Wheels Magazine: 2018 | Wheel Stories: A Race for Gender Equality
A female racing driver with the name Dominique Chaleyer (pronounced ‘shallay-yeah) sounds like someone who raced, say, at Le Mans in the 1930s in an Alfa Romeo 6C 1750. In fact, Dominique Chaleyer is racing in Australia today, albeit in a suitably romantic 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT in the popular historic Group S series.
“One of my heroes is Hellé Nice,” says Dominique, 33. “She was a very prominent racer in the early 1930s; there’s a terrific book about her called The Bugatti Queen. In fact, I’ve got a tattoo of her.”
Dominique’s steeped in exotic high-performance and collectible cars too, as former media and digital marketing manager for the world-renowned Dutton Garage emporium in Melbourne.
Chaleyer was to the spanner born. Her father, Paul, is a long-time classic car racer and well-known proprietor of classic-car workshop, Historic and Vintage Restorations. “[HVR] was intended to be a kind of retirement hobby-career for dad,” says Dominique. “He’s been doing it for more than 15 years and it’s probably the most full-blown job he’s ever had.”
For Paul, those jobs included co-founding (in 1975) Melbourne bicycle shop The Freedom Machine, then becoming a publican, then telecommunications. The latter took the young family for six years to Pakistan, India, then Saudia Arabia, where Dominique completed primary school.