Denise McCluggage

Denise McCluggage (* 1927) is a former American car racing driver, journalist and photographer.

McCluggage came early in their lives to motorsports in touch. She spent her childhood in Kansas and then attended Mills College in the San Francisco Bay. Your first newspaper job she had at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Through a friend, she came in contact with a local MG dealer and bought there their first sports car. For small club events they drove their first car race. In 1954 she went to New York to work at the New York Herald Tribune as a sports journalist. The MG was exchanged for a Jaguar XK 140 and they began to more professional basis to race.

McCluggage was a pioneer of equal rights in the U.S., both in motorsport as well as in journalism. In both worlds, they got to do it with an all-male society that women love understood as an accessory in their own activities. By using and fighting spirit, she managed to make a name quickly. She ran from the mid- 1950s all the major road races and gave rapidly respect from their male colleagues. Their trademark was the white helmet with the black dots. In the 1960s, she came to Europe, contested the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring and took part in the Monte Carlo Rally. She drove many brands with Porsches, Maseratis and race cars. Often she made with her ​​compatriot Pinkie Rollo an all-female team. The two women were in the second half of the 1960s repeatedly for the North American Racing Team at launch.

End of the 1960s, she finished her racing career and was editor of the major U.S. car magazine Autoweek.