"Mrs AC Lace"

 

“Mrs AC Lace” is the name used by Phoebe Elizabeth McQueen, born Mylchreest in 1910, when she raced between the two wars. AC (Alfred Clucas) Lace was a driver himself and was in a relationship with her, but the two never married. She often used the forename Betty.

Her first event under this name seems to have been a hillclimb at Shelsley Walsh in September 1934, driving a Hispano-Suiza. In March 1935, she appears at Brooklands for the first time, racing a Singer in the New Haw Long Handicap. It appears to be the same car that she used at Donington in May for a women’s handicap. She was not placed in either race. 

The Singer was still her car of choice for the 1936 First Mountain Handicap, held at the March Handicap meeting at Brooklands. Again, she was not placed, nor in the Second Mountain Handicap at the same event. 

A run in a Fiat followed, as part of a three-car, three-woman Fiat team for the 1936 Light Car Club Relay race at Brooklands. She and her team-mates Elsie Wisdom and Dinah Chaff, the team leader, were fourth, from eight finishers.

A gap then follows before she reappears driving a works-supported Alta in 1938. She won the Ladies’ Cup race held at Crystal Palace as part of the London Grand Prix. 

She did enter two Brooklands races in Talbot-Lago: the JCC International Trophy and the BRDC Road Race. It was possibly the Road Race she was practising for in September when she was hit on the head by a passing seagull “at over 100mph”. She “swerved violently” but was unhurt and able to continue. 

Both times, she was co-driver to AC Lace, but did not get to drive. AC himself seems to have pulled out of the latter event and their relationship may well have broken down by then. Both were declared bankrupt at different times in 1939.

Her first forays into rallying appear in 1936, when she drove a Marendaz in the RAC Rally. The only other Marendaz entries were driven by DMK Marendaz, the car’s creator, and Aileen Moss, mother of Stirling and Pat Moss. 

By the time the RAC Rally came round again in 1937, she was driving a Railton, but she was disqualified from that year’s event. This was her only time out in that car. Driving a French Delahaye 135, she also entered the Scottish and Welsh rallies, plus an MCC rally in Torquay. That car also disappears at the end of the summer.

Making up for this somewhat, she managed to out-drive AC Lace on the 1938 Monte Carlo Rally, finishing 27th to his 47th, navigated by Elsie Wisdom. They were both driving Talbot-Darracq cars. It was a successful year on the stages for her; a month later, she and the Talbot were second in the Paris-St.Raphael women’s rally, behind Betty Haig’s MG. 

She returned to Monaco in the Talbot in 1939, and was 25th. Her co-driver was the famous pilot Amy Johnson, in what was her last rally. They had previously competed against each other in the Paris-St. Raphael. Betty’s bankruptcy later in the year was almost certainly a factor in the end of her own career.

After leaving motorsport and AC Lace behind, Betty married Brian Carbury and had two sons. The fact that she was still married to Gerald McQueen did not deter her; she possibly remained married to him until her death in 1971. It did not deter her either from marrying twice more, in 1944 and 1958. Multiple bigamous marriages were only one aspect of a dishonest and criminal side to her character, which becomes obvious after she left AC Lace. Throughout her life, she was convicted many times of theft and financial fraud, usually in the form of passing bad cheques from accounts that were either closed or non-existent. Brian Carbury was also convicted of cheque fraud in 1941 and both were accused of stealing savings from their children’s nanny in 1943. A pattern emerges of her being caught, then changing her name and carrying on as before. As she got older, she tended to move her date of birth forward by a few years with each name change.

Later, she spent a long period of time living in South Africa, where her father had previously had business interests. She married a waiter called Antonio Giocondi and began calling herself Babette Giocondi. Under this identity, she embarked on a high-profile career as a boxing promoter in 1961, alongside her husband who managed the fighters. They made very little money and attempts to bring South African boxers to the UK failed. There may have been an element of fraud involved in this. “Babette Giocondi” gave interviews to the South African press and claimed to have raced at Le Mans.

Betty died in a car crash in Worthing in 1971. She was a passenger in a Daimler Sovereign driven by pub landlord Brian Samain, who also died in the accident. At the time, she was calling herself “Babette Dale-Lace” and it took the police some time to discover anything close to her real identity.

(Thanks to Adam Ferrington for sharing his research on Betty/Phoebe/Babette.)

Lady Mary Grosvenor

 

Lady Mary Grosvenor was a British driver in the mid-20th century who could have been the first woman to race in Formula One.

Blessed with a huge family fortune as the youngest daughter of the Duke of Westminster, she was able to afford a series of increasingly powerful cars. Her father was, at the time, one of the richest men in the world.

She most often competed in hillclimbs and sprints, but did both circuit racing and rallying before and after World War II. 

It was in rallies that she first came to prominence. She entered the 1936 RAC Rally in a Riley, starting from Buxton. She is recorded as having finished 156th in the 1938 event. She also rallied in Scotland early in her career.

She first appears on the circuit racing entry lists in 1937, as a member of the Lancs & Cheshire Car Club’s relay team for a race at Donington. Her team-mates were AC Molyneux (Lea Francis) and Hugh Cocker, who drove a Riley like Mary. They were fourth.

Her second major race was a Short Handicap at Crystal Palace in 1939, and she was second, in a Riley Sprite. This was the first of her racing cars; she favoured the Sprite in the early part of her career and owned several. 

The same year, and in the same car, she was second in a two-lap Scratch Race at Donington, held by the Cambridge University Auto Club. She also entered a three-lap relay with Midge Wilby (Atalanta) and a T Winstanley in a Bentley, finishing second. 

After the war, she raced a Riley and an Allard, which she used for hillclimbs and sprints, sometimes driving both cars in a single meeting. 

She was third in a sportscar race at Gransden Lodge in 1946, in the Riley, and continued to compete strongly in hillclimbs until 1949, using a 1929 Bugatti T37A and an Alta as well as the Allard. The Bugatti was a particularly strong car for her and she set a ladies’ record at Prescott in 1947 that stood for more than 30 years.

The Alta, once it had been fitted with a 1500cc engine, would have been eligible for Formula One, but despite having the means, Lady Mary declined to pursue this. She preferred to use the car in speed events. Throughout her motorsport career, Lady Mary was always very independent, choosing her own path. She does not appear to have competed outside the UK, although she travelled extensively in Europe and Africa, and was never part of any of the women-only rallies that took place on the continent.

She had bought her first Alta, a 69IS in 1939 but never got the chance to race it and sold it after the war. Later, she ran a different Alta in both 1500cc and 2000cc guises. As a 1500cc Grand Prix car, it took her to sixth place in class in a hillclimb at Prescott in 1949. That summer, she used the Alta at another Prescott climb, at Shelsley Walsh and the Chester Motor Club’s sprint, where she was second in class.

Later, she raced a Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica at Silverstone and Goodwood, finishing third in a handicap at Goodwood in 1951. 

She retired from motorsport in 1953, after the death of her father, the Duke of Westminster, and devoted her time to running the family estates. Only once did she come out of retirement, in 1955, when she entered a Bentley Drivers’ Club event at Oulton Park driving a Triumph TR2.

The Westminster title could only pass to a male heir, so neither Mary nor her sister Ursula could inherit. It passed to Mary’s second cousin William. Mary herself never married, although she was suggested as a potential bride for The Prince of Wales, later briefly Edward VIII, as a young woman.

She died in 2000, aged 89.

(Image copyright Tips Editorial)