Road warrior: in male-dominated Iran, Laleh Seddigh proved she could drive a race car even faster than the men.

• Author: Pohl, Otto
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

A year and a half ago, Laleh Seddigh asked Iran's national auto-racing foundation for permission to become a pioneer: A woman in this male-dominated society, Seddigh wanted to compete on the racetrack against men.

When permission was granted, she became not only the first woman in Iran to race cars against the opposite sex, but also the first woman since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 to compete against men in any sport.

"I like competition in everything," Seddigh says. "I have to move whatever is movable in the world."

Last March, at age 28, she moved her entire nation by winning Iran's national racing championship, beating the men. After her victory, Iran's state television refused to show the new champ on the victory stand elevated above the men, but photographers captured the moment. She stood quietly while receiving her medal, as she had promised the race organizers she would, with a scarf over her long black hair and a coat over her racing uniform.

TESTING BOUNDARIES

Seddigh has been a lively, energetic symbol of an entire generation of young Iranians who in recent years have increasingly tested the social rules put in place by the country's religious leaders.

Seventy percent of Iranians are under 35, and they have gently pushed for, and received, freedoms unimaginable even a few years ago. For women in the capital city of Tehran, at least, those freedoms have included wearing brightly colored head scarves loosely over their hair and tighter and shorter versions of the obligatory women's overcoat.

Seddigh, the oldest of four children, had an early desire to challenge social boundaries. When she was 13, her father, a wealthy factory owner, taught her to drive on weekends in a park on the outskirts of Tehran.

"I want to show my father that I can do anything," Seddigh says. "I've always wanted to follow him. He drove fast and careful, and I looked up to him and followed him. From the time I was 12 or 13, I wanted to have a competition with boys, and maybe that was the reason."

At 23, she began racing miniature race cars that had more in common with go-carts. She also entered three-day cross-country car rallies, in which she had to change her own tires and make her own repairs.

The opportunity to compete professionally against men came in 2004, when a new president took over at the Iranian racing federation and he was open to allowing a woman to enter the men's races. There has been a lot of jealous grumbling from many of the male...