‘I’m a girl, not a boy’ – Will championships create more female racers?

Media playback is not supported on this device Overtaking cars at speeds of up to 80mph in a petrol-driven vehicle. It is hot and it is tough but only if you are a boy in a motorbike.

Nick Brown isn’t an ordinary boy.

Two years ago he was a young wild west rider, at ease with a 45 horsepower Honda motorcycle and realising that racing was on his horizon.

However in a red-hot winter in Albuquerque in 2012, Nick’s life was upended by an experience he’s been unable to shake off since.

“I was riding I don’t know how many times when one of the bikers I was racing against got into an accident. When I got there, he didn’t have a pulse,” Nick tells BBC’s regional business programme, Women’s Wear Daily.

Three years on and three million YouTube views later – dubbed ‘the girl behind the biker’ – Brown has proved how right his mother was when she warned him not to race while his brother Luke was doing it – that it could kill him.

Nick has taken her advice to heart as this whirlwind journey led her to the very pinnacle of young racing – a world championships battle between American boys in a series created for female riders called the LGS Supercross Series.

Make no mistake, it is a highly competitive field – featuring American hot rods, hypermobiles and the odd drift bike alongside the new, more formalised style of race in which competitors lap the 1.5 mile main track.

“There are racers in this series that you wouldn’t even consider the best in the United States,” Nick admits.

Sporting women in motorsport How many women are in racing today? Year Supercross (no women – 2016 and 2017 – open category) 2016 FIA F1 2016 Formula 3 (only female competitive driver – 2016 – pace woman, Flavia Cittadini) 2013 F1 2014 Rally Car 2010 World Rally Championship 2017 and 2018: Rally car 1000cc/500cc 2009Formula Two 2011 TUDOR Championship 2009: World GT 2018: US GT

“Being the top racer in this series would allow me to provide a future for my daughter one day.”

Bumping up against friends and big old brothers in the men’s circuit is a different world for the 18-year-old but she is ready for the challenge.

“I like to think I’m pretty good at my job, but that’s not the end of it,” she says.

“I’m still getting my stuff together on a personal level and I’m not confident, so a title would be a huge leap. It would make it possible for me to have everything I really want but I’m not there yet.”

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