The latest episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast is something special. Friend of the show and Israeli TV MotoGP expert Tammy Gorali was at the first ever Women In Motorsports conference, organized by the FIM and the FIA, and there, she gathered a fascinating and diverse group of women to talk about how they view motorcycle racing, their role in it, and the challenges they face and the opportunities they see in racing.

Tammy had journalist and former team manager and PR officer Vanessa Guerra, FIM Women in Motorcycling Commission Director and former snowmobile racer Nita Korhonen, MotoAmerica racer Shelina Moreda, and MotoE and WorldSSP racer Maria Herrera on the show to give their perspective on both the conference and racing.

It produced some fascinating insights. Nita Korhonen talked about the paradox of being in a job for which the objective is to make it unnecessary. Vanessa Guerra talks about the difficulty of running a team as a woman. Both Shelina Moreda and Maria Herrera had interesting points to make about the physical challenges presented by racing motorcycles as a woman: smaller hands making operating clutch levers designed for male hands more difficult, positioning footpegs and bars correctly being more difficult on a production bike rather than a prototype, such as a MotoGP or Moto2 bike, and how leathers manufacturers are failing to produce leathers which fit the female anatomy properly.

It was a great conversation, above all about their passion for motorcycle racing. All five women talked about how deeply they are committed to motorsports, and how they want to share that passion with other women, as well as men. They talk about the opportunities presented by this first Women in Motorsports conference, but also about the shortcomings, and what could be done to improve things.

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