First a little bit of HERstory...
During the early 1930s, when the United States was getting hit hard by the Great Depression, Roller Derby was nothing but a imaginative cross country race set up to build endurance amongst its skaters called The Transcontinental Roller Derby. The TRD consisted of teams made up of a single man and woman who would take turns skating 57,000 laps. This was meant to be equivalent to the 4,000 miles it would take to "skate" across the country. It wasn't until a renown sports writer noticed that fans would become estatic every time skaters began to "tangle" with each other during the speed jams that steps were taken to make derby more of a body contact sport. In came rules about scoring and hitting, and BAM....Roller Derby as we know it today was born.