She then became a racing driver, using roadster cars built by companies such as Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, DKW, Ford, Hispano-Suiza, Renault and Rosengart.

Already famous in Paris, she became a household name in France in the early 1930s and raced as an exhibition dirt track driver for a season in the United States.

In 1949, the well-known racing driver Louis Chiron accused Nice without evidence of being a Gestapo agent in World War II.

A 2005 biography The Bugatti Queen: In search of a motor-racing legend by Miranda Seymour rehabilitated her reputation and her grave was marked by a plaque in 2010.

[5] Through Carrère, Delangle met Henri de Courcelles and Marcel Mongin [fr] who ran a car accessory business together and raced sportscars.

[5] Delangle moved to rue Saint-Senoch, still in the 17th arrondissement and became a dance partner of Celéstin Eugène Vandevelde, taking the stage name Hellé Nice.

She was mentored by Mongin and trained hard, driving ten laps a day of the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry; at the wheel of an Oméga-Six car, she came first.

[8][9][10] The next day, she was invited to the Bugatti showroom on Avenue Montaigne in order to discuss driving a Type 43A roadster in the Actor's Championship.

In July 1931, she came second to Anne Itier in the Coupe des Dames at Reims and in the 2-litre race she came fourth, competing against male drivers such as Louis Chiron, Stanisław Czaykowski, René Dreyfus, Philippe Etancelin and the eventual winner Marcel Lehoux.

[8][17] Nice's biographer Miranda Seymour reports that she took many lovers in the early 1930s, including Georges d'Arnoux, Roger Bonnet, René Carrière, Marcel Lehoux and Philippe de Rothschild.

The following year, at the Grand Prix de Dieppe, Nice saw her friend Jean Gaupillat crash into a tree in qualifying (he later died).

She raced in the final despite women not normally being permitted to do so, coming seventh whilst competing against drivers such as Chiron, Lehoux, Etancelin and Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe.

[17] Nice travelled to Brazil in 1936 with her future partner Arnaldo Binelli, intending to compete in two Grand Prix races.

During the São Paulo Grand Prix, she was in third place behind Brazilian champion Manuel de Teffé when her Alfa Romeo hit a hay bale and crashed into the grandstand, killing six people and injuring more than thirty others.

[8][20] Whilst in hospital she was visited by President Getúlio Vargas and her lover Henri Thouvenet wrote from France to ensure she was not held responsible for the crash and received compensation.

[21] In 1937, she participated in the Yacco oil endurance trials with Claire Descollas, Simone des Forest and Odette Siko at the Montlhéry circuit.

[24] In 1949, the noted racing driver Louis Chiron accused her of being a Gestapo agent in the war, at a party in Monaco to celebrate the first postwar Monte Carlo Rally.

La Roue Tourne organised a memorial service for her and her ashes were sent to Sainte-Mesme, where her estranged sister refused to engrave her name upon the family gravestone.