"All We Women Did ..."

Among all the ceaseless points of competition between the male and female of the species, at least one area of male superiority has long been supposed unchallenged: women are lousy drivers, men are great. Last week that illusion, too, was shattered. In one of the most competitive of U.S. driving tests, the 2,061-mile, five-day Mobilgas Economy Run from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, women won the most coveted honors.

Permitted to participate in the Mobil-gas contest only since 1957, womankind furnished 20 of the 56 drivers in the 1960 run. Among them were a grandmother, seven housewives, a bobbysoxer, a women's-club president, a would-be astronaut and a cafe singer. The run is publicly billed by automakers as a true test of miles-per-gallon efficiency. But most of Detroit agrees that the skill of the driver makes about a 25% difference. Last week, in the top three of the competition's six classes, woman drivers took two firsts, one second.

To salve male souls, the female showing was not entirely based on driving skills. Explains blonde Mary Davis, 31,3 Hollywood restaurant owner and the driver of the winning Plymouth Belvedere in the low-price, eight-cylinder class: "We women did damned well in the mouth department--and we didn't do too badly in the driving either." At the stops along the course, the women indeed did a good job of talking their male competitors into states of nervous exhaustion. Said Mary Davis: "Anyone who's on the road for hours at a time like this is inclined to be tense and irritable anyhow. All we women did was say things like 'Gee, Woody, you don't look well,' and help the men get more irritated faster. I saw one guy break down and start bawling like a baby after the first day, when he found out we were leading him."

To tall, slim Mary Hauser, a Hollywood housewife who knows little about the innards of automobiles ("I don't even know where the oil stick is"), the economy run seemed relatively simple. Said Mrs. Hauser, winner of the low-price, six-cylinder class in a Plymouth Savoy: "I think male drivers are high-strung, tense, too worried about stepping on the accelerator without thinking. Me, I just sit there calmly, smoking a cigarette, steering with one hand--and shaking my teeth." Tennis, men?

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.