Many women enjoy and do well in Solo competition, but there is a desire for a greater range of participation

There are a lot of women who love autocross. It’s an approachable and affordable form of motorsport, and one that can be enjoyed with family. However, the numbers aren’t what many would like to see, and competitors are looking for ways to change that.

“If we look on the national level, our participation of women – whether they’re running Ladies classes or Open classes [in SCCA autocross], their participation percentage has gone down,” explains Velma Boreen, who with husband Raleigh, heads up Regional Solo Development for SCCA. “Right now, about 14 percent of the people that run national events are women. We’d like to see more out there, whether they run Ladies or Open class. We just want to get more women involved.”

As the couple in charge of Regional Solo Development, their job is to find what works in terms of putting on successful Solo events and help regions adopt those ideas, spreading the best practices across SCCA’s 116 regions.

Having participated in Solo events since 1983, the Boreens have seen a lot of events and have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t, but they’re also open to new ideas. Part of their effort is to get more women involved, and if you ask why, well, it’s more enjoyable that way, of course.

“It’s a lot more fun when the two of us are able to do this together,” she says. “And possibly it’s an untapped market to get the new members involved and bring families together. We’d like to get more families to come to the events, to make it a family-type activity that they can participate in.”

Autocross can be a great family activity, but there are some barriers to that, especially when families are young and the kids aren’t old enough to participate. But Velma sees ways to work around that, and that’s one of the things about which she wants to start a dialogue.

To that end, she spoke with David Cook, Manager of Business Development for Mazda Motorsports, at the SCCA National Convention in January 2017. They discussed several ideas, including a women-only luncheon at the Solo National Championships in Lincoln, Neb., to share ideas and encouragement.

“We’ve got an awful lot of good lady autocrossers out there that we’re going to try to tap into this year, and see what we can do to get more women involved in this sport,” she says. “We’ve got a couple of ideas we’re working on right now to get more women involved at both the local and nationals level.”

Look for more on this topic on MazdaMotorsports.com in the coming weeks.

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