The LeMons racers at Hella Shitty Racing, the ones building the first diesel Porsche 911, are furthering their rebuttal of "sexist grid girls." Say hello to the Sonoma Raceway Boys.
To catch you all up to speed with the grid boy story, this began as the work of one man, Ryan Doherty. It all started back when Sonoma Raceway announced they'd let people vote online to pick their favorite 'Sonoma Raceway Girl' out of the umbrella girls who work at the California track. Doherty thought that the whole grid girl thing was a bit sexist, but rather than complain he entered himself into the competition.
The whole story on how that started can be found right here, but this quote gets to the heart of Doherty's argument for life as a grid boy.
I'm starting to get sick of 'girls' or models at car races to stand next to drivers. It's sexist, plain and simple. Racing is a male dominated industry and this only perpetuates the stereotype that women can't drive and should be relegated to being something pretty to look at or 'reward' the winners.
Also I'm pissed at the constant use of 'girl' to denote a woman. We don't say 'boy' when referring to adult males, why do it for females?
If I ever manage to win anything motorsports related I want a 'boy' (aka adult male) in a speedo to stand next to me when accepting the trophy. Any takers?
But that was months ago - where is Ryan now?
Well, over the weekend he was at Sonoma Raceway with a full Sonoma Raceway Boys team. They fielded a three way of a BMW E30, a Subaru-powered VW Bug, and their wonderful diesel-powered Porsche 911. Here's how they announced their theme on Facebook.
Hella Shitty Racing is proud to announce a male counterpart to the grid girl campaign knows as "Sonoma Raceway Girls": the Sonoma Raceway Boys! We're excited to be helping Race Sonoma in objectifying men *and* women equally, and we hope our and Sonoma Raceway's fans appreciate this effort as much as we do. We thank Sonoma Raceway for giving us this opportunity and hope that other tracks will follow suit shortly.
Here's their logo, in case you want to print it out and get it on your car, too.
How'd they do? Well, that little Bug took a class win and the 911 won the Judges' Choice trophy. Not bad at all.
In the end, there's definitely a right way and a wrong way to complain about objectification in the auto world. And this is the very right way.
Photo Credits: Sonoma Raceway Boys/HellaShittyRacing