Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing [Hardcover]

Todd Mccarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 16, 2007

In the early fifties, a hot new lineup of foreign cars arrived on the American scene -- Porsche, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, MG, Aston-Martin -- bringing with it a new era of race car competition that would entice not only men but women. Fast Women is the story of exceptional women who competed against the best of the men, asserting themselves in the risky, macho, and highly competitive sport of auto racing. From New York to California, these fiery women burned rubber.

Among this group of daring women was lady of leisure Evelyn Mull. Mull got her start in auto racing after accompanying her husband to a race, then impulsively deciding to enter herself. She quickly became a leading driver on the amateur circuit in the late 1950s.

Unlike Evelyn, Denise McCluggage didn’t come from old money. Covering the sport for the New York Herald Tribune, she was a sportswoman with the temperament of an artist. In her Greenwich Village neighborhood, there were two rare MG-TCs on the block: hers and the one belonging to a struggling young actor named Steve McQueen. It was inevitable that the two would meet and engage in a brief romance and an even longer friendship. In 1957, Denise began rivaling Evelyn for the top spot among women drivers.

Fast Women brings to life a group of intrepid women from the beginning of the sport to its heyday in the fifties in a narrative that possesses the dramatic velocity of great fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since autos ran on bicycle tires, women have been racing; McCarthy, chief film critic for Variety, covers the rich history of women's racing in a narrative running from the turn of the 20th century until just after 1958, when marketing and sponsorship concerns squeezed out the ladies. Although McCarthy attempts to "strip away every shred of nostalgia" in homage to his unsentimental subjects, he writes with clear, infectious admiration for these unique pioneers. Suzy Dietrich, for example, was an "enormously cute" librarian who broke record after record in her Porsche 550 Spyder. Denise McCluggage, "a plainspoken Kansan," fell in love with an MG and sent regular dispatches from behind the wheel to the International Herald Tribune. Though the impetus for the sport (and the book) came from the wealthy, McCarthy builds his narrative around its only-in-America transformation from aristocratic hobby to populist pastime by way of "an excitedly fluid meritocracy." McCarthy claims early on that "it was a single photograph that seduced me," of aristocrat speed demon Evelyn Mull, smartly arranged in an early sports car with white shirt cuffs, leather gloves and a neat bun; fortunately, 16 pages of such photos are included, making this well-researched text a comprehensive survey of auto racing's first females.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

McCarthy, chief film critic for Variety, sets his sights on a much overlooked aspect of automotive history in this very engaging work. Equal parts social and sports history, Fast Women will be a revelation to those who believe they are on intimate terms with auto racing. Beginning in the late nineteenth century and culminating in the 1950s, when female drivers were at their most popular, McCarthy has gathered together dozens of personalities and personal histories in an effort to provide the most thorough primer possible on women in auto racing. Clearly, McCarthy conducted numerous interviews and did a staggering amount of research; nevertheless, although a selected bibliography is provided, there are no endnotes. Ultimately, the book serves best as an entry into the subject because McCarthy can give each driver only a few pages of notice before moving on to the next. The number of women drivers profiled can be quite dizzying, but readers will appreciate the wealth of fascinating information this dedicated author has uncovered. Colleen Mondor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Miramax; First Edition edition (May 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401352022
• ISBN-13: 978-1401352028
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,908,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ladies, start your engines!, February 7, 2009

By 

kellytwo "kellytwo" (cleveland hts, ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing (Hardcover)

Nearly everyone within sound range of a TV set these days should recognize the name Danica Patrick. And deservedly so. She's currently the highest-ranked female race driver out there. Although there are some fabulous up-and-comers fast catching up to the petite speedster.

Before Ms. Patrick, there was Janet Guthrie and Lynn St. James, both of whom raced at Indianapolis and elsewhere. How did these women come to be competing in a sport thought to be almost the exclusive province of the male gender?

Believe it or not, since there have been automobiles and racing, there have been women drivers and racing! True. You can discover these 'Legendary Ladies' for yourself by settling in for a delightful and illuminating read when you pick up this very enjoyable book by Todd McCarthy.

This historical look at Fast Women really puts the spotlight on the 50s and 60s, when daring women could enter and win races just as the men did. Once they started being a major factor in the competition, the rules were changed (aren't they always?) and big money entered the scene, thus effectively ending the glory days of women's racing. I don't wish to imply that I'm against rules-changing: in this case, safety became the prime concern, which has helped everyone, everywhere. It's a well-known fact that racing car safety translates easily into street car safety, which has been a very good thing indeed! Were it not for air bags and sturdy seat belts, I'd not be here writing this review!

But he also gives notable space to the very early pioneers of women's racing, beginning in the the early 1900s. Just as the Europeans were the first to actually build a motor-driven vehicle, so they were the first to race them--in 1895. The first noted female driver was a Frenchwoman, Camille du Gast Crespin (that latter her husband's surname.) She was rather easily identifiable as the only woman in the races she entered, starting in 1900, as her corset commanded her to sit up straight, rather than hunch over the steering wheel as the men did! She was a bit of a dare-devil, anyway, jumping out of hot-air ballons (with a parachute) and racing speedboats.

There is a good bit about my hero, Denise McCluggage, who, until Janet Guthrie conquered Indy in the early 70s, was America's most well-known female race driver. But there were others, too: Evelyn Mull, Ruth Levy, Josie von Neumann, Suzy Dietrich and Donna Mae Mims.

If you're of a certain age, this book provides a wonderful trip down memory lane. If you're way younger than that, it's still a great ride! Unfortunately, the book does not have an index, but it does have a fabulous bibliography of books, films/TV, videos, newsletters, magazine articles, and web-sites, etc. In the manner of web-sites, not all of them are up-to-date, but they're still better than nothing. I'm grateful for such a list. Fabulous book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast Women, September 17, 2007

By 

Cornelius A. Harmon "Nelius" (Stone Mountain, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing (Hardcover)

Although confined to women racing sportscars in the fifties, the book is quite interesting and reveals a number of little-known factoids. Had the author continued on into the sixties, several other oolorful and interesting women could have been included such as Janet Guthrie, Donna Mae Mims(briefly mentioned) and Patsy Kenedy(yes, one n)among others. Be that as it may, it is still a very good read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast women is an excellent read, August 10, 2011

By 

Becky (beckygardens) (new orleans, LA, United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing (Hardcover)

I'm not really a racing fan, NASCAR etc doesn't do it for me. I can name about two racers with one of the being Danica Patrick. But this book isn't so much about race car driving as who was driving in a unique period of history. The fifties usually makes me thing of ladies in poodle skirts and Happy Days.

But there were a group of women who were getting behind the wheels of cars and making them spin. They were welcomed at first, and it was a fairly affordable sport. It's not only interesting to read about the time period, the races, the women involved and their families, but how it drew to an end for women.

Fast Women is not just about racing, it's about an equality rarely seen and all to soon lost. Until I picked up this book I never knew women racers existed until recently, so this was very eye opening for me.

The writing style is interesting, the book reads more like a story with facts than a dry history book. Excellent and fascinating glimpse into a world of women racing.