The Forester - Huntsville teen's kart-racing career goes into overdrive
Need For Speed: Seventeen-year-old Kelly Wood of Huntsville is one of the fastest-rising stars in the sport of kart racing. The teen captured two championships last season along with 13 first-place finishes.
It is not unusual for a teenager to try something special to stand out in the crowd.
One Huntsville teen is indeed doing something distinctive. Seventeen-year-old Kelly Wood is carrying on a family tradition in the sport of racing, and so far, her career is already filled with accolades.
"It is something different," said the Huntsville High School student. "There isn't a lot of people who do it around here and I enjoy the adrenaline rush."
Wood won the senior lite and senior rotax championship at the Toronto Kart Club (TKC) this past season, as well as placing sixth in the senior Honda division of the Sunoco Ron Fellow Karting Championship.
This past season was a remarkable one for Wood. She captured 13 firsts and six seconds in her sophomore year.
In her rookie year in 2006, the Simcoe Karting Club named her senior rookie of the year after she placed third in the senior lite division. The Toronto Kart Club named her the most improved driver of the year in the senior circuit after she took seventh in the senior Honda category. She also placed sixth in the senior lite division of the Brian Stewart Karting Championship series.
Wood said winning the two TKC championships this year has been her career highlight to date. She is one of four female drivers in her club, but she is the only woman competing in the rotax class out of 40 drivers.
The road to the championship season began years ago across the Big Pond, when Wood and her family were preparing to make the journey to Canada.
"When we were in the U.K. her grandfather used to race cars," said her stepfather Garry Edwards. "He got talking about it one day and asked if the kids (Wood and her brother Matthew) wanted to try it. So just before we emigrated they got involved a little bit there. She did about four races there before we came here."
The racing bug had not quite bitten Wood yet, even after her initial foray into the sport back in England. Edwards said the family concentrated on establishing their landscaping business over the next few years and the thought of racing was not brought up again until about two years ago.
"We asked if they wanted to try it again. So we went to Sutton to try it out and it all started from there," he said.
One of the highlights this season for Woods was when she, along with fellow drivers Chris Seegobin and Glen Olive, attended the Toronto Kart Club Scholarship Day at Mosport International Raceway to test in three Vallis Motor Sport-prepared F1200 race cars in September.
The drivers were awarded the opportunity to test an F1200 race car by applying for the TKC scholarship program earlier this year. Each of the applications were screened by TKC executive members, and drivers were chosen based on their application details and desire to test an open wheel race car and then further assessed throughout the race season for driving ability, consistent performance, and sportsmanlike conduct.
Wood posted the fastest time of the day among the three drivers at 1:54:09, a lap time that is within 10 seconds of a typical F1200 lap time under normal race conditions. What makes this time so impressive is that she posted the time under wet and windy track conditions and the fact that she had little previous experience with a standard transmission.
Now that the season is over, Wood is focusing her energy on completing Grade 12. Once she has her diploma, she intends to work for her stepfather's landscaping business while concentrating on her racing career.
"We want to step up in the world of motor sport in one way or another," she said.
