THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605120018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK VEHORN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 176 lines
Gwen Pritchard peers across the hood of her race car at the rookie driver who still has fuzz on his young cheeks, and she understands that one of these Friday nights at Dixieland Speedway the two of them are going to hook up, side-by-side, coming off the No. 2 turn.
It won't be on this night because she is the one with the experience and he's still learning the tricks of the red-clay oval.
But she knows the time is coming that he is going to push his car a little harder down the backstretch, a little deeper into the third turn, and he is going to beat her to the checkered flag.
As she sits behind the steering wheel, she gives him another nervous glance.
``One of these nights, it is going to happen,'' she says. ``And when it does, I'm going to congratulate him if he does it clean. If he does it dirty, we are going to fight.''
Gwen Pritchard, a petite blond, has seen young drivers come and go the last 12 years at Dixieland, a 3/8-mile dirt track in a thicket of pine trees between Elizabeth City and the Virginia state line.
``Some have tried to intimidate me,'' she says with only a trace of a smile, ``but they find out I don't intimidate easily. I get mad. And you don't want to make a woman mad.''
But it is different with this new young driver who puts butterflies in her stomach. The first week she thought racing against him would be the same as racing against others in the Mini Stock division.
She was wrong.
``You don't get away from the mother instincts,'' she explained, looking over at the young driver - her 15-year-old son, William.
``In the first race, one of the guys hit the wall and all I could see was that the tail end of his car was black, like William's car.
``I was like, `Who is it? Who is it?' on the radio. It is hard racing against him.''
Billy Pritchard, the patriarch of this racing family, keeps a close eye on both drivers. He built their race cars, both 1993 Mustangs.
Pritchard, an assistant chief in charge of operations at the Elizabeth City Fire Department, watches the races from the pits on a platform in one of the tow trucks.
He communicates with both drivers by radio, using the same frequency to inform them of problems or offer advice. An hour before qualifying, Pritchard has both cars tweaked and ready to go.
While some people find it unusual for an entire family to be so involved in racing, it all seems normal to the Pritchards.
The family, including William's twin sister Sabrina, grew up with race cars. Billy's daddy raced. So did Gwen's daddy, and her brother, Red Swain, who owns and promotes Dixieland Speedway.
Gwen remembers as a little girl sitting in one of her daddy's old race cars out in the backyard and braving the wasp nests in it to twist the steering wheel and imagine she was racing.
``When I was coming up, there wasn't any women driving race cars,'' Gwen says.
But that did not ease her urge to race, and a trip to Darlington to see a Winston Cup race shortly after she and Billy were married 22 years ago convinced her to give it a try.
``After seeing that race at Darlington, from then on, I was like, `I can do that, I can do that,' '' she says before going on the track for a few practice laps with her son.
Billy was the driver in those days, though. He and his brother-in-law drag-raced on weekends at the old Creeds strip in Virginia Beach.
Gwen tried to convince her husband to let her race on the strip, but he did not think the cars were safe enough.
Instead, he promised if her brother ever built that stock car track he talked about he would build her a stock car.
``Lo and behold, her brother built this track and I had to come up with a race car for her,'' Billy says.
That was in 1983. Gwen has missed only two seasons since - ``Money got a little tight,'' she says.
``I helped out in the concession stands, but that wasn't for me. After two years, Billy couldn't stand me anymore, so he said, `I'm going to put you back in a car.' ''
Billy has raced at the track only once, in a 10-lap event for mechanics several years ago.
``I started second and won it,'' he says. ``I figured I might as well quit while I was ahead.''
Truthfully, Billy admits he enjoys working on the cars as much as his wife and son enjoy racing them.
William began racing go-karts four years ago, and it was only a matter of time before he wanted to move up to stockers. He began pestering Gwen last year, suggesting she should retire and let him have the car.
``I was like, `I'm not giving you my car, but there is the old one in the yard. If you want to fix it, get it going, then we will see what we can do.' ''
The car was the one that his mom had driven when she started racing Mini Stocks. It took work, but William, Billy and some friends brought it back to life.
``William has always helped us with the cars, and a few times when we were over here at the track to practice, he'd get in his momma's car and drive it,'' Billy says.
Once when William was on the track in his mom's car, Billy climbed into another one and figured he'd have some fun with his young son.
``I'd get under him in the turns and speed up, thinking he would have to back off,'' Billy says. ``I got going faster and faster and he stayed right there. I was the one who backed off.''
William is a freshman at Northeastern High School, where he is a catcher and pitcher on the baseball team.
He has the coach's permission to skip practices on Friday to race, but his parents constantly remind him that ``baseball comes first, not racing.''
``Sometimes I get the urge to just race,'' William says, ``but my mom and dad think I am pretty good at baseball and might get some scholarship help for college.''
William says racing is usually the main topic at home, but so far there haven't been any arguments about the cars.
``When mom needs space, I give it to her, and when I need space she gives it to me,'' William says.
Gwen offers suggestions and answers questions from her son, but deliberately steers away from telling him how to drive.
``He has raced go-karts and he has to learn on his own,'' she says. ``People used to tell me, `You need to do this, need to do that,' but everyone has their own driving style.''
No one is pushing William, either. In fact, Billy admits he has toned down the motor in his son's car.
``I am not turning the power up until he shows me can handle the car good enough,'' he says as William and Gwen drive onto the track for the qualifying runs - a solo lap against the clock.
Despite being down on power, Williams completes his lap in 22.648 seconds. No one knows the precise speed, but it is fast for a rookie driver in a four-cylinder car.
``He is really improving. That is a second quicker than the first time he was here,'' announces Charles Meads, one of William's young friends who helps with the car.
William is the seventh fastest qualifier. Starting on the pole in the 25-lap feature will be his mom with a time of 21.837 seconds.
Gwen isn't fooled by winning the pole. Her engine is about used up and she knows she is no match for Troy Williams, always the driver to beat in the division.
Williams breezes into the lead on the first lap and Gwen tucks in behind him. In the final laps she keeps the car low to hold off stronger challengers and finishes second, her best of the season.
About 30 yards behind her, William emerges from a close battle with two other drivers to finish a surprising fifth.
As Gwen is interviewed by the track announcer, William is grinning widely as he climbs from his car. The adrenalin is still pumping.
``Man, that was fun,'' he says. ``That's the first time I've been able to get under someone and race them side-by-side. I felt a lot more comfortable out there.''
Gwen is delighted to learn that William finished fifth.
``Fantastic,'' she says. ``Just fantastic.''
She knows if William continues improving that one of these Friday nights he is going to pull alongside on the backstretch, and wave goodbye.
It's something he dreams about, and probably had in mind when he put the sticker on his rear bumper that reads: ``I'm just better than you . . . That's all.''
``I want to beat her,'' William says. ``I have been waiting for that day a long time. I had hoped to give her a victory for Mother's Day. But, maybe it will get here soon.''
Gwen is looking forward to that day, too. She says she will be proud of him - ``As long as it is not because he took me out.'' ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN COLOR PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot
William Pritchard sits behind his mother, Gwen, at Dixieland
Speedway. Not for long, mom says.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot
Gwen Pritchard passes her 15-year-old son William, 1, on the outside
during a qualification race at Dixieland Speedway. Mom is used to
winning, but William is closing the gap.
It's a family affair in the pits for Gwen Pritchard and her son
William. Father Billy, not pictured, is mechanic for both drivers.
by CNB