Susann Bergvall (Hansen)

Susann Bergvall is a Swedish rallycross driver who is still the only woman to win an FIA-sanctioned rallycross title.

She is mainly known for her successes in the 1400cc class of the European Championship in the 1990s, after several years of running on a very low budget. She had begun her career in folkrace at the age of 18, driving a Volvo, before switching to rallycross in a Volvo 240. 

A couple of years in Swedish championships followed, including a run in a women-only category in 1988. She was not even able to afford wet tyres for some events and mostly competed for fun. This changed when she joined forces with Kenneth Hansen in 1990. They ran their team together, with both of them competing, and gained significant support. In 1993, they were approached by Citroen to run their works cars and Susann found herself with a really competitive car for the first time.

Her title win came in 1994, driving a Citroen AX Sport. She won three rounds outright at Lousada (Portugal), Lyngas in Norway and Estering in Germany. Her nearest rival, Manfred Beck, only finished fifth at Estering, which secured her the championship.

In 1995, she was fifth in the European 1400 Cup, driving two different AX models for the Hansen team. This was her last season of racing. 

After that, she left active competition, but stayed involved in rallycross through management within the Hansen team. She introduced them to working with data logging, a role she still carries out, but which was quite a new concept in 1995.

She and Hansen married and rallycross drivers Timmy and Kevin Hansen are their sons. Timmy was nearly two when Susann won her European title.

(Image copyright Hansen World RX Team)

Aliyyah Koloc

 

Aliyyah Koloc is a Czech driver of Emirati and Seychellois descent who races trucks and GTs in Europe, as well as competing in cross-country rallies for the Buggyra team. 

Born in Dubai, she grew up around motorsport; her father Martin Koloc races a number of different cars and is now the principal of Buggyra. Both she and her twin sister Yasmeen began competing as seniors as soon as they were old enough.

It began with a few races in a Renault Clio in the 2019 Eset series. She was only 15 years old and had only just recovered from an injury that put a halt to a promising tennis career. Her first appearance was at Gronik in Croatia, where she won her class in both sprint and endurance races.

She was still only 16 years old when she first got in a truck, entering the French and European championships for the Buggyra team. The French championship was the most successful for her, with a third and a second place at Nogaro. The second place was updated to a win, as on-track winner Adam Lacko was not registered for the championship. Her best result in the European series was eighth, at Most. 

She also set a series of speed records over the 500m distance in July 2020, driving a streamlined Buggyra-Freightliner truck. 

In 2021, she did races in both the French and European truck championships, concentrating on the French. She earned four podium positions: two seconds and two thirds. Her final position on the leaderboard was fifth. The best result of her European part-season was a ninth place at Jarama. This year, she expanded her circuit experience further with some races in the Club Challenge section of the Whelen Euro NASCAR series. Her car was a Ford Mustang, run by the CAAL Racing team. Her sister Yasmeen was her team-mate in a Chevrolet Camaro.

She spent 2022 preparing for her first attempt at the Dakar in a Buggyra prototype, as well as racing GTs in Europe. She competed in some more Eset races in 2021, driving a Mercedes AMG GT3 and GT4 car in different classes. With Yasmeen and Adam Lacko, she entered the 12 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in a similar car, but did not finish. Yasmeen crashed during the first part of the race and injured her wrist.

Aliyyah teamed up with Buggyra designer and racer David Vrsecky for the FFSA GT championship, in another Mercedes GT4 car. He replaced the injured Yasmeen, who had shared the car at Nogaro. She was eleventh in the Silver drivers’ championship. In August, Aliyyah and David raced at the Silverstone Classic for the first time, in the pilot event for the Masters GT4 series. Aliyyah was fourth and third. 

Her Dakar training was based around the Middle East Cup for Cross Country Bajas, driving a Can-Am light prototype run by Buggyra. She won one event outright and scored podiums in two others and won a the championship.

Her Dakar run itself was compromised by problems on the second stage, dropping her and co-driver Stephane Duple to the bottom of the leaderboard. She did steadily improve over the course of the rally and had a best stage result of 36th, on the twelfth competitive section. She was 104th overall.

Less than a week after finishing the Dakar, she was back on the circuits, driving the Mercedes with David Vrsecky. They entered the non-championship 6 Hours of Abu Dhabi and won their class.

Her first 24H Series race of 2023 was the Mugello 12H, in which the team, including Adam Lacko, finished second in the GT4 class, 26th overall. She and her two co-drivers were second in the GT4 class of the championship, with one win at Spa.

She has also tested a bigger T1 Dakar prototype, in preparation for the 2024 Dakar, where she entered in a Red-Lined Revo T1+ with Sebastien Delaunay. Her build-up included testing in Abu Dhabi and some off-road bajas in South Africa. She finished 17th in class in the Dakar itself.

The 2024 summer season was spent in the 24H Series, in a Buggyra-run Mercedes GT4. Her team-mates were David Vrsecky and Adam Lacko again. They won the GT4 class in the first four races of the year, at Mugello, Spa, Algarve and Misano. Despite not doing a full season, they won their class championship, with a best overall finish of seventh at Misano.

She will tackle the 2025 Dakar in a Buggyra vehicle.

Aliyyah is open about having Asperger’s syndrome* and considers it an asset when on-track, as she is able to assess risk efficiently and concentrate.

Image copyright AS Sports Communication

*This is how Aliyyah describes herself, although others do not like this terminology.

Kattlyn Magno

 

Kattlyn Magno, known as Kaká, is a Brazilian driver who has raced in multiple disciplines, in Brazil and Europe.

She began her senior career in 2012 in Formula Premium Light, a single-seater series. She also tried out the Veloce sports prototype championship. It was quite a late start in cars for her; she was 24 and had been karting since she was 16. 

In 2013, she mostly seems to have competed in kart races, but she did do some dirt-track racing in aid of a breast cancer charity. At the end of 2013, she was chosen as Brazil’s candidate for the FIA Women in Motorsport VW Scirocco-R Shootout, competing for a Scirocco prize-drive in 2014. This was her first racing trip to Europe. A key supporter in this adventure was Emerson Fittipaldi, who met Kaká through Bia Figueiredo.

She did not win the championship spot, although she performed well in the event. A move to race in a Lotus-based championship, possibly the Ladies’ Cup, also did not come off.

Back in Brazil, she made some appearances in the 2014 Mercedes Benz Challenge C250 Cup. She was second at San Pablo, a highlight of her career that showed what she was capable of. 

She raced in the Mercedes one-make series again in 2015, but was not among the front-runners. 

In 2016, she changed direction again, and entered Formula Inter, a junior single-seater series in Brazil. She scored at least one second place. 

She moved on to SudAm Formula 4 in 2017, having sold raffle tickets to be able to afford the fees and pay her mechanic. 

After a single season in F4, she then raced Superkarts in 2018. 

In 2021, she did some rounds of the Italian prototype championship, sharing a Wolf sportscar. This was a second attempt at a move to Italy; she had planned to race in the Griiip G1 single-seater championship in 2020 before the global coronavirus crisis intervened. Instead, she made do with a Griiip sim racing series.

Sadly, her Prototype challenge ended after the Monza races, which she did not even start.

In a switch of disciplines, she competed in the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games in the Slalom category. She and Bruno Pierozan were 17th overall. She contested the Stock Car series in Brazil in 2023, competing in its second-tier championship. From her earliest media interviews, she has always claimed this was her goal. She did another season of the second-level Stock series in 2014, finishing twelfth in the championship, with a best finish of seventh at Goiania.

Image copyright Acervo Pessoal

Ruth Urquhart Dykes

 

Ruth at the 1927 Alvis meeting, on the right and in the car below

Ruth Urquhart-Dykes was a very able racer and speed record setter in the late 1920s, usually at the wheel of an Alvis. She tends to slip under the radar, partly due to her short career and partly because she appeared to be very sporting and uncontroversial.

She was born Pauline Ruth Hegarty in 1894, in the Irish town of Oughterard. She married William (Bill) Urquhart-Dykes in 1921 in Dublin. They later settled in Surrey, England.

She competed between 1924 and 1929, almost always driving an Alvis and often with her husband, Bill. Their cars were variations on a 12/50 model which they kept at home. The second, bought at the start of 1927, was named “William” after its serial number, WM 47, and may have started life as a works car. 

The first big event she appears in is the 1925 Auto Cycle Union London-Gloucester Trial, held just before Christmas. She was recorded as a finisher, alongside another woman, Miss A Dupre. The following June, she was third in her class at the Brooklands high-speed trial. 

After two years of occasional trials competition, she started entering races at Brooklands. At this time, the main organising club at the circuit was not keen on women drivers and only allowed them to run in ladies-only races. Other clubs, however, had allowed mixed competition almost from the start.  In June 1927, she took part in an all-Alvis meeting, winning a scratch race for Alvises “capable of 75mph” and finishing second in a ladies’ scratch race, behind Mrs Maddison Brown. She continued to trial the Alvis too.

Her first international race was the 1928 Coupe Georges Boillot in France, part of Boulogne Motor Week. She was ninth in the Coupe, driving the 12/50. The winner was Ivanowsky in his Alfa Romeo. Her fellow Brit and the only other woman in the competition, Margaret Maconochie, did not finish.

Back at home, she entered the Surbiton Motor Club’s August open race meeting at Brooklands. The Surbiton MC was one of the clubs which encouraged female entries and there was a ladies’ race as part of the weekend’s card, in which Ruth was second, behind Jill Scott. Ruth, Jill and Henrietta Lister then contested the 50 Mile handicap race against the men, with Ruth taking the lead at almost half distance and holding on to win by about a mile. WB Scott was second.

Ruth and Jill renewed their rivalry the following year in May, meeting in the prestigious Double Twelve race and in a two-lap ladies’ handicap at the Gold Vase meeting.

In 1929, she and Bill made their names by setting a new Twelve Hour speed record at Brooklands, driving William. The weather during the run became increasingly wet and treacherous, not letting up into the darkness. Ruth had been worried that she had fallen below the average speed she needed to maintain, but when she handed over to Bill, she had been exceeding the average comfortably, lapping at 87 or 88mph. The existing record was just over 80mph and the Urquhart-Dykes exceeded it with 81.3mph, despite William being considerably less powerful than the previous record holder. That year, Winifred Pink, another racer, wrote a rather waspish piece in The Woman Engineer in which she expressed doubt that women were really capable of handling bigger cars, with the exception of Jill Scott, Ivy Cummings and Ruth.

They were less fortunate in that year’s Double Twelve race and did not finish. Bill and Ruth completed the first twelve hours with few problems and were managing the rain on the second day when a rear spring was found to be broken during a pit stop. Ruth would have carried on, but the mechanics put a stop to that.

Both Bill and Ruth stopped competing shortly afterwards. Bill had decided to concentrate his energies on his growing patent agency, while Ruth also retired as she felt it was unfair to carry on without him. It cannot have helped that they were witnesses to a rather nasty road accident that September, in which a sidecar passenger was killed. Ruth did make one appearance in a Lagonda later that year, but it was in a concours d’elegance.

Ruth was a cheerful and generally non-combative character, but she wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself or other women on occasion. As a member of the Auto Cycle Union, she argued for full female inclusion in the club’s major trials in 1929. She was also not above showing a more frivolous side, talking to the Daily Mirror about her distinctive “egg blue” overalls and helmet, although she stressed that her racing attire was functional. “My overall is only designed for safety, but of course, I try to make it as attractive as possible.”

William was sold in 1934 after “surviving” a road collision, replaced by a Railton Fairmile.

When the war broke out, both Urquhart-Dykes joined up, with Ruth serving as a driver in the FANY.

She died in 1981.

For a more thorough discussion of William by a friend of the Urquhart-Dykes family, Peter Lord’s article can be found here. It was very helpful in writing this biography.

Image copyright Daily Mirror

Viviane Evina

 

Viviane Evina is a  Cameroonian driver who is one of the few women to have scored points in a World Championship rally. She is the only one from Africa to record a points finish.

Her points came from when she finished eighth in the Bandama Ivory Coast Rally in 1990. She was driving a Toyota Corolla FX 16V and won class N2. This single WRC finish led to 47th in the championship, level with Safari specialist Ian Duncan, Sebastian Lindholm and David Llewellin.

The following year, she entered the Bandama again, in the same car, but retired after an accident, having run as high as sixth. Her third attempt at the event in 1992 also ended in retirement, very early in the event. The rally was removed from the WRC calendar for the 1993 season and has not returned.

In the year of her Bandama top ten, she scored another impressive finish in the Rallye de Gagnoa, also held in Cote d’Ivoire. With Jean-Charles Suzeau on the maps, she was fifth in the Corolla. 

Sadly, very little information about Viviane or the rest of her career seems to exist.

Anne-Sophie Lemonnier (de Ganay)

 Anne-Sophie and her father at the 2011 Andros Trophy

Anne-Sophie le Ganay, who was previously known as Anne-Sophie Lemonnier, competes in ice racing in France. She was previously active in rallycross as well.

It was actually in rallycross that she got her start. Her first championship was a ladies’ Citroen Saxo series in 2003, the Citroen Challenge Feminin. She and her sister Marie-Laure competed together. The Lemonnier family is involved in both rallycross and stage rallying: Anne-Sophie and Marie-Laure’s father is Herve Knapick, a multiple rallycross champion, and their cousin Xavier Lemonnier is also active in rallying. 

The Challenge Feminin retired the Saxos in 2004 and began using the C2 instead. Anne-Sophie competed in one between 2004 and 2006. During her first season in a C2, she remained behind sister Marie-Laure, finishing fifth to her third. In 2005 and 2006, she leapfrogged her for championship third. 

The Citroen one-make series was cancelled at the end of 2006, so in 2007, she moved up to Division 4 of the French championship. Her car was not as competitive as those of the S1600 drivers in the series. After part-seasons without much of an impact, in 2010, she raced a Citroen Saxo kit car in Division 1A. 

In 2011, she was 18th in the Super 1600 championship, driving the same car. She did not compete in the championship in 2012. 

On the ice-racing side, she won the Andros Trophée Féminin “Ice Girls” championship in early 2008, driving a sprint car. In 2010, she was the Andros Ladies’ champion, as the highest-placed woman in the main draw. 

She competed mostly in the Elite class, beginning in 2009. She was a strong finisher in the 2012 Trophy, driving a BMW.

In 2014, she was 18th in the Promotion class, driving a BMW 1-Series. The car was shared with her father, Hervé Knapick, and run by their family team. 

Anne-Sophie reappeared in 2015 as team-mate to her father for the Alpe d'Huez round, driving a Renault Clio. By this time, she was racing as Anne-Sophie de Ganay. After a gap, Anne-Sophie and her father campaigned an Audi A1 in the 2022-23 Andros Trophy, competing at the Isola 2000 event.

(Image copyright Icon Sport/Getty Images)

Daisy Hampson

 

Daisy in her 120hp Fiat, 1906

Daisy Hampson was known for driving extremely powerful cars in Edwardian beachfront speed trials.

She was a rather enigmatic driver, active in a variety of cars from about 1904. She was from Southport near Liverpool, very wealthy, and could drive from at least 1903. Her first car appears to have been a Lanchester, which she did not race. When she presented trophies at the 1903 Southport Speed Trials, she was described as an “experienced motorist”.

In 1904, she entered the Bexhill Speed Trial, possibly her first big seaside meeting. She drove a 60hp Mercedes in the Touring class and was defeated in her heat by Sidney Girling. It was claimed afterwards in The Motor that she had borrowed the car and was not as familiar with it as she might have liked. It is unclear whether she was driving the same car for the event’s opening “Parade of Motor Vehicles”, although the Bexhill Observer described her car as a “powerful-looking Mercedes.”

The Dublin Daily Express was similarly impressed by the Mercedes when she entered it into the Portmarnock Motor Races shortly afterwards, calling it “the largest car ever driven in a race by a lady.” The results of the Portmarnock races themselves are not forthcoming.

At the end of 1904, she is documented as breaking a women’s endurance record, with a 317-mile journey made in one day in a 60hp Mercedes, although perhaps not the same one she used at Bexhill. She was driving through Wales as part of a 1035-mile tour.

After familiarising herself with racing on asphalt and sampling an actual beach race in Ireland, she set her sights on mastering promenades. Her next British event was the 1905 Blackpool speed trials, in the Mercedes. She is described as an entrant in “Class 4”, but she does not appear to have been among the leaders.

From 1906, she owned an even more powerful car, a 120hp Fiat. A report on the Manchester Motor Show from February 1906 claims that the Fiat was the Gordon Bennett runner-up driven by Felice Nazzaro, which was exhibited by coachwork builders Cockshoot. Further articles suggest that Daisy won some prizes in this car, perhaps in speed trials, but no results are forthcoming. A 1915 article about female motorists in The Gentlewoman mentions an Itala “of large horsepower”, although this may have been a road car, like the Rolls Royce that Daisy enthuses about in the same article. Talking about the Fiat in a 1906 edition of The Car, she does say it is “too speedy” for British roads, which suggests its intended use was touring. In the same interview, she expresses sadness that the Blackpool and Brighton events have been stopped, and states that “I mean to enter any races, however, which may suit my cars and try my luck.”

She is mentioned again in The Gentlewoman in 1917, with the Rolls referenced once more.

Her motoring career also hit a low point during 1906, on the open road rather than the circuit. She was sued for damages by a motorcyclist who was involved in a crash with her car in Southam, Warwickshire. The accident itself happened in October 1905, when a Mr GH Field was knocked off his motorbike, over a bridge and into a field by Daisy’s car, causing serious injuries. She was sanctioned as the owner of the car, but it may well have been her chauffeur driving.

Like Dorothy Levitt who was active at the same time, Daisy’s origins are mysterious and her disappearance from public life abrupt. One clue as to who she was comes from a 1996 edition of the Liverpool Echo, in which a 1963 interview with a “veteran motorist” called John Dickinson was quoted. Dickinson describes the first lady motorist he ever saw, in Ormskirk in 1904. “Her name was Daisy Hampson, and she too hailed from Southport, as did her car, a Vulcan”.

The Vulcan car company was run by brothers Thomas and Joseph Hampson between 1902 and 1916. Research by Nina Baker shows that there was a large Catholic family in the Southport area called Hampson, although she was unable to place Daisy within it. Her given name was probably not Daisy; no records for a “Daisy Hampson” exist.

After around 1917, she stops appearing in the press, save an article in the Sunday Dispatch from 1935, in which Sir Harry Preston describes being driven around Brighton in a “mighty Mercedes” by Daisy in 1905, in preparation for that year’s Speed Trials. Their trip occurred early in the morning, before daytime traffic built up. “She had to go out in her monster at dawn,” he recounts. “I could not appear timid before a good-looking young woman, so I said I would be charmed.”

Daisy had made some modifications to her car, removing the windscreen for greater streamlining. This proved prescient, as a flying detached mudguard whizzed harmlessly over their heads instead of shattering the glass. That said, Sir Harry asks to finish their ride at this point. Sadly, he offers no further information on what she was doing at the point the article was written.

It is possible that Daisy married and started using a different name, but public records provide no supporting information for this.

You can read more of Nina Baker’s research here.

(Image from The Car, 1906, via prewarcar.com)