The West Bank’s Danica Patricks?

While stoppages and barricades stymie the "Freedom Flotillas" en route to Gaza, the "Speed Sisters" — an eight-woman speed-racing troupe breaking onto the driving scene in the West Bank — are revving up to shatter barriers at high speeds.

These unfearing females — comprised of Christians and Muslims from ages 18 to 39 — competed last Friday in the "Speed Test," a car race in the West Bank city of Ramallah that makes the typical NASCAR loop look like child’s play. Thousands of fans attended the event to cheer on the seventy helmet-clad contestants as they navigated through treacherous obstacles, spinning loops, and serpentine pathways. And these eight women, gripping the wheels with fingerless gloves that accentuate their brightly painted fingernails, may have particularly piqued the crowd’s interest: they are the first female team to enter the Speed Test. The Speed Sisters follow in the footsteps of the one female contestant — now the group’s coach — who raced in the first competition five years ago.

While racing, many of the Speed Sisters wear t-shirts emblazoned with the British flag to pay homage to their sponsor, the British consulate in East Jerusalem. It is the consulate’s personnel that facilitated the creation of the women’s team, and its budget that subsidized about $8000 worth of training, coaches, and car refurbishing — all part of a campaign to foster development in the West Bank and other communities of Palestinian refugees. But even with a financier, the women’s road to the finish line is a bumpy one: they share a donated hatch-back that pales in comparison to the other high-powered BMWs and Mercedes on the track, and they face doubt and skepticism from their male counterparts.

Regardless, this strong female showing in a male-dominated arena is inspiring in such a conservative Muslim society — especially one in which mounting political strife can often preclude a focus on social equity.