By Jess Clark
Photos by Rimas Zailskas

The skaters whiz to rollicking music, a swarm of pink, black and white uniforms rounding the track. In tights, shorts and skirts, all tattooed and scowling, they’re women on a roll, rebels on wheels. They hit, they whip, they wipe out. Who could resist?

Not Leigh Boyce. She was drawn to roller derby by a promotional poster. She knew nothing about it—hadn’t even been on roller skates. No reason not to join the Asheville-based Blue Ridge Rollergirls, the only women’s roller derby league in Western North Carolina. A year later, Boyce, whose derby name is Disorderlee Conduct, plans to get a tattoo to celebrate her anniversary with the league. “I’ve come from barely being able to stand on skates to being able to knock down somebody twice my size,” says Boyce, 23, a call-center employee who’s 5 feet, 6 1/2 inches tall and 150 pounds. “It’s scary to go up to a girl who’s the size of a refrigerator.” Friends call her obsessed. “It is rough. Pretty much every skater will say, ‘Look at this bruise,’’’ Boyce says.

Boyce and her helmeted teammates know the bliss of cruising for a bruising. The Blue Ridge Rollergirls, founded about two years ago by Michelle Mease (‘Chelle-O Shoot Her), boosted their profile at an inter-league bout in April at the Asheville Civic Center, one of Western North Carolina’s biggest venues. More than 800 people came out to watch a battle between the two Asheville teams, the Wham! Bam! Thank You Ma’ams and the Candy Apple Razorblades. (The Razorblades won).

“The people at the Civic Center were shocked,” says Mease. And, frankly, she and her teammates were too—last year, between 300 and 500 people attended each of a handful of competitions at Carrier Park, on Amboy Road in Asheville. A crowd of at least 500 makes it financially feasible for the Rollergirls to book the Civic Center, which requires a $2,000 deposit for a ticketed event. Mease hopes to have one bout a month at the center through October, depending on attendance. “We hope that they’re a roaring success. We wish them all the luck in the world,” says Marcia Hart, the Civic Center’s events administrator.

Beyond the Civic Center, derby’s profile is expanding nationally. Some bouts have been broadcast on cable television. And hundreds of women’s and men’s leagues have formed throughout the United States. A feature film, Whip it!, is in development about the sport, with a release planned for next year. (A whip is an assist a skater gives to a teammate to move her along the track.) Drew Barrymore is scheduled to direct the movie, which will star Ellen Page of the film Juno.

A combination of factors motivated Mease to form her league. She and her son had started roller skating, her pastime as a girl. And she was influenced by Rollergirls, an A&E network show that originally aired in 2005. “It’s really empowering to be involved in this rough and tough sport,” she says. “It has taught me a lot about myself.” In addition to the aggression and physical activity that thrill some skaters, “I get to be someone totally different than I am every day in my nine-to-five life and with my kids,” says Mease, 37, a counselor with the Asheville Housing Authority.

The league is supported by business sponsors, fundraisers and membership dues, which run $30 a month per skater. The women practice for two hours three times a week at Skater’s Choice in Hendersonville, and some skate at Carrier Park. Eleven bouts are scheduled for this season, which started in March. A bout is a chaotic dance on wheels. Each team has five skaters on the track. The jammer, the only scorer, accumulates points by passing opponents on the track. The rest of the team, called the pack, tries to block the opposing jammer and help its jammer proceed. Broken bones and other injuries are common. “My chiropractor is always giving me lectures,” says Jenn Possick (Possicat), a member of the Wham! Bam! Thank You Ma’ams who, during the day, teaches third grade.

Derby, which can feel more like theater than a sport, has sometimes been equated with professional wrestling, which may have fueled a stigma. “Folks see the fishnets and a lot of girls with tattoos, and I think there’s just a misconception with people involved in the sport, whether they think they’re misfits or just angst-ridden women,” Mease says. Her league includes mothers, college students, teachers and nurses, most in their 20s and 30s. Not exactly a roster of rogues but, skaters say, derby challenges female stereotypes.

“We’re considered subversive,” says Dale Rio, editor of Blood & Thunder, a women’s derby magazine based in Seattle. Derby began as a race in the 1930s in Illinois and evolved to teams with physical contact to draw spectators, says Rio, who coaches derby in Everett, Washington. Televised in the ‘60s and ‘70s, derby’s comeback started in this decade with a Texas women’s league.

Jae LeBlanc’s grandmother was a derby fan in Buffalo, New York. Now LeBlanc (Hazel Maehem) pounds the track in Mease’s league. “I’ve always been attracted to things a little rougher, not aligned with what society thinks women’s roles are. I like to show that women can be aggressive and hang out and have a beer afterwards just like the guys do,” says LeBlanc, 38, a receptionist. As she dons elbow, knee and wrist pads before bouts, she tries to shake any fear. “As soon as I get out there and start knocking people around, it feels good,” says LeBlanc, who enjoys the drama around derby names. “There are kitschy components to the sport,” Mease says.

Creative outfits and provocative derby names are typical. Fan Michael Gordon, 40, of Hendersonville, goes to every Blue Ridge Rollergirls home bout. He likes the kitsch. “It just seems like good, clean fun in a weird sort of way,” he says. “There’s a little bit of a rock-and-roll element to it, kind of a counterculture element to it.” Counterculture maybe, but not beyond parental approval. LeBlanc’s father has no problem with derby.

“I don’t think I’ve ever made him prouder than when I told him I joined the derby team,” she says. He gave her her first pair of skates.