It's a simple question. Does motorsports need more female drivers?

The current crop of women who enjoy a seat in any of America's upper-echelon racing series is well below the double-digit number while their pool of male counterparts exceeds 200. It does not reflect the US demographic.

"Part of the problem is the small pool of female drivers that exist in racing's support series," explains the Indy Racing League's Sarah Fisher. "There are a lot more men driving race cars than there are women."

That statistic is shifting. Much the way women's basketball has blossomed, so have racing opportunities for females.

In the '70's and early '80's young girls were occasionally seen wheeling quarter midgets and karts. Now, many youth racing clubs are split as high as 60/40 percent in the male to female ratio.

Original pioneers like Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James like to think that the path they cut to the professional level is part of the reason. In reality, it is because of the shifting role modeling that youngsters are subjected to. Female participation in traditional male sports is no longer faux pas. Girls that race, play basketball and Little League are treated as equals. The "Tom Boy" is dead.

Title IX had a lot to do with the change.

So did male perception. Today's generation sees fewer gender barriers than the yuppies of the '80's. Generation X'ers celebrate prowess and accomplishments with little regard for the sex of the one succeeding.

But, women like Fisher in Indy Car racing and Shawna Robinson in NASCAR are still an oddity. Old schoolers want the female tag attached to them, while the ladies just want acceptance as race car drivers.

Scattered across America are more than 1,400 weekly operated race tracks where female drivers are apprenticing. For some, it is a hobby. Others hope that they can follow Fisher and Robinson to the "big show."

	Sarah Fisher is one of the few women in racing to make it to the "show."

A race car does not know the difference between a man or a woman. It is a mechanical unit.

Unlike other sports, the number of available spots on the top rung of the racing ladder are so limited that small percentages of both male and female drivers make it to the major racing circuits.

I remember interviewing Janet Guthrie on the 10th anniversary of her Indy 500 barrier breaking start. I accused her of using her sex to earn a shot at the greatest race in the world.

"Let me ask you," said Guthrie, "If someone called you and offered you a ride in the Indianapolis 500 and you were a male race car driver, would you turn the ride down?

"Racers are racers," she mused. "If being a woman got me to Indy quicker than it should have, I still had to back it up by making the race."

Thirty years later, Fisher echoes Guthrie's sentiment. "I am a race car driver first!"