The Brno circuit in the Czech Republic was the venue for the latest FIM Women’s Road Racing training camp and Maria Costello MBE was once more on hand as one of the tutors, to offer guidance both on and off the track.

The four day event, organised by the FIM Women’s Commission and Bike Promotion and supported by BMW Motorrad Motorsport, was the third such event.

Costello explained:

“The aim is to see women from across the world train on a top class racing circuit, under the supervision of professional coaches and in the process, promote women in motorcycling. This event was again a huge success. We had Jurgen Fuchs, Sabine Holbrook, Armin Scherdan, Radek Matoska and myself instructing a wonderful group of ladies of mixed ability, all looking to improve aspects of their racing or track riding. Once more, BMW Motorrad Motorsport provided BMW S1000RRs. We’ve had girls as young as 18 ride them. They’re awesome bikes and the perfect tool for instructing.”

Maria, a member of the Women in Motorcycling Commission (CFM), was again selected as an instructor for the camp due to her vast experience in road racing. In addition to offering guidance on riding the fast flowing and sweeping Brno circuit, she also gave a presentation and was involved in organising extra classroom sessions, including workshops on suspension and an introduction to the BMW S1000RR that were taken by Lars Sanger from Motorradtke.

Maria gave an insight into how the event was progressing:

“I’ve a fantastic group of ladies to work with! I’ve seen improvements from all of them. It’s so rewarding and it’s an absolute pleasure to ride with them on the full-blown MotoGP circuit. They’re all enjoying the big BMW S1000RRs too – they’re such capable bikes, but can be seen as intimidating…..until you ride one! The women are all growing in confidence and also skills wise – hearing one of the girls explain that she'd been following a guy on track who was so off line that he'd have done better following her really made me smile, but it also shows just how much they’ve learnt from being here.”

The Bike Promotion event also offered the female training camp participants the chance to race in an open race against all, men and women, attending the track day.

The result was a ground breaking all female podium, when Dutch training camp participants Nadieh Schoots and Jolanda van Westrenen took the first 2 places and they were joined on the podium by training camp instructor Sabine Holbrook from Switzerland. Nita Korhonen, the Director of the FIM Women’s Commission, summed up: “We had 26 girls from 11 different countries here, we made history in a mixed gender open race showing that many of the women on the camp are extremely strong competitors, and it would be great to see more women competing at the highest level of Road Racing. And, more importantly, everyone genuinely enjoyed themselves over here.”

Costello concluded with similar sentiments:

“The all women podium was not a surprise for me. I know how strong some of our attendees are. It was great to see them beat the men and I hope to see this happen more and more. I feel fortunate to be part of the future of female racing and to have ridden on track with all of the women here at Brno.”


To log your interest in future FIM Women Road Racing training camps please email women@fim.ch


To keep up to date with Maria’s racing and other activities, please visit her website: http://www.costelloracing.com


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