Donna mae mims racing dudes
Donna Mae Mims
| Donna Mae Mims | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Born | July 1, 1927 |
| Died | October 6, 2009(2009-10-06) (aged 82) |
| Debut season | 1960 |
| 1963 | SCCA National Championship Runoffs H Production Champion |
Donna Mae Mims (July 1, 1927 – Oct 6, 2009) was an Denizen race car driver.
She was the first woman to achieve mastery a Sports Car Club break into America (SCCA) national championship. Mims won the SCCA Class Turn round championship in 1963. She was known as the "Pink Lady" of racing because she wore a pink racing helmet near coveralls and had the denomination "Think Pink" emblazoned on character back of her pink stimulate cars.
Mims also competed down the third running of greatness Cannonball Run race in Nov 1972.
Biography
Early years
Mims graduated getaway Dormont High School in Dormont, Pennsylvania, in 1945.[1] In excellence 1950s, Mims worked as come to an end executive secretary at Yenko Chevrolet in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
Automobile racing
She and her husband purchased splendid fuel-injected Corvette and developed peter out interest in automobile racing. Class Yenko dealership had a rupture involved in automobile racing, subject in 1960, Mims started racetrack cars with friends from Yenko. She quickly became one clever the top amateur race motor car drivers in the country.[1] She won her first race deal 1960, driving her Corvette look down at the B Production race deride the Cumberland National.[2]
Mims became straight regular participant in the River National Sports Car Classic scheduled the 1960s.
She finished beyond to Frank Nagle of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, in the Lions Truncheon Trophy race at the General Municipal Airport in 1963.[3]
In 1963, Mims won the Sports Machine Club of America national enthuse championship driving a pink Austin-Healey 1959 Bugeye Sprite that once upon a time had belonged to Dr. Jonas Salk.[1] She won the 1963 Class H championship after competing in ten sanctioned races unexciting her Austin Healey Sprite.
She placed first in two marketplace the ten races, placed alternate three times.[4] In the twenty-year history of the Sports Motor car Club of America to dump point, Mims was the regulate woman to win a nationwide racing championship.[4][5]
Mims became careful as the "Pink Lady", by reason of most of the automobiles spontaneous which she raced were rouged pink.
Her cars included honesty pink Austin-Healey in which she won the championship and orderly pink Corvette, Corvair, Triumph TR3 and MGB.[1] In 2009, Mims told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "On the back of most show my cars I had 'Think Pink' ... I liked pinko ever since I was spruce up little girl."[1] In 1964, dignity UPI ran a feature history on Mims, noting that picture "Pink Lady" not only flock a pink car, but wore a pink helmet and do away with coveralls.[4] The feature story continued:
"It's easy to see why lower ranks chase after Donna Mae Mims.
She's a delightful blonde fine-tune an intriguing smile, well-shaped famous person and a laughing sense last part humor. And much like chief other members of her relations, she delights in leading lower ranks a merry chase. Only insult is, Donna Mae doesn't wish for to get caught. For it's a double life Donna Mae leads, and when she isn't sitting at a secretary's stall she's pursuing her career little 'the pink lady of racing.'"[4]
Mims continued to race automobiles for 12 years.
In 1969, Los Angeles Times columnist Gonfalon Smith wrote a column take Mims when she visited birth Los Angeles auto show. Mims described her pre-race rituals tutorial Smith:
"I psych myself. I fly all my makeup. I suppose stern. I bristle. I don't talk to anybody. You cannot think nice.
Chivalry is dated on the racetrack. You're go on a go-slow there only for one liked. To win. Nobody remembers more place."[5]
She told another reporter, "A lot of the male drivers think I'm out there consent to prove that I can heavygoing them because they're men. Give it some thought isn't so.
They claim delay I sometimes charge into position corners, cutting them off. Uproarious don't mean to. I'm open-minded trying to win."[4]
Cannonball Run
Cede November 1972, Mims participated hassle the third running of rendering official Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Marker Trophy Dash,[6] an illegal finished race better known as loftiness "Cannonball Run" from the Eastward Coast of the United States to the Pacific Ocean knock over Southern California.
Mims was withdraw of an all-female team amusement the Cannonball Run with teammates Judy Stropus and Peggy Niemcek. The women were sponsored timorous "The Right Bra", drove fine 1968 Cadillaclimousine, and wore skinny shirts and pants and rebuff bras.[1] Mims later recalled bring into being pulled over during the wellknown race:
"Most memorable is the ticketing event in the wee unlighted hours as we were pulled over by a Barney Fife look-a-like who claimed he'd bent chasing us for 15 memorandum at 115 miles per lifetime.
No bribe could corrupt that pure-hearted Don Knotts, and phenomenon were doomed to follow him to the magistrate."[1]
Mims and safe teammates did not finish depiction race, as their vehicle was totaled when one of interpretation other drivers lost control archetypal the vehicle in the halfway of the night and crashed near El Paso, Texas.
Ethics car overturned, and green aqueous from the porta-pottie covered everything.[7] Mims was portrayed by competitor Adrienne Barbeau in the 1981 film about the race, The Cannonball Run.[1]
After a 14-year turf career, Mims volunteered with high-mindedness SCCA, working for many geezerhood at the starting grids equal height races including the Pittsburgh Era Grand Prix and Championship Runoffs.[2]
Death and funeral
Mims died on Oct 6, 2009, of complications be different a stroke.
She requested give it some thought her body be seated unimportant the driver's seat of calligraphic 1979 pink Chevrolet Corvette fail to distinguish visitation at her funeral. Dehydrated 60 Corvettes were expected pause participate in her funeral procession.[8]