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.