Medford mail tribune., October 30, 1960, Image 34

mmEW WOMAN IN THE WORLD
Racing drivers of both sexes eat
dust when this Michigan
grandmother gets behind the wheel
By HAL HIGDON
IS
Vicki Wood races to ochiene a record run over fast, too-and-a-holf-oule Daytona Beach Internationa Speedway.
A warn tajct that was an automobile darted by
to melt from sight down a ribbon-thin high
way of robber cone markers. The automobile's
driver was Vicki Wood: Detroit racer, housewife,
and 41-year-old grandmother. She had just driven
her car 150375 mues per hour, the fastest speed
ever attained officially by a woman driver.
Vicki Wood is used to speed. She has competed
successfully six years at Daytona Beach, Fla. She
won consistently in Detroit stock-car races first
other women and later e" the men.
Her livmg room contains 36 trophies.
In addition to racing, Vicki has found time to
raise three children: Ehvard, 24, Donna, 23, and
Wayne, 17. The two older are now married and
Edward has a year-old son. Seeing Vicki Wood in
a crowd you would olvu mink of her as a hard
ened racing veteran. KVande, blue-eyed, and with
a schoolgirl figure, she m i iih more like the aver
age American housewife who rrimns behind the
wheel of a car only to drive to the supermarket
or take the kids to scbooL
Vicki drove only to supermarkets and schools
herself until one evening in 1953 when her hus
band, Clarence "Skeeter" Wood, took her to the
stock-car races. Vicki took one look at the girl
drivers grxndrog around the taack wg mil
each other and snorted: Tf I couldn't drive any
better than that, I wouldn't get into a car."
The next week when they again visied the races,
Skeeter told Vicki he had a surprise for her. The
surprise," she said bier, "was that I would i-ace
that night!"
Driving at high speeds aiuuud a ouarter-mue
asphalt track proved more rliffWrrtt than it fnA
from the side lines, but Vicki managed to qualify
for toe main women's rare. Skeeter, who 25 years
before had raced cars VnTf before being side
lined by injuries, gave Vicki wiie advice: "You
can crowd by a car as long as you can get your -nose
up as far as the driver's door. Once he sees
you, he won, cut across."
Vicki tried it in the race. Going down one
straightaway she fcjMrJ an openmg between two
cars. She sneaked into the gap, p"Awg her nose
up to their doors, only to have the two cars close
in on top of her. She finished out of the money.
1 forgot one thing," sighed Skeeter later. "She
was racing against women drivers."
Women driveis or not, Vicki Wood was seldom
outmaneuvered after that. In her first full sea
son, she drove in 10 feature events for women,
taking four firsts and three " The following
year she won four out of five championship races,
losing the fifth only when her front tire went fiat.
She set a track record at the Flat Bock Speedway
just outside Detroit, qualifying her car 2,100 of
a second faster man suiy of tfbe j At tie end
of the srasnn, the Detroit Sports Gu3d named her
the Ko. 1 woman driver of the year.
Artec o hechc rwt VVAj Wood snakes for photographers.
toMrr inaiiy. jams '- :rM&miiBU&Jz-. ..mmm
But Vicki didn't like driving against women.
"They're unpredictable," she says. "You never
know what they're going to do."
Her chance to compete agairc mm came in
1357 when the manager of the Flat Bock Speedway
allowed the girls to qualify for the men's races one
night. Only Vicki could turn in a time fast enough
to make the main event She finished 19th after her
car blew a gasket Host of the other girl drivers
soon gave up trying to compete against the other
sex, but Vicki, who soon began to hold her own,
had no nn lnutuous to return to women's racing.
ViCKi osed to help her brothers tinker with cars
and had driven more than 50 fl-c a day as
a supervisor for a grocery chain, but she never
dreamed she might become a racing driver. "Right
now, Vickfs as good a driver as anybody in the
country," says Andy Barto, Detroit promoter who
used to manage the Flat Rock Speedway. "You
can't go down to Daytona Beach year after year
and do what she has without knowing plenty."
Vickfs record at Daytona has been nothing
short of phenomenal. Each year since 1953 she has
turned in the fastest time of all women drivers.
Three years die recorded individual times faster
man any men. In 1959 the only car that topped her
speed blew up before the event was over.
Last Fourth of July, while watching but not
competing in the Daytona Beach track races, she
stopped at the pits to say hello to some of the
drivers. Her way was barred by a guard. "Sorry?
no women allowed," he said.
Vicki, who seldom argues with anybody, retired
to her seat When the drivers heard of this rebuff,
they swarmed out of the pits to visit her in the
grandstand. When the track owner learned of the
incident, he grabbed the microphone and an
nounced over the loudspeaker so everyone could
hear it; "Attention, alT gatetenders. At this track
Vicki Wood U the same as any man!"
Vicki wasn't sure just how to interpret this, but
she smiled. It was part of the fame that goes with
the title of the world's fastest woman.
COVER:
Bob Taylor evoke foad cfcilrkood mem
ones wt k pko of yoicaaxiert im oVe act
of appte-bobbcBg at HaJkncera rime. For a
propocaase feature eoaelhj tx at flcHo-
iptru, see fcaca Is WiaAT p. 12.
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