Janis Taylor

Janis and Del Russo Taylor in 1983

Janis Taylor raced sportscars in the 1980s, in the USA.

She was from Denver, but settled in Florida. Her father had been an automotive enthusiast and she had grown up around fast cars, dabbling in the drag racing scene in her youth. In a 1983 interview with the Poughkeepsie Journal, she described buying her own first car at "15 or 16". It was a Triumph Spitfire and she worked on it herself.

Her first year of major competition was 1980, when she drove an Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV in the Sebring 12 Hours. She and her two team-mates, including her husband, Del Russo Taylor, did not finish. Del Russo married Janis in 1974 and was an experienced racer.

Her second attempt, in 1981, was as part of an all-female team in the Alfetta, with local drivers Carol Cone and Pat Godard. The team only had one male member, a chief mechanic who was allergic to oil. Two of the crew were air stewardesses. They had serious problems in the qualifying race, but managed to get onto the grid for the 12 Hours. Sadly, the car expired on the first lap, with Janis at the wheel.

For the next two seasons, she mostly drove a Buick-engined Chevron GTP prototype in IMSA events, often sharing with Del Russo. She was named as the car owner in 1981. Their best result together was a 29th place in the Mid-Ohio 500km, from a 15th-place start.

Her activities included the Sebring 12 Hours, which she entered twice more in 1982 and 1983, once in the Chevron and once in a Ford Pinto, driving for different team owners and finishing once in 1982, in the Pinto.

As well as some outings with Del Russo, she drove different cars in the IMSA-supporting Kelly American Challenge, including a Chevrolet Camaro in 1983.

In 1984, she switched to a Pontiac Firebird owned by Walter Johnston as her main car. Her best result was 21st, in the 1984 Riverside 6 Hours. A 1985 Daytona entry in the Firebird went ahead without her in the driving line-up, which consisted of Del Russo, Bob Lee and John Hayes-Harlow. After this, she disappears from the entry lists.

(Image copyright Poughkeepsie Journal)

Diane Teel

Diane Teel  raced in the NASCAR Nationwide (now Xfinity) Series in 1982 and 1983 and was one of its most successful female drivers. 

In 1982, she scored her first top ten finish, an eighth place at Hampton in a Pontiac. This was one of four races she entered that year, with three of them leading to finishes. She was 26th at Martinsville and 15th at Richmond, but did not finish at South Boston, her last Nationwide race of the year.

She followed this up with a tenth place at Martinsville in 1983. Martinsville was her home track, and it was here that she made her Busch Series debut in 1984, the first woman to race in the series. Unfortunately, it was a one-off, and her Pontiac overheated fairly early. 

She had one more try at the Busch Series, as NASCAR’s second-tier championship had become known, in 1986. She finished one race at Hampton, in 21st place. 

She had begun racing in 1976, when her NASCAR crew chief husband Donald Teel and Langley Park promoter Joe Carver entered her into a local race as a publicity stunt to promote a local car parts business. She spun off near the end of the race, her car dumping water on the track. 

In 1977, she moved into the Limited Sportsman division and was on the pace very quickly. Her best finish was second, one of three podium finishes. Her first-ever race in her Chevrolet Chevelle stock car gave her an eighth place; she had run as high as fifth but spun on sand and water at the edge of the track going for fourth. At the end of the season, she was runner-up in the Langley Limited Sportsman rookie standings, with 16 top-ten finishes from 19 races, half of them top-fives.

As a competitive female driver, Diane gained considerable media attention. In July that year, she won a match race with Langley’s other regular woman driver, Bonnie West, who raced in a different division. Diane finished several laps in front and picked up a $100 prize. A series of profile interviews syndicated in local papers took pains to point out her commitment to her role as a wife and mother and disassociate her from any feminist activity.

She won the championship the following year and became the first woman to win an official NASCAR-sanctioned event in the process. Her first win was at Langley Park, the scene of her less-than-successful debut. As well as winning her local title, she took the next step up the NASCAR ladder to the Grand National series. Naturally, she found higher-level competition hard-going and was not always able to qualify. She was one of ten drivers who did not make the cut for the 1978 Dixie 500 and she did not start for the Martinsville Grand National race in 1979 either, finishing one place below the required eighth place in the qualification race. 

She continued to be a force to be reckoned with at Langley Speedway, winning races in its Limited Sportsman category in 1980 and 1981. In 1981, she tried again at Martinsville in a Late Model Sportsman car. Daily Press journalist Bob Mings was scathing about her efforts, pointing out that she was running 18th out of 19 cars when she had to stop near the end. Several of the paper’s readers wrote in to criticise his treatment of Diane, whose car had suffered a clutch problem requiring a lengthy pit stop and dropped her down the order.

By the time of her 1982 Nationwide debut, she had mostly silenced her doubters. Her name appears on entry lists, not in opinion columns. She and Donnie spoke directly to their local paper, the Virginia Daily Press, in 1983, explaining how the rising costs of competing at the next level, coupled by Nationwide races promised at local circuits which never happened, had affected her career. Later, in 1986, the Newport News reported that she had raised some funds for her racing through hosting a series of seafood suppers, which she cooked herself.

Following her retirement in 1986, she continued her work as a school bus driver, a career she had followed alongside her racing activities. A couple of months before her on-track debut, she had won her class in a School Bus Rodeo.

(Image copyright South Boston Speedway)

Kat Teasdale

Kat with the Bakeracing Corvette

Kathryn Teasdale, known as Kat, was a Canadian driver, born in 1964.

She started out in Formula 2000 in 1988, after having to give up competitive skiing due to a knee  injury. Twenty-four was quite late to begin a racing career, but she quickly made up for lost time. Between her ski injury in 1984 and her Formula Ford debut in 1988, she competed in slalom and autosolo events, sometimes in a Corvette.

Her original aim was to move into the “A” Class of F2000, but instead, she got herself a seat in the televised Player’s GM Motorsport Series, driving a Chevrolet Camaro. She raced in the championship’s East division in 1988 and 1989. She was able to use the Camaro in the IROC-2 series and Trans-Am. Her skill with the Camaro led to her being picked up by the Bakeracing team, for their Corvette programme.

She raced the car in 1991, and one of her best results was in the Escort World Challenge 24 Hour race at Mosport Park. As part of a five-driver team including Boris Said, she was second. Other highlights included a fourth place at Saltillo in Mexico. She was sixth in the Escort World Challenge.

1992 saw her combine sportscar racing with a return to single-seaters. Brian Stewart, an old friend of Kat’s, offered her a test at Vancouver in his Toyota Atlantic car, followed by one race. This never led to a full-time race seat, but she did compete in two Indy Lights races in 1992, driving for the Leading Edge team. At Toronto, her race was halted on the first lap by an electrical problem. She got to the end at Vancouver, in fourteenth place, six laps down. At the time, she knew she was unable to go for wins, but she gave it a shot anyway.

Ever-keen to try new forms of racing and put herself out there, Kat entered the CASCAR stock car series in Canada in 1993. Her car was a Chevrolet. She won the Rookie of the Year prize.

She has raced in Toyota Atlantics, the NASCAR Busch Series, Grand-Am and other championships, in the US and Canada.

1994 was probably her best year for sportscars. She was part of the O’Brien team for the IMSA GT championship, driving a Camaro. Her first race was the Daytona 24 Hours; this was her first attempt at a major US classic. Leigh O’Brien had assembled an all-female team of herself, Kat, Tami Rai Busby, Linda Pobst and Margy Eatwell. They finished the race in 47th. Kat was also a member of Leigh Miller’s team, driving a Porsche 968 with Miller and John Graham. They were seventeenth.

Kat, Leigh O’Brien and Linda Pobst made up the O’Brien team for the Sebring 12 Hours. They were 42nd in their Camaro. Driving solo, Kat was twelfth at Road Atlanta, in the O’Brien Camaro.

Her performance in 1994 led to an offer from the Pontiac factory team for 1995. Kat drove a Firebird with Doug Goad, and they were third and fourth in the IMSA Endurance championship, behind their team-mates, Andy Pilgrim and Joe Varde. This helped Pontiac to the manufacturer’s title. Kat and Andy Pilgrim teamed up for the 1996 season. Results for the IMSA Endurance series are proving hard to find, and they may not have raced together all year, as Andy Pilgrim was on duty in the IMSA GT championship as well.

1997 saw a new challenge for Kat: another try at stock cars. This time, she was driving for her own team, Katco Racing. The car was a Chevrolet. She entered two NASCAR K&N Busch Series East races, and began well, qualifying sixth at Watkins Glen. Unfortunately, she did not finish due to problems with the car’s transmission. She did manage to finish the race at Lime Rock, and was awarded 29th place, although she was several laps down.

During her last season in 1998, she drove a limited programme in the NASCAR Busch Series. She was the first woman to do so, although others had raced in other NASCAR sanctioned events. She did not qualify for the Watkins Glen race, but she just made it on to the Milwaukee grid, in 40th place. She finished in 31st place. This particular Busch Series race was no schedule-filler; Dale Earnhardt Jr won, and Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth were among the other finishers.

Kat intended to pursue NASCAR further after her first Busch event, but it was not to be. She retired from motorsport after the 1998 season, due to ill-health. For some years, she carried on working in investment and event planning, as she had done to help fund her racing. She bred Wirehaired Pointing Griffon dogs and was involved in charity fundraising.

She died in June 2016, aged 51, after a “long struggle with physical and mental health issues”, caused by Lyme Disease.

(Image copyright Sports Illustrated)