger Rallysprint, and one in a Volvo 940, the Rally Finnskog. Her first rally of 2022 was also in the Volvo. Apart from the Rally Larvik, she used the Volvo all year, earning a best finish of 16th in the Rally Trogstad. Her co-driver was Anniken Storsveen.

The same car, co-driver and driver combination came ninth in the 2023 Trogstad Rally.

Kumi Sato

Kumi Sato is a well-travelled Japanese driver and motoring journalist. In 1997 she became the first female driver to race in Japanese Super GTs. 

Between 1997 and 2001, she raced GTs in the B class of the Japanese championship. The first car she used was a Toyota Cavalier. The Cavalier was a rebadged Toyota-engined Vauxhall that she raced in 1997 in the GT300 class. The car was shared with Minoru Tanaka and was not able to compete with the fastest in the class but it managed a best finish of fourth at Mine. Kumi raced the Cavalier again in 1998, sharing it with a rota of drivers including Junko Mihara. It was not overly reliable and did not better its fourth place. Kumi is still Super GT’s highest-finishing woman driver.

Her cars included a Tom's Spirit Toyota MR-S, which she used in 2000 and 2001, and a Celica. 

Her best finish in 2001 was 19th, at Suzuka. The MR-S was not particularly reliable and only finished four of its seven races that year.

Although her first Super GT races were in 1997, she had been competing for some time in Japan, having started her career shortly after graduating in pharmacy. She raced in the Super Taikyu series in 1990 and then moved into the Japanese Touring Car Championship for the next three seasons. Her car was a Honda Civic and she managed a couple of podium positions in 1991 and 1993. 

In 1994, she spent some time in the UK, racing another Honda Civic in the Snetterton 24 Hour race for Mardi Gras Motorsport. She also competed in the Spa 24 Hours in a similar car run by Team Honda Challenge. She and her team-mates were thirteenth overall. A second attempt at the Spa 24 in 1995, in a Toyota Corolla this time, led to a 19th place. She was part of an all-female team with Junko Mihara and Michiko Okuyama. The same year, she entered her second Suzuka 1000km in a Porsche 964, but this was not a race that she ever managed to finish.

Her Super GT adventures ended in 2001 but this was only the beginning of a long co-operation between Kumi and the Toyota Gazoo Racing team. She was regular fixture in the Nürburgring 24 Hours until very recently, usually driving a car built by the Toyota group. Her first outing was in 2003, when she was 61st in a Toyota Altezza with two other Japanese drivers.

Her 2004 24 Hours was something of an exception, as she drove a Mazda RX7 for the D-Dream team. They were third in class, 20th overall.

2005 was another exception. She drove a Subaru Impreza in Germany, coming 14th overall and second in class at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Her co-drivers were Stephane Sarrazin, Kazuo Shimizu and Toshihiro Yoshida. 

She returned to the 24 Hours in 2008 and 2011, driving a hybrid-technology Lexus for Toyota Gazoo Racing. 

In 2012 and 2013, she drove for the team in some rounds of the VLN, in preparation for the Nürburgring 24 Hours. 

In 2014, she raced in the 24 Hours again, in a Toyota GT86. She was 54th, with an all-Japanese team. This followed a taste of rallying in TRD Rally Challenge in Japan in a GT86.

She has continued to race newer Toyota cars at the Nürburgring, including a run in the 2016 race in a C-HR SUV.

Josie von Neumann

Josie von Neumann raced sportscars in America in the 1950s. She was one of the most talented of the many female drivers on the US sportscar scene of the time.

Her earliest outings were ladies’ races in an MG TD. She won her first race, a five-lap ladies’ handicap at Torrey Pines in 1951, laying down a gauntlet for the entrants in a burgeoning women’s racing scene centred around the Women’s Sports Car Club in California.

Early in her career, she raced an Allard J2 special with a Cadillac engine. In 1952, Josie continued to be the woman to beat in it. The car belonged to Bud and Gwen Goodwin and it was considered a very challenging car to drive. Josie won a ladies’ race at Madera in it. Throughout her career, she often had access to very good cars, due to her family connections. John von Neumann was her stepfather who had become her adoptive father and he had a considerable stable of cars. The red and white TD had been a birthday present from him. Later on, her mother Eleanor was the family’s titular entrant after doing well out of her divorce from John. The von Neumanns helped many notable drivers at the start of their careers, including Richie Ginther and Phil Hill. John also ran a Porsche 550 for future Le Mans winner Ken Miles in 1956. The Women’s Sports Car Club itself was closely associated with the California Sports Car Club (CSCC), of which Ken Miles was a leading member. He was the editor of the club magazine and Josie had her own column.

Always a fan of European cars like the rest of the CSCC, she had continued success in ladies’ races in a Porsche 356 in 1953 and 1954. A Ferrari 500 Mondial followed and it was in this car that she branched out from ladies’ races and started making an impression in the main draw. She entered SCCA events at Bakersfield, Torrey Pines and Glendale. She did best at her favoured track of Torrey Pines, finishing tenth overall and first in class. Carroll Shelby was the winner and Phil Hill was second, driving with John von Neumann. Both were in Ferraris.

She shared the same car with Richie Ginther at the Santa Maria airport track in 1956. This was a difficult and dangerous course that was only used for a couple of seasons. They were fifth overall in the Ferrari. Contemporary newspaper reports suggest that Josie had been planning to use a Porsche 550, but that car was driven by Ken Miles that year, entered by John von Neumann. At about this time, Josie took a break from the track, married John McLaughlin and had a son.

In 1958 and 1959 she returned and drove a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa. This was a sought-after car at the time. Josie’s detractors liked to claim that she was not the fastest of the Californian ladies, merely that she had better cars than everyone else, but she was a steady pair of hands who was capable of handling very fast machinery. Her rivals sometimes appeared to be out of their depth in cars of the calibre of the Testa Rossa.

She was fifth in the SCCA Nationals at Vaca Valley in 1958, behind her father, who was her team-mate and the race winner. She was also second in a Modified race at Del Mar, a round of the Pacific Coast Championship. This year, she was almost unbeatable in ladies’ races, racking up at least eleven victories on her way to a Pacific Coast women’s title.

In 1959 she concentrated more on open events, entering only a few women-only races. She was fourth in the Avandaro GP and eleventh in the LA Times GP in the Testa Rossa. She was also fourteenth and 16th in the Riverside and Vaca Valley USAC races. This was significant as she would become the first woman to receive a full USAC racing license that year, allowing her to compete as a professional. Her appearance in the Riverside 200 Miles was her first “big” USAC race and she was eleventh, despite admitting to being nervous and only expecting to finish. Josie’s interviews at the time reveal a personality at odds with her list of results; she claimed that women were naturally less good drivers than men and that they were often more nervous. Todd McCarthy, in his book about the US sportscar scene “Fast Women”, speculates that it was the longer races she found hard.

1959 was also the year that she first competed internationally. The East Coast racing fraternity usually decamped to the Bahamas in December for Nassau Speed Week, but West Coast stalwart Josie joined them this year with the Ferrari. Competing against the likes of Stirling Moss, Richie Ginther and Dan Gurney, she was 16th in the Governor’s Trophy for cars over 2000cc. Her best result was a fifth place in the Ferrari race, which was won by Phil Hill in a later TR.

Much earlier in the year, she raced in Mexico for the first time. Josie was third in the Lago de Guadalupe, sandwiched between famous brothers Ricardo and Pedro Rodriguez who were second and fourth respectively.

After 1959, she disappeared from the scene, despite being in possession of a full USAC license and considerable experience. She moved away from her previous home with her son and lived among a huge menagerie of animals, including as many as twenty cats. She died in 1997, aged 64.





Younger women were coming through and becoming more competitive, but the American sportscar racing scene was becoming increasingly professionalised and the both the Women’s Sports Car Club and the CSCC were in decline.