Girls Racing Team at Barcelona 24 hours

Back in 2013 the FIM and its Women in Motorcycling Commission started their Road Racing project. Its aim was to get more women into Road Racing and to improve their riding skills through the associated training camps.

Since its inception there have been a total of five training camps. These were organised at Albacete and Almeria circuits in Spain and at the legendary Brno circuit in the Czech Republic.

The camps have brought female riders and racers together from all over the world and they have become a great networking opportunity for the women. One example of this is the Girls Racing Team that will take part of the Barcelona 24 hours race this weekend coming.

The Girls Racing Team was created in 2013 by French Muriel Simorre, who has been one of the participants in the FIM Women´s Training camps. Simorre had previous experience of the 24h Barcelona and when she met Jolanda van Westrenen from Netherlands at the camp she asked her to join the team.

“We had a good feeling with each other and we kept contact after the camp. Jolanda was very happy to do the race last year and we finished 2nd in 600 cc class. It was a very great race,” Simorre explained.

This year the team has recruited a new rider after Melissa Paris who got to meet van Westrenen at the first FIM training camp and has now joined the group.

“The FIM helped me to meet some great riders and I am really happy about our team now.”

The team of these three women have clear target for the race.

“Our object for this year is to win the 600cc category and try to be inside the top ten in general classification,” Simorre said.

The FIM will continue to organise training camps in the future together with their partners Bike Promotion and BMW Motorrad, the next objective is to go further afield than Europe.

“We will soon launch our plans for the future, but indeed the plan is to also provide training for women outside of Europe,” said FIM Women in Motorcycling Commission director Nita Korhonen.

“The team which includes three strong riders, all whom have taken part in our training camps and will now participate Barcelona 24 hours with some ambitious, but realistic targets. This is just a great example of how these camps have been beneficial for the women not only to provide them with high level training, but also with a great networking opportunity and to offer them several possibilities to go racing. At the moment there are, for example two girls who took part of our camps competing in the European Junior Cup,” Korhonen continued.