Last Update: 13 November 2025
Today marks the official retirement of RaceGirl (formerly www.racegirl.nl), the world’s first online community dedicated to women in motorcycling and motorsport. While it’s bittersweet to see the site go offline, her legacy continues through MOTORESS, created as RaceGirl’s natural successor. After over a decade of worldwide contribution and community-building, RaceGirl Motorsport has finished its race so MOTORESS can carry the vision forward.
MOTORESS was born to carry RaceGirl’s vision forward, yet it’s never easy to pull the plug on a community that riders across the globe have called home. Creating and running the first dedicated female motorsport website for motorcycling has been an indescribable privilege — one that, to the best of our research and knowledge, remains a one-of-a-kind achievement worldwide.
RaceGirl: The World’s First Online Community for Women Motorcycle Riders
It began in early spring 1998. By January 1999, RaceGirl Motorsport (racegirl.nl) was a thriving website —and what a hit she became. Year after year her audience grew, attracting curiosity, admiration, and industry attention. She became so popular that she even generated additional internet traffic for the completely unrelated American T-shirt brand of the same name, RaceGirl — despite their focus on NASCAR car culture, not motorcycles.
MOTORESS was born to offer a broader home than RaceGirl could. The name “RaceGirl ” naturally pointed to racing — something close to my heart, but not always a realistic goal for every woman. MOTORESS embraces all women who ride, or dream of riding, whether they’re racing, touring, commuting, or just beginning to explore the idea. Many readers always saw beyond the “race” in RaceGirl, recognising the real message: women portrayed with no limits, intelligence, skill, sophistication, and femininity. MOTORESS carries that same spirit, but in a way that speaks to every rider.
For nearly a decade — long before most people even considered women a visible force in motorsport —RaceGirl encouraged, supported, and motivated women of all ages. Riders and enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds and countries around the world found a place to learn, ask questions, share stories, and discover that motorsport and motorcycling belonged to them, too.
So while many of us are bidding farewell to RaceGirl as a website, she’ll never disappear from our hearts. She lives on in every woman who discovered motorcycling through her pages — and in MOTORESS, the platform she evolved into. For me especially, she will always be rooted in what started it all: my own passion for racing, from a true race girl’s soul.
Three cheers RaceGirl and in the language of your birth country, The Netherlands —“Gefeliciteerd! Lang zal ze leven in de Gloria”! ♥
