Caption Contest......

[GD66]

She is still about, living in Queensland these days. She was pretty quick on a Mach III Kawasaki, then  a Yamaha TR2, particularly at Amaroo.

[Gippslander]

Peggy was (as the story goes) taught to roadrace by Lindsay Love from Hartwell MCC, she was fearless on the Mach III 500 -- high speed wobble and all -- Phillip Island never saw her coming and neither did the fellas when she rounded them all up for a sensational win 

[mx250]

Peggy cut a pretty mean line around Oran Park as well  .

Some neat pixies in this article of Peggy.


"If you're a motorcycle racing enthusiast you may remember the name Peggy Hyde.

Peggy was a competitive racer in the late sixties and early seventies, a time when only men raced motorbikes.

She was also the first woman in the world to be granted an unrestricted racing licence, but the acquisition of that licence came with a fight.

Despite good performances in her early races she was issued with a 250cc restricted licence after she revealed she was a woman.

"And this is something that would normally be done as a penalty, or for a junior..." explains Ms Hyde.

"And so I actually bypassed the Victorian committee and went to the national committee... and I got back an apology and an open licence and I had no idea at the time that this was a worldwide first".

Ms Hyde encountered all manner of discrimination during the nine years she was racing.

Newspaper articles from the time printed her bust, waist and hip measurements, and comments like "She is a natural rider, braking, cornering and handling her machine like man" were common.

Ms Hyde describes some of the journalists at the time as "quite "irritating" with their sexist questions.

"It was just because of the cultural background somehow women were supposed to be incompetent at driving and so on..."

Ms Hyde says she had a natural talent for racing and was particularly lethal through corners, likening chasing down other riders on the track to "hunting".

"For road racing in particular you don't need to have brute strength when it comes to judgement and understanding what's happening, it's silly to think that women would be less competent.."

Despite her success on the track Ms Hyde says after a time she started to question what the sport was about.

"Because it was promoting a lot of noise and fuel and after a while I started to have wider concerns about it because of the environmental issues".

"And maybe I was just getting older and more sensible".

Ms Hyde still has a motorbike licence but seldom rides these days."

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/03/01/3152103.htm