There’s one thing Vicki Wood will never be able to fully accept. Last year, the state of Florida deemed her unfit for the road. “Somebody wrote a letter to the police department that they didn’t think I’d make a good driver out on the public highway,” said Wood, who was living in Port St. Lucie. “They took my license away. That was the worst thing they could have done to me. I had a nice car, and I had no trouble driving whatsoever. In 80 years of driving, I had one ticket and one slight accident.” That’s not to say Wood, who turned 100 in March, didn’t enjoy ignoring speed limits as a record-setting racer between 1953 and 1963. In 1959, Wood set a women’s record for fastest lap (130.3 mph) at the then-new Daytona International Speedway. Also among her many speed records was a one-way mark on Daytona Beach of 150.375 mph in 1960. She set another women’s record on the 1.5-mile Atlanta International Speedway in 1961.
Wood, who grew up in Detroit, had no idea her racing career would begin the night her husband, Clarence—everyone called him Skeeter—took her to Motor City Speedway, located within earshot of their home. On that night’s card at the quarter-mile dirt track was a women’s-only powder puff race—women didn’t dare take on the men’s classes. Wood came away less than impressed. “The women in that race were so bad,” Wood said. “They were all over the track, running into the wall and all that sort of stuff. I said to Skeeter, ‘If I couldn’t drive any better than that, I wouldn’t be out there.’ He didn’t say nothing until the next week when he says, ‘Let’s go to the races.’ “We went back, but instead of going into the bleachers, we went into the pit area. He says, ‘OK, smarty, you think you’re so good, here’s a car. Now go out there.’ I had never been on a track.”Wood’s first race was forgettable. “It was terrible,” she said. “I was the slowest qualifier. I think I finished the race ninth. I had never been in the car before, never been on the track. The next night, we went over to Mount Clemens, and I won the powder puff race. The next week, we went to Flat Rock, and I won there. It just kept on that way.”
A 1955 story in the Detroit Free Press took note of a talented woman who was tearing up the track. Skeeter shared with the writer the advice he gave Vicki. “All you do,” he told the Free Press, “is wedge right through the field. The minute they see your fenders, they’ll get out of your way.” She was later invited to race with the men at the Detroit-area short tracks. “I was a better driver than half of the men they had,” Wood said. Skeeter had bigger plans for Vicki, however. He set up a meeting with Chrysler’s public relations boss, and Chrysler had a car waiting for her for 1955 Speedweeks in Daytona Beach. “We went to Daytona,” she said. “I had never been there. Never dreamed you could drive on the sand. They had a Chrysler 300 ordered up for me for the time trials. I had never been in a Chrysler and had never driven on the sand. I was thinking, ‘How in the world can you drive on sand?’ There were at least 100 cars on the beach for the trials. I drove Brewster Shaw’s car. He got first place. I got second.”
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