Rosemary Smith is still motoring through life at full speed

Rosemary Smith beat the men in the 1960s when women were considered arm candy in motorsports, and off the road she has survived heartache and being “stony broke”, says Margaret Jennings.

BACK in the mid-1960s, she was the ‘blonde dolly bird’ who grabbed the headlines with her winning spirit and dogged determination as a rally driver.

For those of a younger generation to appreciate the impact Dubliner Rosemary Smith made, think of the TV series Mad Men and the sexist attitude of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency males towards any attractive female.