ABSTRACT
This chapter explains in particular on how 'motoring' became a sport in Britain with significant female pioneers. A brief biographical overview of the career of Dorothy Levitt, the most famous female driver of the age, can illustrate some research challenges that remain until we know about a greater variety of personalities. Frederick Richard Simms hailed from an old Warwick-shire family but was born and educated in Germany, buying the rights to sell Daimler engines across the British Empire at the age of twenty-six. From equally privileged beginnings, the Self-Propelled Traffic Association became the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland in 1897, founded by Simms. The Automobile Association (AA) was formed in 1905 with the express intention of beating speed traps. When peace was declared and racing resumed, between 1920 and 1939 there would be the highest concentration of internationally famous women racing drivers at the circuit than there had been before, or would be at any single venue since.
