"Race queen" (レースクイーン rēsu kuīn) is a Japanese term for a type of promotional model found as part of a pit crew in certain kinds of motor racing, such as F1 races. The equivalent British term is "Pit babe".
The first usage of promotional models in motor races was during the late 1960s when model Rosa Ogawa (小 川ローザ) was brought in to represent the race winners. It was then that the term race queen was coined. Prior to that, women in motor races were mostly wives and girlfriends of drivers and staff, with the exception of some who were drivers.
In 1983, the sun tan lotion company Hawaiian Tropic sponsored the 24 hours of Le Mans. The company brought its models over from the United States to appear on the racetrack before the race began. These models wore bikinis bearing the company's name. A year later, that practice was imported over to Japan for the Suzuka 8 Hours motorcycle race.
The official job of a race queen is to hold an umbrella over the driver while his car is being worked on.
They generally wear some sort of revealing costume (mini-dress, swimsuit, hot pants, or the like), as well as pantyhose and high heels or knee-high boots.
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