Mary McGee, motorbike racing pioneer, 1936-2024

At the Canadian Grand Prix this year, a woman with a shock of white hair captured the hearts of Formula One fans. Sitting in a wheelchair, Mary McGee, the first American woman licensed to race motorcycles, still had the air of the pioneer about her.

In a glittering career, McGee was a trailblazer in the masculine world of motorsport, passing men on and off the road. She started out driving cars, but quickly discovered a talent for competing on two wheels.

In Quebec, McGee was pictured alongside another pioneer: Sir Lewis Hamilton. Long before the first Black F1 world champion racer was even born, McGee was breaking down barriers.

Hamilton, an executive producer on a film about McGee’s life that premiered at the Tribeca festival this year, paid tribute after her death last month. “I had the honour to meet Mary and help support a short documentary about her incredible journey. Her grit and unshakeable determination will continue to inspire me, always,” he said.

McGee was born in Juneau, Alaska, on December 12 1936. Her father soon left the family. The outbreak of the second world war shaped her childhood. Sailors feared the Japanese threat to the coastline, but her mother, a nurse, couldn’t leave town. So at five years old, McGee was sent to live with her grandparents in Iowa. Her brother, Jim, four years her senior, watched out for her on the train.

She remembered feeding chickens in her new home. It was “scary” without her mother. Jim taught her to keep her cool, something that would serve her well on the racing track. “I guess I learned not to worry,” she said in the Motorcycle Mary documentary.

After a year, they were reunited with their mother, and eventually relocated to Phoenix. Not long after graduating from high school in 1954, McGee was introduced to the sport that would make her a legend when Jim, already a racer, asked the fateful question: “Mary, do you wanna drive in the Porsche?”

“I thought it was a joke,” she said in the documentary. “It scared the piss out of me. I’m telling you, I wanted to wet my pants.” But she mastered the fear and began to win races. In 1956 she married Don McGee, a mechanic who supported her ambitions.

She could barely believe it when Vasek Polake, a Porsche dealer and racing businessman, suggested that she race bikes. “The view on women still was, ‘They’re second class, they need to stay home and cook and raise the kids, they’re not supposed to be out having fun with us guys,’” she said. “But I didn’t pay any attention to it because I was having too much fun.”

The American Federation of Motorcyclists offered her a trial. In 1960 she became the first woman in the US to hold a licence from the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, a global governing body of competitive motorsport. Almost six feet tall, McGee was a striking competitor.

It was the actor Steve McQueen who encouraged her to branch out from road racing. “Mary McGee,” he urged, “you have got to get off that pansy road-racing bike of yours and come up to the desert.” The transition was a success — she became the first woman to finish the tough Baja 1000 in 1967.

In 1975, with the oil price shock still fresh in the memory, she made history as the first person to complete the Baja 500 solo on a bike — who needs a two-man team? “Not woman but person,” she said. “I’m quite proud of that feat.” Even so, an “ironman” trophy went to a man who drove a car solo.

McGee’s journey was gruelling. Tragedy struck when her brother died in a racing crash in 1964, but it didn’t deter her because it was the car not the driver. “Jim would’ve wanted me to fight back, so that’s what I did,” she said.

Away from racing, McGee suffered injuries in a car accident; while in hospital she discovered she was pregnant. In the 1970s, she and her husband divorced after 20 years of marriage. McGee, who worked for Motorcyclist magazine while still racing, overcame big hurdles to leave an indelible mark on the industry.

Modern motorsport, including F1, still grapples with how to get women behind the wheel at the pinnacle of competition, and in recent years McGee’s accomplishments have gained recognition across the industry. In 2012 at a gala in Monte Carlo, the FIM named her as one of its legends.

The awards kept coming. “Drinks Gas, Spits Nails,” read the inscription on her American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame ring from 2018. Her death at the age of 87 on November 27 elicited tributes from admirers around the world, including Hamilton. “Her legacy will live on as a trailblazer in the world of motorsports and beyond,” he said.