Women’s GT series rolls into Las Vegas

Thursday, Nov. 4, 1999 | 2:19 a.m.

Make no mistake about it, Sunday's Women's Global GT Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be anything but your traditional Powder Puff Derby.

If anything, according to competitor Belinda Endress, the 45-minute road race may prove to be more competitive than the male-dominated races in the Prototype, GT and GTS classes.

"We're not out there fooling around," Endress said. "The competition is more fierce with women, it's more intense. When women really turn it on, they're fierce, fierce, competitors."

That natural competitiveness is nothing new to Endress, a striking 5-6 blonde whose resume ranges from endurance horse racing and professional wrestling to modeling -- including posing for a pictorial in Playboy -- and running her own video production company in California.

This weekend, Endress will be among 16 women racing identically prepared Panoz Esperantes in the season-ending WGGT Series race, which is being held in conjunction with the American Le Mans Series Grand Prix of Las Vegas on the LVMS 2.25-mile infield road course.

The Women's Global GT Series is the first professional auto racing series for women in North America. Indianapolis 500 veteran Lyn St. James serves as the series' executive director.

Endress, who started racing in 1994 in the sports-car club events in California, is completing her first year in the WGGT Series, and will be looking for her first win of the season this weekend.

Endress, 37, comes into the race eighth in driver points and has been eliminated from the inuagural championship battle, which will be decided between Cindi Lux and Divina Galica. Lux holds a 16-point lead over Galica and needs to finish eighth or better to clinch the championship.

Fans who go out to the Speedway on Sunday, Endress said, might be surprised by the level of competition in the WGGT series.

"We've had nothing but tremendous response as far as fans go," Endress said. "The guys dig it, too. You always have one guy in the crowd who says, 'Ah, women drivers,' but that just comes with the territory."

WGGT SERIES NOTES: There have been five different winners in the five WGGT Series races this season: Lux at Sears Point Raceway; Audrey Zavodsky at the first visit to Road Atlanta; Sara Senske at Portland; Galica at the second race at Road Atlanta; and Allison Duncan at Laguna Seca. ... Speedvision, the cable auto racing channel, will air the entire 1999 WGGT Series in half-hour telecasts beginning next Sunday. Sunday's race from Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be shown on Dec. 19 at noon.