Toronto Star special - Karting's Kelly Wood
Karting's Kelly Wood on fast track
DENNIS MORGAN
Special to The Star
To do well in a sport, the adage goes, you need to start young.
This is particularly true in auto racing, where kids as young as eight get behind the wheel of highly tuned go-karts to learn racing skills.
But once in a while someone defies that wisdom.
Meet Kelly Wood. She started kart racing last year at the ripe old age of 16 and quickly surprised everyone with her talent and tenacity.
Wood won the rookie of the year award at Simcoe Kart Club and most improved racer award at Toronto Kart Club. She also scored her first victory in a regional race at Sudbury.
This year, she is competing against the best karters in Ontario in the Sunoco Ron Fellows Karting Championship presented by Toronto Star Wheels.
The six-race series got off to a flying start last weekend with 200 young racers competing in 10 classes at Goodwood Kartways track, near Stouffville.
Wood, now 17, is entered in three very competitive divisions: Canada Senior, which features 200 cc Honda engines, Rotax Senior and Rotax Max DD2. That last one is a new class that fields 125 cc Rotax engines linked to two-speed trannies.
The Wood family - dad Garry, mom Julie, Kelly and brother Matthew, now 14 - came to Canada from Devon, England, five years ago and set up a landscaping business in Huntsville.
Kelly showed she was quick in a kart, and mom and dad decided to back her in the challenging and expensive sport.
"Some of the boys tried to intimidate me at first," says Wood, with a big grin, "but I soon earned their respect in the races. At one event, (a veteran driver) tried to push me off the track, but he ended up nearly hitting the tire barriers."
Dad Garry, who is also Kelly's mechanic, says: "We're sure Kelly has the potential to be a real race driver."
Kelly, who attends Huntsville High School, says her ultimate aim is to drive Indy-style cars.
Just how tough that will be was apparent on the weekend when Wood was knocked out of the Rotax Senior race early on, then had mechanical problems in Canada Senior that saw her start in 20th and last place. But a great drive propelled her to an eighth-place finish.
