Two wheels
to the podium

>>Montrealer Vanessa Gareau speeds
her way onto the motorbike racing scene

TAKING IT TO THE GUYS: Gareau (L) with friend

by CHRIS BARRY

Every once in a while, and not that often either, you randomly decide to give some activity a trial whirl and immediately realize this is something you were meant to do all your life. The something in question could be anything, of course—a new occupation, yoga, Jesus, heroin, it doesn’t really matter. But once you’ve welcomed this element into your world, you find yourself becoming pretty damn passionate about it.

For 32-year-old Montrealer Vanessa Gareau, that something was motorcycle racing. “I’ve always loved fast things,” recalls Gareau, who, since first climbing onto a bike in 2003, has gone on to become one of the fastest amateur women in the sport. “When I was a kid learning to ski, my instructor would call up my mother telling her I was nuts because I was always, no matter what the situation, trying to go as fast as possible. So I guess nobody was all that surprised to see me get into motorcycle racing a little later in life.”

Gareau says she realized she was “meant to ride” only a few short years ago, after sitting on the back of her then boyfriend’s motorcycle too many times while yearning to take control of the hawg herself. So, in 2004, she took and passed the requisite government motorcycle courses to get her licence, and then, only two weeks later, lucked into an opening at the FAST Riding School in Shannonville, Ontario, “where something just clicked. Right then and there, I realized how much I loved racing and never bothered riding on the street again. And it was all on a whim—I just figured racing might be fun, you know?”

¡Andale mujer!

One year later, in the spring of 2005, a committed Gareau “began to pursue motorcycle racing seriously,” coincidentally right around the time the newly launched Canadian Women’s Cup series was getting off the ground. “I got involved in the Women’s Cup series and won the Novice Championship that year. It felt pretty good and gave me even more momentum to keep racing,” she recalls.

Since then, Gareau has consistently found herself in the winner’s circle, and not always while racing other chicks in the Women’s Cup series either. In fact, often as not, Gareau finds herself racing against men. In particular, when the sport takes her to the Dominican Republic, where she remains the first and only woman to ever have stood on the podium come the end of a race.

“The first time I raced there, I came in third place,” she states proudly, “but the second time, I won. And being a woman who wins races in the Dominican Republic is huge. I mean, they’ve never seen girls race motorcycles before, let alone come in first. The Dominican women love the fact that I win. The last time I raced in the DR, there were all these women cheering me from the stands, screaming, ‘Women can do it, women can do it!’ over and over again. And when I came in after winning the race, I couldn’t even get off my bike. I was swarmed by so many people, it was crazy, signing autographs and posing for all these pictures. It seems I always do well racing in the DR—I’ve never not wound up on the podium there.”

And how does her winning go down with the men in this Latin nation, well known for its macho culture and attitudes? “Well, the guys—at least the ones I’m racing against, and especially the ones I’m beating—they don’t love it so much,” she acknowledges with a laugh. “I guess they’re accepting it with better spirit these days, but they get bugged a lot when I win. Their friends really tease them about losing to a girl, saying stuff like, ‘You’re her bitch now,’ and that kind of thing. Let’s just say you get a lot of attention anywhere when you’re a girl at the race track,” she adds, “but truthfully, more often than not, the attention is positive. Still, when I do come across negative attitudes towards women, it totally fuels me to win, totally gets me going, and then if I do win, well yeah, it feels unbelievably great.”

Mix and match

“In the U.S. and Canada,” Gareau continues, “women have been competing for a few years now so the guys have gotten more used to it and pretty well treat us as equals. They’re certainly every bit as aggressive with us on the track, maybe even more so because they don’t want to lose to a girl. You need to remember that, up until a few years ago, this was totally a male-dominated sport. You’d find maybe one girl participating here and there but that was about it.

LETTING INERTIA WORK:
At the Canadian Women’s Cup

“Nevertheless, when the Canadian Women’s Cup first came about, we got slack from certain female racers in the States who said that by launching a Women’s Cup series we were setting women back, suggesting that we couldn’t compete against men. Some feminists still have that point of view but the Women’s Cup has brought a lot of girls into the sport—it’s sent the message out that girls can do this too. And now a lot of us expert girls—and some novices too—don’t only compete in the Women’s Cup but in a lot of ‘mixed’ series as well, and we’ve only started calling them ‘mixed’ lately because it’s suddenly no longer exclusively guys competing.”

Gareau says she has no doubt the Women’s Cup is responsible for the recent influx of Canadian women getting into the sport. “It’s opened so many doors for us”, she says. “We’re even starting to see manufacturers come out with racing gear designed for women. Only a few years ago, it was impossible to find a suit that fit, unlike for men, where you could always just get one off the rack. Anyway, with racing, it doesn’t much matter so much what gender you are. When the bike is moving, it’s inertia that keeps the bike up, it’s not so much about physical strength—although racing is definitely a physically demanding sport. I mean, you’re totally wiped out after a race, physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s exhausting. You come home and you’re sore everywhere, even in parts you didn’t know you had.”

“WOMEN CAN DO IT!” Racing in the Dominican Republic

Bumps, bruises and balls

As to be expected from any activity that involves charging around a race track on two wheels at speeds closing in on 300 kilometres per hour, Gareau has had her fair share of scrapes, bruises and injuries, the most serious, fortunately, being a relatively minor collarbone injury that put her out of commission for several weeks in 2006.

“I’ve had a lot of close calls though. But you have to accept that accidents will happen in this sport, as they do in any sport. But,” she continues after a short, reflective pause, “you can’t think of this stuff while you’re racing because if you do, well, you probably shouldn’t be racing in the first place. You’re never going to win if you’re worried about this sort of thing. The bottom line is, and excuse the irony, but you need balls to win in this sport.”

And while Gareau might have discovered motorcycle racing just a little too late in life to have it pay out the really big bucks, dangerous or not, at 32 she has no intention of calling it quits anytime soon.

“I love everything about racing. Since I started, my life has completely changed. It’s almost as though it’s given it meaning, although I know that might sound kind of stupid. Still, I just love the adrenaline, the thrill of being on a racetrack—it’s like being on a roller coaster but you’re controlling it. And then there’s the competition, just setting a goal for yourself to beat a certain rider and then, when you actually do beat them, let me tell you, the satisfaction is like nothing you could possibly imagine.”

For more information on Vanessa
Gareau and the Canadian Women’s
Cup series, go to womenscup.ca