Baroness Ewy von Korff-Rosqvist obituary: rally racer who banished myth women can’t drive
The Swedish ‘Baroness of Mercedes’ was part of the first all-female crew to win an international rally against men and did so by more than three hours
Serving a network of farms in the surrounding area, she had to learn to drive. Jönsson passed the test, but only because her traumatised driving instructor wasn’t sure if he wanted to spend any more time in a car with her. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked. “A rally driver?”
Possibly one of those stories that got polished over the years….
All the best anecdotes are like fine wines. They mature with age.
(i) “His other counsel was not to go out too quickly and never to steer around goats”. My father’s counsel was much the same: “you swerve only for humans; for animals you brake.”
(ii) Parallel parking? Reversing? In Australia there’s no reason to mock women for their incompetence at these skills because the blokes can’t manage them either.
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The obituary cites an Argentine event in 1962. Pat Moss and Ann Wisdom won the Liège-Rome-Liège rally outright in 1960. Best not to just look at the one Wiki page.
“Who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?”
For ages I didn’t know what people meant by “parallel parking” – thinking it was clearly parking in parallel lines (so, in a car park? simple surely?) – until I realised it meant….. just…. *parking*.
It used to worry me that I wasn’t very good at parallel parking until I heard Sir Jackie Stewart admit in an interview that he was hopeless at it… I reckon that if a 3-time F1 World Champion is no good either, no need to worry. 🙂
@Baron Jackfield: I was similarly relieved when Ayrton Senna admitted to needing several goes to tie a tie with the ends having the right lengths.
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