THEY go by many names - race queens, grid girls, pit babes, car show girls, umbrella girls.

Whatever you call them, these girls add that feminine touch to the male-dominated motor-racing industry.

Dressed provocatively in revealing and body-hugging outfits, race queens form part of the pit crew in the racing circuit.

Their job is to shelter the race car drivers with large umbrellas and escort them to the track.

You will also find race queens at motor shows, where they double up as strong crowd magnets.

Almost half of the spectators surveyed at last year's Super Import Nights, a local exhibition of modified performance cars, said they came for the race queens and not the cars.

The SingTel grid girls who were part of the 2008 Formula One SingTel Singapore Grand Prix are probably the closest we have had to genuine race queens.

'Besides glamourising the event, we had significant roles to play. We were ambassadors to the delegates from Singapore and SingTel during the F1 Singapore Grand Prix and more importantly, we guided the race cars into their positions on the starting grid with the big flags,' said Cheryl Tay, 21, a banking and finance student at the Singapore Institute of Management.

The Lewis Hamilton fan, who was the first runner-up at the SingTel Grid Girl Contest, was quick to correct the notion that race queens are bimbos.