Indianapolis Courier-Journal
A Racing Paddock That Looks Like America
By Emily Ales
After twenty years in racing journalism, I still get asked one question more than any other: Why aren’t there more women and minorities in racing?
Racing is a sport in which body composition has very little to do with success.
Drivers must be fit enough to withstand double-digit g-forces and long hours in hot, uncomfortable conditions.
They need quick reflexes and excellent spatial awareness.
And of course, they must have a love of speed.
None of these things are related to gender or race.
A recent study even determined women have the physical and psychological ability to be as competitive as men on the racetrack (a conclusion shocking only to dinosaurs and incels).
So why aren’t there more women and drivers of color on track?
The answer is both as simple and complex as history and money.
While women have been driving since the horseless carriage was invented, they were excluded from most sanctioned racing events until the mid twentieth century.
The first woman to compete in the Indy 500 was Janet Guthrie in 1977.
A Black man did not race at Indianapolis until 1991 (Willy T.
Ribbs), and it was 2017 before an AAPI driver won at the Brickyard (Takuma Sato).
In the history of Formula 1, only four women have started races, and no woman has started in F1 since 1992.
Sir Lewis Hamilton was the first, and remains the only, Black man in Formula 1, making his debut in 2007.
NASCAR has an equally abysmal history. These barrier-breaking racers received (and modern “only” drivers still receive) death threats and some competed with equipment so subpar that it was dangerous.
Today, there are no women with full-time seats in any of the highest levels of Western racing (IndyCar, NASCAR, and Formula 1). Women make up less than 10% of global racing participants. Black and brown drivers, even less.
The most significant factor in the ability to race is sponsorship money.
Racing is expensive (a single IndyCar has a price tag of $1 million, and that’s only for the vehicle itself), and with teams in constant competition for sponsorship, drivers who bring money to the table are given greater consideration than those who do not.
The biggest sponsorships go to the most successful drivers—or those with famous last names—but even smaller sponsorships can be hard to come by for young and unknown drivers.
In any sport, talent cannot overcome a lack of practice. Without consistent time to acclimate to the car and learn the minute ins and outs of particular tracks, a driver struggles to be competitive in a racing series or even a single event. And lap time costs big, big money.
It’s the snake eating its own tail: Companies don’t want to give sponsorship dollars to unproven drivers, but those traditionally kept out of racing—women and minorities—aren’t able to prove themselves on track without financial support.
And yet, women make up 40% of racing fans. Sir Lewis Hamilton, the only Black driver in Formula 1, has almost forty million followers on social media and was recently voted the “Most Marketable Driver in Motorsports” for the twelfth time.
Research shows that sports fans tend to be loyal to sponsored brands of their favorite athletes, and women even more so. I’m no economics expert, but if women are almost half of all racing fans and are often loyal to a favorite driver’s brand . . .
And yet. Here we are.
There are groups working to close this gap, like women’s beauty brands e.l.f.
Cosmetics, Fenty, and Charlotte Tilbury, who sponsor female drivers in various disciplines.
Organizations like Shift Up and More Than Equal are working to bring sponsorship and support to women drivers, and the Hamilton Commission and Force Indy support drivers of color.
But none of these organizations alone, or even together, is enough to overcome the drastic gap in funding between the white men who have always been in racing and the women and minorities who are as good, if not better, behind the wheel (for example, see Lewis Hamilton’s multiple F1 records).
It must start at the top, with racing series requiring more diverse representation from teams, and from the major teams putting their sponsorship efforts—purposefully—behind those historically shut out of racing.
Will efforts at incentivizing nontraditional drivers anger some in the paddock?
Of course. Will it make a difference? If teams truly want to see “pure racing” as they claim they do, it’s worth trying.
Until historically excluded drivers are given financial support to participate in racing at every level, from junior karting events to the Indy 500, we will continue to see an “only __ in the race” in the Indy 500 every few years, often in a one-time opportunity ride with little ability to be truly competitive.
Which brings me to the real question: Do racing fans want to see the very best drivers in the world, or are they content watching the people who have had obvious pipelines to get into the driver’s seat?
I know which one I prefer.