 Over the winter I had decided to stop being a regular karting competitor. Actually I was not sure if I would ever race karts again. I had always told Marilou that if I stopped driving we should switch roles. She never seemed to act like this was a serious possibility. We discussed the issue again after the 1990 season was over. Marilou decided she would drive in 1991. Now I would be the chief mechanic. It wasn't such a wild idea after all. Sponsorship would come from Kart Klinic and Yellow Fin Performance, the same sponsors I had the last couple of seasons. Marilou's rookie season behind the wheel went very well. In her first race, the O.K.R.A. at Bingeman Park in Kitchener, she finished second. She followed this up with a win in the Can-Am at Point Pelee and some other finishes in the top three. There were a few crashes too.  The worst crash was the week before the O.K.R.A. race at Point Pelee. We had gone down on Sunday to get some extra track time. It was the SunParlour clubs Mid-Season Championship race. There was very little practice time scheduled so Marilou had only driven a few laps of the track. In the first corner of the first lap of the race a kart went sideways in front of Marilou and she had nowhere to go. They collided and her kart somersaulted up in the air and came to rest upside down up on top of her. Marilou had the wind knocked out of her any lay there on her back in the grass as the ambulance rushed down from the far end of the track. The race was stopped with a red flag. Luckily she was only slightly shaken up with a few bumps and bruises, but the kart did not fare so well. The main frame rails were bent, as was the steering wheel. There were some new scrapes to the bodywork and a split in the front fairing.The tachometer/temperature gauge was smashed. Her driving suit had a hole worn in the back and the paint was scraped off of one side of her helmet where it had made contact with the pavement. Gerald got us all together for a team conference. It was all up to Marilou. She decided that she wanted to keep racing. It had been a bad crash. She was not seriously hurt and the equipment could be repaired or replaced. Just two weeks later in a new Margay Lynx chassis used a couple of times by Glen Arnold, now outfitted with her distinctive blue, yellow and red bodywork, and the familiar number 56, Marilou won the first heat at the Avon Can-Am en route to a second place overall finish for the day. |
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