In 2022, I embarked on a project that focused on women who participated in autocross. At the time had just completed an article that traced the chronology of women-only racing for a collection focused on the history and politics of motor racing. While conducting research for that project, I discovered that while motorsport as a whole has been historically unwelcome to women, autocross is a notable exception. Intrigued by how women were able to negotiate membership in this traditionally masculine pastime, I decided to delve deeper into what it was about autocross that encouraged and accommodated female participation in ways the majority of motorsports do no. I therefore sought to consider the strategies women called upon to gain entry into the autocross arena, the features that attracted women to autocross in the first place, the obstacles that hindered women’s integration, and whether increased female involvement had the potential to challenge and reshape autocross culture in particular and motorsport in general.
I spent the next year interviewing female autocrossers and attending autocross events. I joined the SCCA Women on Track Facebook page to learn more about women’s unique experiences in autocross. I presented my initial findings at the Argetsinger Symposium on the Motor Racing History at Watkins Glen later that year. Then I sat down to the arduous task of putting everything together for a journal article.
Due to other things going on in my life, it took about a year to complete the first draft. I submitted it to a sports journal and it was rejected for not being a good fit. Dejected but not discouraged, I sent the article off to Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, one of the leading gender studies journals in the field. I had published an article on women and muscle cars in Frontiers about ten years prior, so I understood the parameters of the journal so was able to restructured the paper to best fit the journal’s requirements.
After about six months I received a ‘revise and resubmit’ from the publisher. While many are deflated by such a request, as someone who spent a career in advertising I am rarely taken aback when asked to revise. In my experience writing journal articles, the suggestions made by reviewers almost always improve the article. I went through two or three sets of revisions and then waited. And waited. A year passed and I was told although the article was accepted there was a holdup with the publisher. Another year passed and I finally received a proof. Today, nearly four years after the project started, “‘Without the Community, It’s Just Driving Fast Around Cones’: Autocross, Women’s Worlds, and the Reimagining of Motorsport Culture” has, at long last, been published.
As I started in academia very late in life, my goal has been to have at least 10 articles published in peer review academic journals in my lifetime. At the age of 77, I have finally reached that goal. I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish this late in life, and I hope to continue writing about women and cars for as long as I can, whether in automotive or academic publications. But for today, I am happy that the goal I set for myself when I first entered graduate school has, at long last, been achieved. Thank you to Frontiers, and especially to the awesome autocross ladies that made this possible.
