We lost a great one

One of the downsides of travel is that you don't get to read your local newspapers, so you aren't always sure that what is news where you are is also news back home.

Yeah, you could read it all on the Internet. But this blog notwithstanding, I'm really a newspaper sort of guy.

So I don't know if the passing of Pat Moss Carlsson got reported back home. She died last month, aged 73, from cancer.

She was the younger sister of Sir Stirling Moss, who some rank as the greatest racing driver of all time, certainly the best who never won a World Championship.

Both Moss siblings got their initial interest in horsepower one horse at a time, in equestrian events. She followed her brother into motorsport, and soon became a force in International rallying, not merely in the Ladies' events that typically ran in parallel with the "real' rally, but overall as well, winning the rugged Liege-Sofia-Liege event in 1960 in an Austin-Healey.

In that year she also met Swedish rally champion Erik Carlsson, whom she married five years later. They had one child, a daughter.

I have always thought that motorsport was one sport where women could compete on a equal basis with men, because there is no particular advantage to be gained from upper body strength or size, areas where genetically, men typically are superior. Indeed, smaller, lighter bodies, and greater pain tolerance - if you're designed to give birth, you can withstand darn near anything - should give the advantage to women.

It's usually a cultural thing; women athletes simply don't tend to be attracted to motorsport.

Pat Moss was a proven exception.

Comments

[Mike T.]

Jim, thanks for letting us know that Pat Moss passed away. What a driver she was. I became aware of cars in 1964 and she was driving my favorite rally car of the time - a two-stroke Saab. How I wanted one of those but as a first year auto apprentice it wasn't going to happen. I lived through her, sliding gracefully sideways, through rally-stage snow.

[John]

When I first learned to drive, in 1960, I lived not far from the Moss's. I never saw much of Stirling, but Pat was a common sight around our country lanes, usually driving a two-stroke Saab 95 at absolutely impossible speeds (no blanket speed limits in those days). She was a hero of mine, and I used to follow her rally successes with great enthusiasm. Thanks Jim for passing this information on - and amazing that it took a Canadian newspaper to publish her death.

[Abdul]

I recall as a kid in Tanzania, East Africa ... Pat Moss was one of the best rally drivers and drove in many East African Safari rally and won in some. Check the video on youtube ....she and hubby won 2nd place in the 1964 rally ... Harambee!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkFEusFGO2M&feature=related