Inspiring
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Louise Aitken-Walker - Racing driver 1979-1993
Louise won the Ladies World Rally Championship in a Vauxhall Astra in 1990 but then retired. She was recently inspired to return to rally driving and found that the old thrill is still there .
“It has been sixteen years since I was in a rally car, so I didn’t know how I was going
to react when I recently drove on the Colin McRae Tribute Rally. But it was just like riding a bike – it all came flowing back again.
Driving a rally car flat out is such a high – although not something recommended
on normal roads! It’s such an adrenaline rush, and your heart pumps like crazy. It’s like there’s some gremlin in your body, making you go faster and faster. Now the desire to do rallying again has broken out of the box.
I was inspired to take up the sport when the Jim Clark Memorial Rally was held near our family farm. I found it incredible to watch the cars going at such speed. My two brothers had tried rallying but never made it, so they decided that they would put me in for a competition to find a lady rally driver. I was only 18 and had not long passed my driving test. I didn’t win, but I showed a lot of potential, and on the strength of it I ultimately got a drive in the British Championship, which was fantastic.
The icing on the cake was of course winning the Ladies World Championship with Vauxhall and getting an MBE from the Queen. But by then I wanted a family, so I had to make the decision to stop rallying.
Family life was another challenge and it was quite difficult to start with, but now
that the children have grown up a bit it has got easier, I wouldn’t change family life for the world – but I can’t help myself getting fired up, telling the kids to get motivated, to get a move on, to get competitive. I keep on at them until they eventually turn around and say, ‘But Mum, we’re not like you!’”
