No more grid girls at WEC events.

I think it's a good move, increasing number of female fans and participants, racing is the only sport where men and women compete head to head; grid girls have become anachronistic.

 

I see grid girls as a time honored tradition and part of the pagentry that leads up to the actual racing. They are far from offensive and certainly not any more than an NFL Cheerleader. There will always be someone offended by something whether it be beauty, puppies or a random act of kindness and it stinks to bow to them especially when they have the option to take it or leave it. I also think that the presence of grid girls at the track doesn't have any influence what so ever as to whether a female decides to become a race car driver or not.

Will eliminating grid girls open the door to more female race fans? Maybe a few but I bet the majority don't care or actually like to check them out as I've observed many times when I'm around them.

It would be interesting to know who was ultimately behind this decision. My guess is a disgruntled female

 

I have yet to meet a woman who went to a race (including my girlfriend and sister) who didn't make a comment about them, and every time it's been totally unprovoked (i.e. I didn't ask them about the grid girls; they told me what they thought of them)

so while I doubt grid girls have prevented a woman from becoming a driver, I think it does alienate and potentially restrict female fans.

I've made this argument on twitter as well, a lot of how racing is produced, marketed, packaged and sold (both live and on TV) is stuck in the 60's. I look at the grid girl ban as one step in modernizing a sport that is stuck in the past, with an extremely aging fan base...so to me it's not just about gender issues, it's about the sport bringing itself a few decades forward to present itself to new fans, current culture, etc.

also, I would submit that anyone who goes to races for grid girls or a football game for the cheerleaders is not a fan of the sport, but a fan of big crowds and events. I go to races for the racing, not the grid girls or flyovers or national anthem. the presence or absence of those things won't change what I love about racing.

 

I might be confused as to what a " Grid Girl " is.

My experience only comes with Daytona and Sebring and I was thinking Grid Girls were those like the ones from Weathertech, MOMO and Turner.
They stood at the teams garage and posed for pictures with fans and stood by the car doing the same before the start of the race.
Perhaps those are more " Team Promotional Models " and Grid Girls are something else.
I don't know how they do it in Europe so I guess I need a clarification.

 

You're spending a lot of calories over nothing, grid girls are not the limiting factor in getting more women interested in racing. While you're trying to get them interested in racing, try to sell them more video games and guns too.

 

I know a lot of women interested in racing and guns.

I don't know anyone interested in video games, because I'm an adult

 

At COTA they are employees of the track, local ladies recruited to "mark the spot" as the cars come to grid. They DO roam the events and do photos with the crowd...they get to model the clothes/uniforms.

A friend of mine's step daughter did it and it was a really maturing experience, akin to modeling I suppose.
i guess there is a sexist element to it, but she was already a bartender down on 6th Street!

 

Thanks for the explanation BigTex.

So a girl gets hired for a job, she serves a purpose by helping to align the race cars on the starting grid, helps promote the race by interacting with fans posing for pictures but because she is perceived as being beautiful she alienates female fans because those women have a personal problem being in the company of a beautiful women.

Here are two pics from the recent Sebring race.

So the group of girls dressed head to toe on a day when the temps felt like 100 degrees were the grid girls. I don't know if they helped line up the cars but by the time the grid was opened to the public they were all bunched together holding flags from all the countries that were represented in the race. Other than a few that entered the bikini contest I didn't see them any other time during the race weekend so it wasn't like everywhere you went you were forced to see a grid girl.

The two girls promoting the Turner Motorsports Team pretty much stayed with the team and were out just before the autograph session and out on the grid for the fan grid walk.
They weren't dressed provocatively. Every girl with a social life has that dress in their closet in the same style, cut and fit, most likely in black, would wear it any given night out on the town. Those two girls did a great job promoting Turner Motorsports.

If Sebring had all the SCCA corner workers stand out on the grid and " mark the spot " nobody would care but if you give a girl a job, enjoy a unique experience and she is pretty it becomes objectionable. As I said my experience comes only from Daytona and Sebring so I don't know what the grid girls are like for the WEC events but if they are anything like the above I don't see having grid girls as being anything negative to a rational person and actually a plus to the overall race experience.
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Racing indeed has a long tradition of having provocative women in the paddock and on
the grid. From local beauty queens to professional models, this has always been a part
of the pageantry.

Growing up in Sebring and recalling the various B-list actresses, Playboy Bunnies, Penthouse
Pets and other gentlemen's magazine models prowling the paddock from the 60s through
the 80s, it definitely added another element to the race.

None was more provocative a 1976 Penthouse Pet of the Year Anika de Lorenzo who attended
the 12 Hours as part of Penthouse's sponsorship of the winning Porsche of Al Holbert and
Michael Keyser and her legendary appearance in Victory Lane which I wrote about in my article
"Sebring: Evolution of a Tradition" last year.

The Playboy Playmates and Penthouse Pets seemed to have made way for the Grid Girls
which were born out of the MotoGP Umbrella Girls and to my knowledge, no one has been
overheard complaining.

At Le Mans, the Hawaiian Tropic Girls have been a grid fixture since the 70's. Just as with
the Grid Girls, the HT Girls are part of an overall business strategy that companies invest
in which guarantee their companies exposure even if they're not part of an official entry.

Seriously doubt that this will have legs since the Grid Girls represent sponsors which are
putting money into the series.

What the FIA is failing to forget is, two weeks before the start of the season, sponsors
have their marketing campaigns ready to go and for many of them Grid Girls are
an important part of their budgets as the Grid Girls are important brand ambassadors.

Take away Grid Girls, take away sponsorship €€€ and someone is going to cry foul.
Good luck enforcing this.

BHW

 

So they want to put grid girls inside the cars, driving? Have I got this right?

 

I hope Lord March continues the grid girl tradition at Revival. PC prigs need to stuff it.

GRID GIRLS UNITE!! FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR GGs!!

 

Wonder what actress Jill St. John would have to say about it?

She got noticed for her acting career as a trophy queen at Riverside raceway.

 

if women have trouble with grid girls, it has a lot to do with their low self esteem in the presence of women who have taken time to prepare themselves to a high level for a public
event... it is a universal reaction everywhere. Wives at local clubs are the largest objectors and good examples. Single men show up with dates, their husbands take time to check things out as it is a rare occasion their wives have taken extra measures with their appearance. The next thing is the club manager has complaints about the single women at the club. The married women should take a look in the mirror, and compare that to what they looked like when single. The married women who make an effort in their appearance are not threatened and are not the ones complaining. It is a shame that good grooming needs to yield to complacency and younger age. Married women should take responsibility.

 

I may be showing my age here, but what about Linda Vaughan?

PC prigs is right.

 

Good Lord do they have to neuter everything?

Newsflash, men like to see beautiful women and cars together. It's not like they are being disrespectful or degrading women by having them there. The problem is the jealous, ugly chunks who are so insecure in their own appearance they can't have anyone attractive in public to remind them of their shortcomings.

I got news for them, if they pay attention to the women attendees at the race they are very appreciative of all the good looking drivers parading around in their form fitting suits. Hell, there is always a pack of them camped out in front of Dempsey's trailer. Maybe they should just ban everyone and we can all walk around with bags over our heads somas not to offend anyone? GMAFB.

What a boring, vanilla world this is becoming.

 

I'm cool with it, just so all of the test drivers look like Carmen Jorda

 

Indeed. Mrs. Hurst Golden Shifter is a legend.

 

Thank you. I will need to study these two photographs very closely before forming an opinion on this topic.

 

What do the poor grid girls have to say about their jobs being axed - ridiculous!

 

Actually it's Miss Hurst Golden Shifter. I had the pleasure of reminiscing with Linda at the SEMA Show last November, and she is just as personable, charming, and I might add nearly as sexy, as she was back in the day when I first started racing.

 

Thank you for the correction. . Yep women like her never truly lose their beauty.