Motorcycle racing for all women and girls who want to!
Marianne Walford is the writer of this website. I have been encouraging women to compete since 1983. I have done nearly all there is to do in motorcycle sport. On a solo I have competed in trials, long distance trials, enduro, supermoto, road racing, motocross, sprint and Dirtquake, which is flat track. On a sidecar I was a passenger on a righthanded grass track outfit, an enduro outfit (once was enough!) and did a few taxi rides on a road race outfit. As a driver, I have competed in enduro, road race and grass track.
I began riding motorcycles in 1971, and took out an Auto Cycle Union licence in 1978 to become a righthanded grass track sidecar passenger for Charlie Franks. But I didn’t get the timing right and caused us to run into a marshal, which was not a good thing to do! So my passenger career only lasted three meetings. Charlie did trials in winter and he prepared a lovely little Triumph Tiger Cub for me. Well, lovely when it was running, but not the easiest bike to start when it got hot. The trials were always a struggle and a large number of points amassed because of footings and fives, often due to crashes.
I knew a few women road riders, and Barbara Coombs and Celia Walton who competed as sidecar drivers on the grass, as well as being road riders. In those days, events were not particularly friendly for novices and I don’t think there were any training facilities. Certainly I was not aware of any, nor places where you could practice; it was just in at the deep end. Events were not segregated, although I think there had been the occasional event organised specifically for women riders. Nowadays, there are women only World Championships in road racing (started in 2024, the FIM Womens World Circuit Racing Championship), motocross and and trials. There is a ladies championship in enduro but not segregated.
Around 1982 an East Sussex group of the Trail Riders Fellowship was established, and I began trail riding with them on a bored-out high performance Honda XL125. This was ideal for me to improve my skills on mud, rocks and hills without the pressure of competition, and I soon found riders of a similar skill level to me. I thoroughly enjoyed these rides, as at the time I was a stay-at-home mother with my first daughter Barbara and it was good to have a break from childcare.
In 1983 I organised a women and girls trial for charity, with three different routes: the most challenging with sections for women who already competed in trials, an easier route for women who were on a trials bike but had little or no experience and the easiest for women riding trail bikes such as a DT175. I repeated this for two more years until the land got redeveloped and was no longer available.
In 1988 a feature in Motorcycle News mentioned that a Monte Carlo Rally for motorcycles would take place. I thought “that sounds like fun!” and with sponsorship from my uncle’s business, Hughes of Beaconsfield, I was able to enter. Phil Read flagged off the British contingent of about thirty riders and crew from Earls Court, and we missed the ferry from Dover! The ten day event included timed special stages on closed public roads and three race circuits, Circuit Carole just outside Paris which is often used for supermoto, Ledenon near Nimes and Circuit Paul Ricard (Le Castellet) near Marseille. Despite two crashes, and a stuck power valve stifling power on my Kawasaki KMX200, I was the only female rider to finish. Thinking I would like to do better in 1989, I bought a Yamaha TDR250 and did a bit of road racing to improve on the race circuits, but the event was never repeated. I took part in three or four supermoto races, including a round at Knockhill. To my regret, the TDR was stolen while parked.
I competed in three stage trials and enduros, and met Penny Page, who was a huge inspiration to me. After my second daughter Lucie was born in 1994, Colin and I did motocross with the Southern MX Club, who would hold up the start if our races were back-to-back. Colin had a Maico 250 enduro bike, and mostly I rode a KL250 which didn’t manage the mx circuit too well! So sometimes we shared the Maico, although the lefthand kickstart was not the easiest to conquer.
Some time in the late eighties or early nineties I met Gloria Clark (now Perrin) who was successful in getting the ban on women riding in the Manx Grand Prix lifted, and along with a couple of female car racers, we started Motorsport For Women to support and encourage women to compete.
In 1991 I became the first woman to qualify as an ACU offroad skills coach. Colin and I were volunteers running a scheme teaching riding and mechanical skills on a young offenders and at risk of offending scheme, and we amassed a collection of old trail bikes and new clothing. We also used these at MFW training events for women and girls. All through the 1990s we organised events at various venues, including Jewells Hill near Dartford, Kent, Enstone near Oxford and Beaconsfield. Some were trials focused, others motocross, some enduro and many included learning to ride for complete beginners. Tamsin Jones who went on to become one of the few British women to compete in the Dakar Rally, and who also holds the record for the highest motorcycle ride up Everest, began her offroad career at one of my events. We are friends to this day, and together we organised an introduction to offroad sports for women riders in March 2024.
In 1996 I did my first Welsh Two Days Enduro, on the KMX200, as part of a team with Coral Powell and Liz Millett. They were both on TM’s which proved unreliable, and I was the only one of us to finish. Also in 1996, my older daughter Barbara thought she might like to passenger on an enduro sidecar, but not with her father Charlie as he might be too fast and frightening. So I said I would have a go driving, and Charlie provided us with an ex-Ray Ferguson CR500 outfit, with teleforks. May be not the best sidecar to start on! I enjoyed driving and we soon changed to a VMC Kawasaki KX500 with a powervalve motor and leading links forks which was easier to ride and handled much better. Barbara and I never managed to finish an enduro because when the outfit got stuck, we couldn’t shift it, so after a couple of years of frustration, I teamed up with Gerwyn Davies as my passenger, and among our successes were two Welsh Two Day finishes – possibly the only by a woman driver. Barbara and I did a few motocross meetings, racing against another woman driver, Bridget Etheridge, and four Weston Beach Races, with our best finish being 22nd out of 66 sidecar finishers. Gerwyn owned a KTM620 sidecar so sometimes we used his and sometimes my KX. Then I bought a newer KTM outfit but it was jinxed and ran perfectly in practice or green laning, but something always happened in an event and we never finished! So it was sold, and a KHR XR650 took its place.
In 1998 we moved to Mid Wales from Sussex, and joined the Hafren Dirt Bike Club. They needed a Secretary, and as I had been involved with ACU clubs in Sussex, I had some knowledge. The HDBC ran British Championship Enduros and the Hafren Trail Bike Rally, and they also ran a World Championship round. I learnt a lot from being involved with the organisation of their events, and I became an Enduro Clerk of the Course. Motorsport For Women changed into the Diamonds MCC, and we began holding trail bike rallies for solos and sidecars, the Winter Rally and the Raider Rally in Rhayader in the summer. The Winter Rally became the Patrick James Memorial Rally after the death of our friend Patrick in the Alto Turia Rally.
In 2002 I had the opportunity to take part in the Thundersprint where a ladies class was being held for the first time. I was lent a Triumph Tiger which may seem an odd choice for a speed event, but as the track was little bumpy, its upright position and good handling proved to be an advantage and I took third behind two professional women racers, one of whom was Harriet Ridley but I cannot remember the other. In 2006 during a trail bike enduro with a sidecar class, I smashed my shin into a hidden fallen tree trunk which looked like a bush, and caused multiple breaks. The track was only the width of a solo and I choose the wrong side to run through the undergrowth. Initial healing took three months and full healing a year. As Colin and I had just started a trail riding business, it was extremely awkward. I decided that would be the end of riding enduro events.
In 2009 Paul Lumley posted on the Sidecar Place forum that he and Karl Pring were organising a sidecar day at Llandow in South Wales, and all were welcome to come and have a go at passengering – no ACU licence required! I went, and did passenger, but asked Paul if there was any chance I could have a go at driving. Later in the afternoon, after a toodle about the car park, I went out on the track on Dean Nicholls’ Baker Thundercat F2 sidecar. I couldn’t reach to change gear but luckily the passenger realised and did it for me. Three laps were enough for me to think “I can do this”!
So early in 2010, I bought the Thundercat outfit and went road racing. I did about six meetings that year but didn’t have a regular passenger. Mallory Park held a sidecar festival with “taxi rides” for people to try passengering. Claire Duplock had come trail riding as a passenger on my KHR XR sidecar and I let her know about this opportunity. She loved it, and I asked if she would like to be my passenger next season. She said yes, and in March 2011 we started with a practice day at Mallory Park – I was 57 and she was 55, and that raised a few eyebrows. In 2012 Bemsee had half price entry fees for F2 sidecars and we raced as much as we could. Wesley Pettman was the only other pre-injection (carburettor) sidecar, and we spent the season trying to keep up with him – occasionally we managed it for a lap or two!
In 2013 I couldn’t afford to race so much, and as well as passengering for me, Claire passengered for Slow Phil in his newly created BEARS class. They won the championship, so in 2014, Claire prioritised BEARS and I advertised for a new passenger. Kerry Hughes came along and the Formula Sidecar Racing Association added a pre-injection championship to their F350 and post-classics. Not many outfits did all the rounds in that first year, which enabled us to get some second and third places. After a few years Kerry moved on to passenger for faster drivers, and former F350 passenger Janet Tyrrell joined me. After the enforced break after covid, I was struggling to afford the entry fees and maintenance for the outfit. My lap times were a couple of seconds slower than pre-covid which was extremely frustrating. Jan wanted to try driving, so after a few tears, I sold the outfit to her.
In 2018 a Facebook feed had alerted me to a Ladies Speedway Day at Iwade in Kent, and as the date was near to my grand-daughter’s birthday, I booked places for the three of us. As well as going out on the training track on 125 solos, Chris and Dan Berwick were offering “taxi rides” on their lefthanded and 500cc grass track sidecars. Kayleigh Booth, Chris’s passenger, was driving, and I overheard Chris offering Carol MacBride, another road race sidecar driver, to drive his lefthander. She declined, but I asked if I could. He was reluctant but allowed it, with lots of admonitions to be careful! Kayleigh passengered as she knew what she was doing, and I was careful – it was fine!
In 2019 Dirtquake was held at Arlington stadium, near to where my daughter and grandchildren live. I entered. I had not got to the sliding stage at the Iwade day, so I went to Pete Boast’s Champions Flattrack School to try and improve. I already knew a couple of the ladies from Iwade, and at Dirtquake Dil Drackett and I were close together in all the heats. I got a good start in the final, but it was red flagged and as we returned to await the restart, I got bad cramp in my right leg. My light CRF230 was easier to manage than Dil’s 390 KTM and I pipped her to the line for third place behind two flat-track competitors. I was keen to do Dirtquake again, but then covid struck, and it has never been run since.
After I had sold the Baker Thundercat, I felt a bit bereft, and when Rachel Cox let me know about a 500cc grass outfit for sale, I went to have a look. It was an unfinished project and not expensive, so I bought it. I was surprised to discover that Shaun Hughes and Louis Bennett, British Championship runners-up, were local to me; their fathers Eifion and Barrie were former competitors. Also my trail riding friend Rob Williams was a former competitor. Barrie rebuilt the carburettor for me, and I took the bike down to Rob for a day of fettling to get it ready for the machine examiner.
My daughter Barbara was happy to passenger and so it was with some apprehension, we entered our first grass track meeting. We missed several races because we had not got the knack of starting the bike, and this continued all season. In the races, we got lapped, initially by all the other competitors, but by the end of the season, we had improved enough to avoid being lapped. But the difficulty of getting the bike going and relying on help from other competitors, was still a major problem. A couple of years before when I was considering grass track, I had spoken to a crew with an “old and new” sidecar. This class uses GS500 road bike engines and can have an electric start! In the spring of 2023, despite not being able to sell the 500cc outfit, I bought an “old and new”. The first three meetings we entered were cancelled because there had been too much rain and the ground was sodden. In early June, two clubs added the class to their meetings. As Barbara had not expected us to race, she was on holiday, so Karl Bedingfield, passenger to Kayleigh Booth on her lefthander, offered. He had not passengered a righthander, and I had not ridden it before, so we were not surprised to be lapped. But it felt safe, and by the last race that day, we had improved enough to avoid being lapped. Barbara and I did a variety of meetings in August, September and October, and gradually learned more about the bike and also about how to ride it. In our last race of the season at the fantastic Dalton track, for the first time ever, we kept up with the rest of the field and into the first corner, had to go wide to avoid hitting the outfit in front. That was exciting!
I would really like to get more women racing in the sidecar classes on the grass. In the past there have been quite a few that I know of (might be more): Penny Hook was a righthanded driver with Sinead MacLaren passengering; Donna Armitage and Michelle Minard are/have been righthanded passengers. Sinead, Natasha Bartlett and Rachel Cox are/have been 500 drivers; Ciara Southgate, Abi Radley, Lyn Green and Zoe Pay are/have been 500cc passengers, Kayleigh Booth lefthanded driver and passenger. Julie Williams and Chloe Watts, aged 16, passenger in the old and new class; but it would be excellent to get more involved. Grass track is the cheapest speed sport, and has a really friendly paddock – dogs and children welcome!