For the first time in its 49 year existence, history was made at the 24 Hours of Rouen race in France with an all-female team taking part in the race.
An international team consisting of Tammy Wolf, Marie-line Hericher, Bimba Sjoholm and Mette Bjerknaes took to the harsh waters of Rouen and finished fourth in their class and ninth overall.
“We generally drove for an hour-and-a-half to an hour and 45 minutes (before we switched) and the race was really rough. I mean really, really rough,” Wolf said. “We turned right instead of left and that kind of made my stomach upset.
“We’re so used to racing for 15 minutes over here, compared to an hour and 45 minutes over there, it’s just nuts. They also don’t stop barge traffic so they let commercial barges go through. The wakes off of that are just unbelievable.”
Driving for 24 hours straight and switching only when it came time to refuel, it took a toll on all the drivers.
To keep their total time down to a minimum the women would have to run all the way to the fuel doc, where they would get a refill of gasoline and the new driver would hop in, half high from the fumes of gas, according to Wolf.
“It was just a really, really neat experience and the federation was extremely nice to us girls. Even though it is a huge international event the past few years it has been mainly French drivers. So it was nice of them to have a whole international team of girls. It was pretty unique,” Wolf said.
“Everybody seemed very, very happy to have girls from Norway, Sweden and the USA there. They were very, very nice.”
Finishing the race ninth overall out of almost 40 boats, on what some people call one of the roughest courses in the world, is way more than Wolf could have expected.
She went in with no expectations, only hoping for the best, her and her teammate’s hopes were far surpassed.
“A lot of people ask me about making history and being the first 12 North American woman or Canadian there or making history with this team. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. For me it was just a really cool race,” Wolf said.
“I went in there with no expectations and just to finish is a huge honor. So a fourth place finish is incredible, it’s absolutely incredible.”