Michèle Mouton was in. From the start. She never doubted Josie Rimmer and she never doubted the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit.
It’s December, 2021. Josie has been working on a series of stories about women in motorsport and she’s come to one conclusion: there’s not enough subject matter. Instead of writing another piece bemoaning the lack of representation, Josie used the clean sheet of paper for something much more powerful.
“I have a plan,” she said. “Let’s bring women in motorsport together for a summit. And let’s do it in March to align with International Women’s Day. And let’s…”
Pause. She took a breath.
“… let’s ask Michèle Mouton if she would be involved.”
From the McRae Room it started. Just 75 people crammed into a DirtFish class room for year one in 2022
She was in. Getting the world’s most successful woman driver in the history of the World Rally Championship to the inaugural summit wasn’t possible. Instead, Mouton guest edited a month of Women in Motorsport-focused content on DirtFish.com throughout March.
And got on a plane heading west, 12 months later.
The first DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit was a seminal moment. It was also a significant step into the unknown. The first ever woman to race for McLaren, Emma Gilmour, was joining us live from her native New Zealand… or she would be once we got the right plug in the right socket. We got there.
Go time.
Now Defender Dakar driver Sara Price was another Summit #1 star, along with ARA co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino and Lia Block. The McRae Room (DirtFish’s biggest classroom) was packed. Standing room wasn’t a thing.
The Summit moved into a tent for 2023. That tent was filled with fans, as well as laughter, emotion and passion
Spilling outside, there were thrill rides and perfect vibes as 75 guests lived and loved the moment.
A day later and it was decision time. Did Josie dare to think bigger?
“We could put a tent in the car park,” she said. “We could probably double the capacity if we think people would come.”
People came. Michèle Mouton being one of them. Pernilla Solberg being another.
And when it came time for the panelists to make their entrance, the emotion was off the charts. An hour earlier, the tent had been mostly empty and Josie’s worst fears sat right before her eyes.
Now? Now it was different. As Josie led the women through, the applause began as a ripple and built to a wave. My co-worker Michelle Miller was last in and as she walked in, she paused and gasped. The occasion and the gravitas hit her hard.
And it really was standing room only through the 2023 Summit
Just as well she didn’t look behind her. With the tent now totally packed, the crowd at the door was 10 deep and building. A solution was found by beaming the livestream onto the big screen in the McRae Room. It was surreal to hear the laughter from the car park before it bounced up and down to space before coming out of the speakers next door, a nanosecond later.
But it was the French Michèle who delivered my lasting memory of year two. I’ve been fortunate to know and work with her for more than two decades and I’ve always appreciated the world champion mentality she brings. It’s an inner-steel allied to self-belief hewn from granite. It’s what it takes to drive a Group B Audi quattro to victory on a world championship rally.
What we saw in March 2023 was different. By her own admission, the Summit caught Mouton by surprise.
“It was the first time I thought, I really thought, about what I achieved in the last 40 years,” she said. “People were coming to me, they were holding my hands and they were crying. I didn’t understand why they were crying, but then I saw the emotion and I saw the passion. They really showed me that I am a role model and what this means.”
That’s what happens when worlds collide and legends are in town for the Summit.
Michèle Mouton's time at the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit helped her understand the impact she'd had on the sport
Last year, the tent got bigger again. And guess what? Yep, it got filled again. And the livestream went around the world. Again.
In just three short years, the Summit hadn’t become part of a conversation, it had become the conversation – talked about in the corridors of power within the FIA, the WRC, in F1. With incredible friends and co-workers like Kelley Clausen-Walters, Zander Lozano and Millers Kendra and Michelle standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her, phase two was planned to take the 2025 event to the next level. But before that, another trajectory…
Step forward Michele Abbate and Aoife Raftery, our first two DirtFish Women in Motorsport Drivers. These two are truly taking the message from the Summit and sending it around the world.
You’ll have seen a picture on our social channels this week – it’s Raftery driving away from a ceremonial start of a European Rally Championship round and high-fiving a young fan standing behind the barrier. That picture encapsulates all that Josie’s been striving for: empowerment for the next generation.
Josie Rimmer is the visionary behind the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Summit. The last four years have given her plenty of stories...
The original remit is kind of done with. Now? There’s no shortage of subject matter.
But don’t even think about closing the book just yet, there’s a chapter involving one of Formula 1’s most successful women in history coming to share a tale or two of her own.
Claire Williams, live with Josie Rimmer at LeMay – America’s Car Musuem, with AT&T and Teradek taking care of beaming the stream to planet earth’s four corners.
Before Saturday even starts, take a bow Josie.
The picture that tells the whole story: Aoife Raftery doing her work, inspiring the next generation
