Women in Motorsports Blog Carnival September 27th

This week AskPatty.com is taking a trip around the motorsports world to see what's happening with fantabulous females in the racing world. This week we crawled the web to find all the posts and articles floating in the blogosphere about women in motorsports.

Congratulations! NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Peggy Llewellyn won her first NHRA national event at, making the Countdown to One field by the slenderest of margins. She'll join reigning world champ Andrew Hines, Matt Smith, and Chip Ellis for a two-race showdown.




Kim Lopez-Johnson changed the face of NASCAR this weekend at the Smith's Las Vegas 350. She was the lead Official Starter located in the flagstand on the start/finish line. It was a first for NASCAR: Lopez-Johnson became the first female to wave the silks in any NASCAR national series race.


Serenity Sutherland remembers growing up and asking her father if there were any women competing in auto racing. She didn't think she would be allowed to race because she was a girl. Her Dad told her she could do anything she wanted. Today, Sutherland pilots her family-owned 358 modified at Black Rock Speedway in Dundee. At 23, Sutherland is already in her 11th year of racing in her fourth different class of cars.


Sunoco will climb onboard with RCR Development driver Jessica Helberg and the BMR No. 20 Late Model Team as the primary sponsor for the rest of the 2007 season. Currently, Helberg is ranked third in the NASCAR All-American Whelan Series point standings. She has garnered six top-5's and 12 top-10 finishes.



Jessica Brannam's motto is simple, "I might be small, but I can haul". This 16-year-old is making quite a splash in the racing world; she's won 16 National Championships, 14 Regional Championships and 178 feature race victories. But that's not enough for this feisty teenager, her ultimate goal - Formula One racing.

Ashley Force pulled out of the NHRA Funny Car semi-finals after her father, John Force, sustained a compound fracture of his left ankle, a lacerated right knee, a dislocated left wrist and abrasions on two fingers on s right hand after a collision with Kenny Bernstein last Sunday at the NHRA O'Reilly Fall Nationals in Dallas. Force is expected to make a full recovery.


NASCAR Busch East Series rookie Michelle Theriault made her Dover International Speedway debut this past Friday. While the finish wasn't exactly what Team GLOCK was looking for, Theriault was still happy with the results, "It wasn't the day we were looking for but we persevered with a top-20 finish," Theriault said after the race. "I couldn't get the car to turn the way I needed to and it wound up hurting me all day long. We had a lot of support for the race and I really was hoping to bring in a good finish, but a top-20 finish under all the circumstances we faced is something I'll take." Next up for Theriault: The NASCAR TOYOTA All-Star Showdown at Irwindale Speedway in Irwindale, California on October 19 and 20.


AskPatty.com is a 2007 proud sponsor of the NASCAR No. 112 AskPatty.com Chevrolet driven by the highest ranked professional female race car driver Deborah Renshaw. Watch Deborah in the ARCA/ReMax Series event on October 5^th at Talladega Superspeedway broadcast live on Speed. Check out Deborah's website at www.deborahrenshaw.com.

Linda Przygodski
Contributing Editor
AskPatty.com