105 replies to this topic

[Magee]

Back in 1979 in Labatt's Formula Atlantic series the second race of the season, after Long Beach, Calif., was at Westwood. Apparently Fred Opert, team owner, had Keke Rosberg as the main driver. (Rosberg won the 1978 race at Westwood)
Opert was considering, in 1979, the addition of Galica as a driver when Rosberg was busy with Formula 1 assignment. She had been part of the Hesketh team in Formula One. Opert was eager to get a woman into the sport.
Boy Hayje, a Netherland driver, was also mentioned as a possibility for Opert's team, sponsored by condom manufacturer Julius Schmid.
Anyone out there able to comment on the history of these two drivers?

[Rob29]

Not Davine or divine but Davina! Was an Olympic standard skier until invited to celeb Escort race at Brands Hatch,which I think she won.Was then promoted by John Webb, then boss of Brands Hatch Group.First in Special saloons,then a Surtees F1 in the British Shellsport Libre series.This lead to three unsucessful attempts to qualify for WC F1.Since seen mainly in sportscars.Last seen in a US Panoz series a year or so ago.

[Frank de Jong]

Hayje raced in F2 for Opert in 1978, not doing too well; he was replaced by Bleekemolen at the end of the season; his frontline career was over by then, though he raced sporadically in touring cars in 1979; went to the US, raced BMW's and had a few good outings in a Lola-Mazda group C junior car (1983 IIRC).
Never heard the Atlantic story, can't imagine Opert wanted to go on with Hayje.

[theunions]

Originally posted by Rob29
Since seen mainly in sportscars.Last seen in a US Panoz series a year or so ago.

I believe she still works at one of the east coast-based US driving schools (a Skip Barber location?).

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Rob29
Not Davine or divine but Davina!

Or to be even more correct, Divina

[Alexey Rogachev]

I have seen both Divina and Davina in various sources...

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by David McKinney

Or to be even more correct, Divina

Divine she may be, but it's definitely Davina.

[Rainer Nyberg]

If she is Davina, she seems to prefer Divina, or...?

[Geoff E]

Whilst spelling mistakes are not unknown on the Net , Googling "Divina Galica" (now there's a thought!) gives 5490 hits, whereas "Davina Galica" gives a mere 55.

[Vitesse2]

Well, b*gger me!

/beats himself senseless with rolled-up copy of Motor Sport ...

Nice pic Rainer!

[ensign14]

I am sure she used a black helmet with gold stripe with the name 'DIVINA' on it, in the 1980s, as well...

[2F-001]

Doesn't the smile, and more particularly the eyes, remind you of another - more celebrated - driver?

[mohrgan]

Davina(Divina?) was an instructor at the Skip Barber Racing School in the US for a while. This was around 1997. I haven't raced with them in a while so I don't know if she is still there.
She is an extremely nice person with an awesome sense of humor and knows her **** about racing and driving fast.

[RTH]

Be in no doubt at all it is DIVINA - Tony Lanfranchi used to call he Divi.

[Magee]

Rainer,
What was the date of your foto?

Also, did she ever get a ride in Formula Atlantic?

[Rainer Nyberg]

Magee, I have no exact date but it is circa 1978-1979, I would guess 1978. She drove an Olympus Cameras backed Hesketh 308C that year.

Seems like she entered at least once in Formula Atlantic in '78. She took a Chevron B48 to fifth at Hamilton in August.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Some additional info can be read below, courtesy of KML Racing :

[Magee]

2F-001, I'm sure you're thinking about the Jim Clark resemblance.

Rainer, thanks for the webpage of Divina's accomplishments. She's worthy of the MBE. Interesting to read that her family once lived in Seattle, only a few hours south of my home in Vancouver.

Thanks for updating her history from 1979 at Westwood. TNF'ers are unmatched.

[LittleChris]

Originally posted by Rainer Nyberg
Some additional info can be read below, courtesy of KML Racing :

What the hell is a top 10-win ??????

[dolomite]

Here's a series of pictures I took of Divina in one of those 'grueling endurance races', Brands Hatch 1000Km 1984:

[ensign14]

Ah, the Grid (GA-01?). Great looking Group C/C2 motor with distinctive nose assembly. Sponsored by Mayfair magazine...Lord knows what her personal sponsor appearances were like...

[2F-001]

Originally posted by Magee
2F-001, I'm sure you're thinking about the Jim Clark resemblance.

Yes, Magee, I am. I don't mean anything crytic or conspiratorial by that, by the way! It just struck me when I'd seen similar portrait shots of her before. A rather fine driver, I always thought her to be.

[JacnGille]

I always remember the pic of her playing chess in the 1978-79 Autocourse. The caption reads: "...Her game was like her driving: she was slow and used all the board."

[Ross Stonefeld]

She's still with the Skip Barber crew. I dont know her official title but she's senior position and basically is in charge of all the amateur/regional level racing

[Mike Argetsinger]

The Autocourse quote (above) notwithstanding - Divina is a very quick driver. I wonder if the individual so intent on turning that particular clever phrase ever had the experience of approaching Paddock Bend at full song in a proper race car. It's very easy to pigeon hole a driver through that kind of remark - but what was really known or understood about the circumstances that prompted the comment? Divina is the real deal and can still make them fly!

[Magee]

Mike, the Autocourse writer was expressing the typical view of writers back then. It should be instantly dismissed as ancient thinking. Probably the writer had never seen the inside of a race car, anyway. Divina's history has shown her to be otherwise on the track or on a pair of skiis. Maybe her chess was not so good, but most of us have the same problem.
Magee

[dolomite]

Originally posted by ensign14
Ah, the Grid (GA-01?). Great looking Group C/C2 motor with distinctive nose assembly.

Here's another pic taken before it broke

[Pedro 917]

As I was scanning an 1975 Autocar article of Chris Amon in the P4, I saw this item on Divina in a Eoin Young column "From the Grid" :

Davina (that's how it was spelled) Galica, the slip of a lady ski champion who has recently turned her attention to cars, was telling me about her experiences with single-seaters in Formula Ford racing. Did she have any problems in adjusting to the sight of four naked wheels? "Well, I did do one circle," she confessed prettily. How nice. Just imagine a clod of a Grand Prix driver describing a tyre-smoking, heart-stopping spin as "a circle". Quaint, but a pleasant delicate, lady-like touch to racing. And how was she treated by the other drivers? "Oh, all right really, until some little bastard locked wheels with me and sent me off into the barrier........" Oh well, once a racer always a racer.

[WGD706]

Divina Galica Named Senior VP of Racing for Skip Barber
Written by: RACER staff
Lakeville, Conn. – 1/26/2004


Divina Galica, formerly the managing director of the five Skip Barber Formula Dodge Race Series (the four Regionals, plus the Formula Dodge National Championship Presented by RACER has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Racing for the company, overseeing long-term strategy of all the Skip Barber amateur championships.
Galica, 55, has been a racer longer than she cares to admit ("I was racing in Formula Ford against Nigel Mansell!"), and even had an F1 start or two to her credit. In 1976, she finished fourth in the the Shellsport F5000 championship in a Surtees TS16/Ford. She's a former record-holding Olympic speed skier, and, since women are not able to be knighted, England's royalty rewarded her with the highest honor for a female, an MBE ("Member of the British Empire").
Skip Barber Racing is seeking a managing director of national and regional race series to replace Galica.
http://www.speedtv.c...oindustry/9542/

[Doug Nye]

Originally posted by WGD706
...and, since women are not able to be knighted, England's royalty rewarded her with the highest honor for a female, an MBE ("Member of the British Empire").http://www.speedtv.c...oindustry/9542/

MBE - fine. Highest hono{u}r for a female. I do not think so....

DCN

[Tim Murray]

Nor does it stand for 'Member of the British Empire' . . .

[WGD706]

Please don't kill the messenger! I just posted what was written in the article!
Would someone educate me as to what MBE does stand for and what the highest hono(u)r for an English female would be?
Thanks
Warren

[isynge]

Originally posted by WGD706
Please don't kill the messenger! I just posted what was written in the article!
Would someone educate me as to what MBE does stand for and what the highest hono(u)r for an English female would be?
Thanks
Warren

At risk of sounding facetious, people often regard a "My Bloody Effort" as being worth more than an "Other Bugger's Effort"...

Or is that not entirely constructive?

[Richard Jenkins]

Originally posted by WGD706
Please don't kill the messenger! I just posted what was written in the article!
Would someone educate me as to what MBE does stand for and what the highest hono(u)r for an English female would be?
Thanks
Warren

Dame is the effective equivalent of Sir, but it is not the highest honour. I believe Margaret Thatcher is a Companion of Honour or something like that, which is generally refined to a very select group indeed & I think that is the highest honour possible for anyone, male or female.
As far as Ms. Galica is concerned, Dame is the best she can hope for but I'd be very surprised if she ended up with that title!

As for the "Three celebrity ones":-

Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE); Officer of the Order of the
British Empire (OBE); Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).


I am a member of the British Empire, as is every inhabitant of my town, but I am not a Member of the Order of the British Empire - well, not yet, anyway



Warren, I will shoot you on one point - British female - not "English"


And to think, if Germany hadn't invaded Poland and all their airmen came to Britain (and good thing too ) then Divina would never have existed.... (or my sister's fiancee for that matter)

[WGD706]

Thanks for the enlightenment!
Which did Mick Jagger receive, which Keith Richards was not too keen on and Rod Stewart hasn't received yet?
Have you seen "The Dark Blue World"..it's about Czech pilots who joined up with the RAF to fight the Germans. The film's politics are based on real events; when the Czech pilots who flew for the RAF returned home, they were treated as the enemy, not as heroes, and there are scenes from 1950 in which the pilots who survived the war are subject to jail and torture in their own land.
Very good film.
Warren

[ensign14]

The highest honour for a woman is "Queen"...

Technically the highest honour anyone can be awarded is the Victoria Cross, which is a military decoration, followed by the George Cross (its civilian equivalent). Next up is being made a Knight of the Noble Order of the Garter (KG), followed by its Scottish (Thistle - how is it awarded? A committee sits on it ) and Irish (St Patrick) equivalents (there are no KPs left and it is no longer awarded). These can be awarded to women as well. Baroness Thatcher is a KG. The KG is limited to 24 recipients and is in the personal gift of the Queen.

[Allen Brown]

Originally posted by ensign14
The highest honour for a woman is "Queen"...

Technically the highest honour anyone can be awarded is the Victoria Cross, which is a military decoration, followed by the George Cross (its civilian equivalent). Next up is being made a Knight of the Noble Order of the Garter (KG), followed by its Scottish (Thistle - how is it awarded? A committee sits on it ) and Irish (St Patrick) equivalents (there are no KPs left and it is no longer awarded). These can be awarded to women as well. Baroness Thatcher is a KG. The KG is limited to 24 recipients and is in the personal gift of the Queen.

"Queen" isn't an honour, it's a hereditary title and it's only open to Germans anyway (when the revolution comes, etc, etc).

Or does that mean the highest honour available to Divi is to marry "Prince" Charles and become (barrring revolutions) Queen Consort?

Nowadays, the highest honour is actually a life peerage (Lady Divi of Connecticut?) as hereditary peerages aren't given out any more. After that, you get into the "orders of chivalry" of which, as ensign14 says, The Most Noble Order of the Garter (KG) is the highest ranking in England and The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle in Scotland (KT).

Yes, the VC (and even the GC) takes precedence over the KG and KT but it's not really part of the same system. The main reason for this is that Conrad Black, Rupert Murdoch or Jonathan Aitken can buy a KG or KT but they can't buy a VC.

Allen

PS Before anyone suggests it, Purley won the George Medal, not the George Cross.

[philippe7]

I just love it when TNF discussions stretch far away from motor racing , and into intersting subjects, like from Moll and Lehoux's nationality to the way the colonial system worked in different "empires" , or from Divina Galica to the various levels of honours in the UK......there is so much to learn from a live international database like the TNF members.... great ! Many thanks to everyone.

PS : .....and now I will properly refer to my late friend Barry Sheene as a "Member of the ORDER of the British Empire" !

[anjakub]

11 January 1931 - ghymkhana in Zakopane (Poland). In category amateurs 5th place took a man named Galica. He drove Fiat.
Galica is popular name on Podhale (region at the foot of Tatra mountains). From there descended Divina's father.

[Rob29]

Originally posted by anjakub
11 January 1931 - ghymkhana in Zakopane (Poland). In category amateurs 5th place took a man named Galica. He drove Fiat.
Galica is popular name on Podhale (region at the foot of Tatra mountains). From there descended Divina's father.

What is (or was ) a 'ghymkhana' ? Nearest english equivalent is for horses jumping over fences.

[David McKinney]

We had (have?) car gymkhanas in NZ, and I think Australia does too.
Known in the UK as driving tests or autotests - you know, slaloms, garaging tests, that sort of thing.

[Mallory Dan]

Any thoughts chaps, other than the obvious that she only got where she did thanks to the John Webb/MCD marketing efforts. (Btw the Stirling/Viagra thread is NOT the reason I thought of Divi...)

I reckon she was no more than a reasonable UK National/Club racer, though she occasionally looked somewhat better than this. Any idea where she is now, or if she maintained any contact with the Sport after about 1980 ?

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by Mallory Dan
Any thoughts chaps, other than the obvious that she only got where she did thanks to the John Webb/MCD marketing efforts. (Btw the Stirling/Viagra thread is NOT the reason I thought of Divi...)

I reckon she was no more than a reasonable UK National/Club racer, though she occasionally looked somewhat better than this. Any idea where she is now, or if she maintained any contact with the Sport after about 1980 ?

Last heard (by me at least) of in possibly the most futile one-make championship ever - the Ford P100 Pickup Challenge - in about 1990. I think Keith Holland also turned up in it at one point.

Even by the standards of 1990s one-make racing that was bloody pointless.

[Rob29]

Was still racing in USA or canadian Historic racing last season.

[FLB]

Originally posted by Rob29
Was still racing in USA or canadian Historic racing last season.

I confirm I met her at the Sommet des Légendes in Mont-Tremblant last year. She raced in Historic F2 and also drove a Chevron B16.

[scheivlak]

See http://www.kmlracing...vina/Divina.htm (link provided by Richie Jenkins on the Forix page: http://www.forix.com...=1946081300&c=0)

It's Galica BTW....

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by scheivlak

It's Galica BTW....

Correct...

[mcurtis26]

She raced in about 1999 in the ALMS supporting women only championship (can;t remember the name) think it was in Panoz GTs

[Magee]

She's also mentioned in the Women Racer's thread from a few months ago.

[Gary C]

doesn't her husband now design circuits in the US??