Unsurprisingly her parents ultimately gave in. They were mortified and tried to give the money back but no one would take it.” “I came back and told Mum and Dad I had the money to do it. “I made a cardboard box and went around the teams, asking please donate to my fund to go karting,” she recalls, smiling. Entirely in character, Eaton set about the task herself.Ībbie Eaton with The Grand Tour presenters (from left) James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond. Watching karting at Knockhill in Fife she asked her parents for a go but they were too busy. By the time she was seven their daughter wanted in as well. Her dad, Paul, was a committed tin top racer and mum, Denise, supported him, with Abbie in tow. I have been at circuits ever since then.” “I was two months old when I first went as a baby to watch Dad karting. “I was still in my mummy’s belly when I first went to a race track,” she says. When she does finally take to the grid it will be not only a vindication of her determination but, well, like coming home. For Eaton, January cannot be over soon enough and waiting until the first round at St Petersburg in May is going to be trying. The championship had a major impact in its first season and is set to build on its success this year. She had repeatedly proved herself on track yet was left disheartened that success did not translate into backing. What she wants to do is race but Eaton’s career ground to a halt through lack of funding four years ago. “People will say what they want to say but it just goes in one ear and out the other as long as I am doing what I want to do.” “I am quite thick-skinned I am a northern bird,” she says, smiling. Yet she refuses to be defined by either, because it is the racing that matters. Having come out as lesbian last year she considers questions about sport and her sexuality and gender with the care she clearly believes they deserve. Eaton, from Yorkshire, is engaging, articulate and thoughtful but can also be refreshingly blunt.
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