Sport Forward: Giving women drivers a good name is child's play for Sarah

Sarah Moore has been described as an "angel outside the car and a Yorkshire

Terrier inside it". These words were not spoken by her driving instructor: she is two years

shy of sitting her test. They come from the boss of Ginetta Juniors, the motor racing

championship in which Moore has made history by claiming three wins from six rounds.

When the 15-year-old stood on the top step of the podium at Hampshire's

ultra-fast Thruxton circuit last month, she became the only female to win a race on the

TOCA package Â– home to the country's biggest motor racing series, the British Touring

Car Championship. Some of her male competitors said it was a fluke: she silenced them

by taking victory again the following day. Having added a further win and podium at

Donington Park, she is comfortably leading the points standings in the series created for

14 to 16-year-olds, and is destined to become the first female to ever win a mixed-sex

motorsport championship.

"She's fast, she's aggressive and out of the car she's perfect Â– good in front of

the camera and really sweet," says Richard Dean, managing director of Ginetta Cars and

a sportscar racer himself. "That said, I'm not sure I'd like to go wheel to wheel with her!

After her first win you could just see the confidence in her. I'd love to see her in touring

cars Â– it needs a good, fast female driver to mix it up."

Moore lives at Tockwith airfield, near York, which gives its name to the

family-run team. Younger brother David also competes in Ginetta Juniors while older

brother Nigel is a champion of the more senior Ginetta G50 series and will, at 17, become

one of the youngest-ever drivers to compete in the Le Mans 24hr race this summer.

Former racer Simon Moore, the trio's father, runs the team. "Sarah's a thinker and she's

as hard as nails," he says. "And she does listen: it's an awful thing to say, but a lot of the

lads do not. She'll go and try something with the car, come back and tell us what she

thinks. Her driving style is very smooth."

Sport Forward

Friday, July 24, 2009

Giving women drivers a good name is child's play for Sarah

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