How the wheels came off the Queen of Speed

Sexually voracious and fearless on the track, Fay Taylour was too good for the men... so they banned her from racing. Later she took a wrong turn supporting Oswald Mosley. A new book sheds fresh light on her long lost achievements

- Peter Sheridan

HE WAS hailed in headlines across the globe as the Queen of the Speedway, the World Champion Woman Racer, the Fastest Woman on Two Wheels.

With her body-hugging sweaters and cascading auburn locks she was dubbed The Shapely Racer, Lana Turner of the Speedway, and Jane Russell on Wheels.

Pouring her voluptuous curves into a tight leather jacket, hiding her curly mane beneath a helmet and her mascara-framed eyes beneath goggles, 5ft 4in bombshell Fay Taylour launched her racing career 95 years ago in England, beating male champions from around the world - until the sport's mortified male overlords banned women from competing against men.

One of Britain's greatest sporting heroines and feminist pioneers of the 1930s has S now been largely for gotten, but a new book Fay Taylour: The World's Wonder Girl revives her legend for a new generation.

Taylour "Fay was a brave, fearless racer, a feminist who enjoyed many lovers and constantly fought against authority," says author Stephen Cullen.

"The fastest way to get her to do something was to say she couldn't do it.

"She was also a mass of contradictions. 

She was very romantic, but never settled down. She loved to travel the world, but spent three years incarcerated. She lived a life of danger, but was most dangerous to herself. She was her own worst enemy." On the Speedway track, and later on the car racing circuit, she was a daredevil who routinely thrilled crowds of 30,000. She was mobbed by fans from London to Sydney.

Off the track she also threw caution to the wind, controversially becoming an ardent follower of Oswald Mosley's fascist British Union, an affiliation that saw her locked up during the Second World War for pro-German views.