Grid Girl, 250 Grand Prix World Championship, Round 7, Catalunya, Spain, 10 June 2007

Paddock girls (pit babes or umbrella girls) is a term that has been used in professional motorcycle racing for many years. It refers to females employed to hold umbrellas above racers to protect them from the sun. "Paddock" refers to a pen where racehorses are saddled and paraded before a race, or in this case, where the motorcycles are prepared and serviced before and during the race.
"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.