In 1983, the sun tan lotion company Hawaiian Tropic sponsored the 24 hours of Le Mans. The company brought its models over from the United States to appear on the racetrack before the race began.

These models wore bikinis bearing the company's name. A year later, that practice was imported over to Japan for the Suzuka 8 Hours motorcycle race. The official job of a race queen is to hold an umbrella over the driver while his car is being worked on. They generally wear some sort of revealing costume (mini-dress, swimsuit, hot pants, or the like), as well as pantyhose and high heels or knee-high boots.

Campaign girls in other countries are generally looked down upon as the occupation is regarded as "low profile" or disgraceful. However, in Japan, race queens have a higher profile and are regarded as idols varying only by the motor sport event they appear in. The average age for these girls is late teens to early twenties and demand for them wanes with age.

Some go on to become models or even actresses but those who are unable to leverage their career into something larger, sometimes slowly "decline" into AV work, marriage and eventual obscurity. It is not unusual for some of them to have a background as an AV Idol.

Race queens who operate in prestigious events and with a large fanbase can also be found at automobile shows purely to draw crowds where they are nearly as important an attraction as the cars or electronics products that they are promoting.