The FIM and Dorna WSBK Organization (DWO) are launching the FIM Women’s Circuit Racing World Championship (WorldWCR) this year. The inaugural season of the championship will kick off in Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli and comprise six rounds (two races at each round) integrated within the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. A provisional permanent entry list with 24 riders has been announced. We caught up with some of the riders on the entry list, today we give you the third installment in this series, the story of American rider Mallory Dobbs.
When Mallory was in college, she used to ride with her boyfriend on the back of his bike. But soon it wasn’t interesting enough for her. Her journey of riding it on her own began. “I grew up always learning that I could do anything if I wanted to, and my parents have always been very motivating. Riding a motorcycle has been a part of my life with my boyfriend. Then I thought, I could buy a bike, it was pretty cheap, so I started riding myself.”
Then from a casual rider, Mallory quickly moved on to racing in MotoAmerica. But being almost a professional rider was never something Mallory planned. “It was a crazy fast timeline. I started riding motorcycles, I went to a track day, then I went to another track day, and then the following year I was racing. At first, I was just having fun. I was learning and getting faster through each race. As I started racing more and more, I actually wanted to try to do something more with it.”
I’m inherently a competitive person. So it was cool to be able to try something new, be competitive, and do something different. It’s been a crazy journey, and I never would have thought that I would be here, being part of the WSBK program.
The satisfaction of being a racer didn’t just come from her own results, it was also from people supporting her and cheering her on. “Last year at Laguna Seca, my title sponsor was there. I was in P6 in the first lap. She was leaning over the pit wall cheering me on. Seeing her on the wall supporting me with all that excitement just made me feel like it was all worth it.”
Of course in racing it wasn’t always about the highlights and excitement. In Mallory’s short career, even before her MotoAmerica season began, she had already tasted the bitter part of motorsport. “At the end of 2022, I was racing down in California. I had a couple of back-to-back crashes. I crashed one round and destroyed my bike. I came back the following round with my entire bike rebuilt. I was leading the race. Six turns before the finish line, I crashed again. I came in crying because I just felt like I couldn’t get any better at this. I didn’t know what to do and started doubting a lot of things. My rider coach sat down with me and told me that everybody has a moment like this in their career. He gave me a pep talk and encouraged me to keep pushing. That was basically what led me to keep going and do the full MotoAmerica season.”
Mallory’s rider coach wasn’t the only mentor she had in her career. Her racing idol Caroline Olsen also gives her motivations. “Caroline Olson was the girl I looked up to for a long time, and I still do. I’ve actually never met her in person. But she reaches out to me all the time and tells me how proud she is of me. She gives me pep talks too. She tells me that I’m meant to be and that I’m doing great things. She’s been a really cool mentor and a role model for me.”
When the WorldWCR was announced, even though having only raced in MotoAmerica for one full season, Mallory applied for the world championship which will take place in Europe. “It’s a new program, so there’s still a lot of things unknown. But I just wanted to try. What better way to do it than now with this program? If it doesn’t happen, I still have tried. “
When Mallory was first applying, she applied on her own, planning to run her own team. Now she has joined Maddi Patterson’s new WorldWCR team Sekhmet Motorcycle Racing. “When I received their email saying I was accepted and I needed to put down a deposit, I was a bit panicked. Because I didn’t really secure funding as a team manager. It was hard to secure funding when you didn’t really know if you would be getting in. So I put up a post for a crowdfunding with my current fan base. Maddi and I had some mutual friends, she reached out to me. We are very like-minded individuals about what our goals were, what we’re trying to accomplish with the team and the championship. Within a matter of days, I joined her team.”
Having been so far away from the European racing scene, Mallory will face fierce competition in WorldWCR. But she also sees her strengths in certain areas. “When I raced MotoAmerica in 2023, I’d never been to any of the tracks before. I learned all of them throughout the whole season and had a good qualifying at all the tracks. Hopefully, my quick learning from last year can give me a bit more tools to learn all these new tracks again. I’ve also raced bigger bikes, now coming back to the R7 is pretty helpful for me. I hope that I can use this as a strength as well. I’ve borrowed a MotoAmerica spec R7, and I’ll do some races down in California. We are also trying to secure a training bike to do some track days while I’m still home.”
There is some crazy competition in this program, which is really cool to see. I was really stoked about it. I’m not in it because I want an easy championship. I want in it because I want good competition and to be able to have these experiences that are once in a lifetime. We’re all racers and none of us really want a win that isn’t deserved or fought for.
Besides her racing activities, Mallory works full-time as a civil engineer. “I’m trying to manage my full-time job and also do the racing stuff. It’s a very fine line between training, racing, and working. Luckily my work has been very understanding about the whole thing. I get to work remotely a lot. My training does get put on the side a bit sometimes when I’m busy with work stuff. You just have to compartmentalize each thing. I feel like I have two full-time careers at this point. There are a lot of things that go into motorcycle racing, especially as a privateer running your own team. I still haven’t decided whether I’ll move to Europe yet. Moving to Europe for a few months could be easier.”
Like she has been told, Mallory is meant to be. Now she will be racing on the world stage. We wish her all the best in WorldWCR!
The 2024 WorldWCR Calendar
1. Pirelli Emilia-Romagna Round, MWC “Marco Simoncelli” – 14-16 June
2. Prosecco DOC UK Round, Donington Park – 12-14 July
3. Pirelli Portuguese Round, Autódromo Internacional do Algarve – 9-11 August
4. Hungarian Round, Balaton Park Circuit* – 23-25 August
5. Acerbis Italian Round, Cremona Circuit* – 20-22 September
6. Prometeon Spanish Round, Circuito de Jerez – Ángel Nieto – 18-20 October
* Subject to homologation
In our next installment of this series, we give you the story of South African rider Nicole Van Aswegen
Paddock Sorority 
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