Published: July 18, 2008 08:52 am            

Life in the Fast Lane

Drag racing is a fast-growing sport, and local women are filling their ‘need for speed’ by racing against the big boys at the London Dragway.

Click here to see the July 19, 2008 Neighbors section in its entirety


By Bobbie Poynter / Community Editor

Betty Wilson, 44, is a hometown girl, born and raised in Williamsburg. With the choice of living anywhere in the world, Betty and Oscar, her husband of 25 years, have chosen to remain in the close-knit community and raise their own family.

Weekdays, Betty is a customer service representative at Community Trust Bank, a job she has loved for 27 years, since first signing on as a senior at Whitley County High School.

However, nearly every weekend between April and September, the Wilsons tow an old Mustang the 40-plus miles to London to satisfy her “need for speed.”

Betty Wilson, a working mom, is a Saturday night amateur drag racer — not to be confused with a round or oval track racer.

“I can’t do the oval track,” said Betty. “I’d get a really bad case of road rage and probably cut somebody off.”

Betty is not the only drag racer in her family, nor is she the first. Her husband has been drag racing since the mid-1970s. Her son, Eric, 19, and now a sophomore at Morehead State University, began as a junior drag racer when he was only 8 years old.

Betty began her drag racing career in 1999 — the same year the London Dragway first opened its gates — and has been competing there ever since. She ran her first races in a 1986 Mustang.

“I had my share of car troubles back then,” she said. “I ripped the clutch out during time trials the very first night. It was a standard, and I kept missing third gear. I never even got to run the first race.”

Betty’s driving has much improved since then, and Oscar made racing even easier for his wife by presenting her with a 1980 Pinto with automatic transmission — well, at least the body of a Pinto. Actually, Oscar pulled the Pinto’s engine and replaced it with a 4-cylinder turbo-charged Thunderbird engine. Betty raced the Pinto for two years and even managed to collect a couple of trophies for her efforts.

Today, Betty flies down the 1/8 mile track in a 1979 Mustang, which she has been driving for three years. The Wilsons are happy with the little Mustang, as it has had only one major breakdown in its three years of service. Their only real expense is for the 110-octane gasoline, which costs them a whopping $7 a gallon.

“Racing really gets your adrenaline pumping,” said Betty. “It’s the absolute best stress relief there is. Whenever my husband makes me mad, I cut the best lights and get down the track faster than ever. And now that I’m ranked in the top three, the other guys don’t rush to get beside me in the staging line — all the better for my ego.”

Cutting the light, Betty explained, is how quickly the car gets off the starting line once the light turns green.

Oscar Wilson is a 30-year veteran amateur drag racer, only recently retiring from the circuit, which included tracks at the Mountain Parkway, Clay City and Knoxville.

“My ol’ reflexes simply aren’t as fast as they used to be,” said the retired racer, who now enjoys being the one-man pit crew for both his wife and son.

Oscar said he probably would still be racing to this day had it not been for a snappy teenage girl who “left him in the dust” one night on the racetrack.

That 16-year-old girl is Courtney Gatliff, who has only been drag racing since April. Courtney’s dad Chuck, also a veteran drag racer, first gave Oscar Wilson the racing bug back in the 1970s. Courtney, too, has had a run of good luck since talking her dad into letting her race behind the wheel of their 1983 Malibu station wagon.

“I just love racing,” said Courtney. “It’s great to see the other guy’s face when he realizes I won the race. Most everybody sees me as just a kid, but I don’t care. It’s a blast out there racing against the big guys, and besides, it’s something I get to do with my dad and that makes it really cool.”

Courtney’s racing career was her and her dad’s secret right up until a couple of weeks ago, when her mother, Sandy, spotted her daughter’s name and picture in the local newspaper.

Courtney had just won Dialing for Dollars, a voluntary racers’ game in which each racer writes on his windshield what time he thinks he will run his race in. The winner is the person who runs the race closest to the time written on the windshield. Courtney’s dad said his daughter’s car is so reliable, and the young girl’s reflexes so fast, it’s no wonder she won the Dialing for Dollars competition four weeks in a row.

Courtney said her mom was not upset, just surprised that her daughter had followed in her father’s footsteps at such an early age.

“Mom only wanted to know why we hadn’t told her sooner,” said Courtney. “She’s happy I’m doing so well and plans to come out and watch me race. Besides, she knows Dad would never let anything happen to me.”

As well as serving as her crew chief, taxi driver, and number one fan, Courtney’s dad is also her co-pilot, sitting proudly beside his daughter each and every time she rolls onto the racetrack, be it for time-trials or actual competitions.

“I like it when I cut a better light than the men do,” said Courtney. “They line up against me thinking I’ll be an easy win. Surprise!”

Betty and Courtney drive in what is known as the foot-break class. This means the cars stop and go according to how fast you move your foot from the break to the gas pedal. There are no electronics or computers in the vehicle that determine when the car takes off or when it stops, as in the pro, super pro or outlaw classes. The whole race is determined by the consistency of the car and the driver’s reflexes at the starting line.

It’s a good thing that the engine and other parts of the car do not determine the class in which Betty drives. Oscar, an auto mechanic by trade, bored out the car’s motor, meaning he opened the cylinder so that it takes in more fuel and air for better efficiency. He also balanced every single internal engine part so that nothing can shake or slow the car down. He added one of the largest cams available, which opens the valves wider and holds them open longer, and included a 750 Holley carburetor, all to coax the most speed in the shortest amount of time he can out of the car’s engine. With all these upgrades, Oscar has only put around $3,000 into the little Mustang the whole the time his wife has been racing it.

In May, Oscar bought his wife a set of headers for her racecar for Mother’s Day. His buddies and co-workers at Powers Auto were all impressed and congratulated him on being such a lucky man. Betty reminded her husband that luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Betty Wilson is currently sitting in third place in the foot-break class standing, while her young friend, Courtney, is in eighth place. Both women hope to improve on their standings as the season winds down, each vying for a spot on the dragway’s top six qualifiers team, which will compete at the O’Reilly’s Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Ind., in September. London will send four teams to Indianapolis in September, one each from the super-pro, pro, foot-break and motorcycle classes.

The London Dragway combined team took the first place trophy in its division at Indianapolis in 2007, and its owner, Craig Boone, hopes to make it two in a row.

“I’m really proud of our lady competitors,” said Boone. “The women are consistent, and they have earned the respect of the rest of the drivers. When we go to Indy, we’ll go as a team.”

For now, the women racers are enjoying “Ladies’ Night” at the London Dragway. Every Friday in July, ladies get into the London Dragway for free — this includes both competitors and spectators.

For a complete listing of the London Dragway’s racing results and upcoming events — such as the Aug. 2 Sport Truck Nationals featuring the Spike TV Muscle Trux’s 1990 Chevy 454SS and 1994 Ford Lighting — log on to www.londondragway.com

        

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