Ingeborg Stoll-Laforge (11 February 1930, Breinig - Stolberg (Rhineland), Germany – 24 August 1958) was a female German

motorcycle racer Motorcycle racing (also called moto racing and motorbike racing) is the motorcycle sport of racing motorcycles. Major varieties include motorcycle road racing and off-road racing, both either on circuits or open courses, and track racing. Ot ...

Early life

Ingeborg Stoll-Laforge was born on 11 February 1930, in Breinig Stolberg (Rhineland), near

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

, Germany to Maria (nee Moll) and Kurt Stoll. Her parents raced together, with Maria as Kurt's motorcycle sidecar passenger. Inge took over her mother's role in the sidecar when she turned 17.

Racing career

Stoll began competing professionally as a female passenger in her father's NSU outfit in 1947. In December 1949, she married Belgian Jean Laforge but the marriage was short lived. Her father retired in 1951 to concentrate on running his driving school. She then joined

sidecar A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, making the whole a three-wheeled vehicle. A motorcycle with a sidecar is sometimes called a ''combination'', an ''outfit'', a ''rig'' or a ''hack''. ...

driver Jacques Drion in 1952 and won the 1952 and 1954 French Sidecar Championships. Stoll and Drion competed in the World Sidecar Championship events from 1952 to 1957. The re-introduction of the

Sidecar TT The Sidecar TT is a motorcycle-with-sidecar road race competition held over two legs which takes place during the Isle of Man TT festival, an annual event at the end of May and beginning of June. Between 1954 and 1976 this race was part of the Gr ...

race into the

1954 Isle of Man TT The 1954 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy was the second race in the 1954 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season and proved highly controversial for TT Course and race changes. The 1954 Junior TT was the first race where the official race distance was re ...

races was controversial as it was opposed by the motorcycle manufacturers and also for the inclusion of Inge Stoll as the first female competitor at an

Isle of Man TT The Isle of Man TT or Tourist Trophy races are an annual motorcycle racing event run on the Isle of Man in May/June of most years since its inaugural race in 1907. The event is often called one of the most dangerous racing events in the world ...

race. In May 1958, Stoll married Manfred Grunwald and was planning to give up her racing career, but Drion was unable to find a new passenger so she agreed to ride with him for another race. At the 1958

Czechoslovakian Grand Prix The Czechoslovakian Grand Prix (Czech: ''Velká cena Československa''; Slovak: ''Československá Grand Prix'') was a Grand Prix motor racing event held in 1949 at the Masaryk Circuit now referred to as the Brno Circuit. It was held in the town ...

, a non-championship event, the

Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...

sidecar outfit of Stoll and Drion, while holding second place, left the road on a right-hand corner during the penultimate lap. The machine hit a fence and overturned. Stoll was killed instantly and Drion died after being admitted to hospital. Brno-Žebětín-pomník-Drion-Stollová2020

Isle of Man TT race career

* *Event held on

Clypse Course The Clypse Course describes a motor-cycle racing course used for the Isle of Man TT Races between 1954 and 1959. The course is long and is in the parish of Onchan in the Isle of Man. The course uses two short sections of the Snaefell Mountai ...

* DNF 1957 Sidecar TT Race, broken hand-hold.

World Championship career 1952–1957

* Total number of points: 48

Sources

External links

TT database rider profile
iomtt.com
TT database TT results
iomtt.com German sportswomen German motorcycle racers Isle of Man TT riders 1930 births 1958 deaths Motorcycle racers who died while racing Sport deaths in Czechoslovakia Sidecar racers Female motorcycle racers {{Germany-motorcycle-racing-bio-stub