April May Gelineau
NASCAR Mini Stock Car Driver
 
Racing has been a part of April May’s life since she was a child
living in Barre Vermont. During the Summer months, every Thursday
night you would find her and her family at the races at Thunder
Road.
She would sit through all kinds of weather until they either sent
her home or mother nature cooperated and she got to see the events.
She thought the track announcer could make a guy standing still
sound like he was going a hundred miles an hour and even the dullest
of races became, for young April May, the most exciting thing ever.
| too much of a girl
thing... | As she grew
older, she slowly drifted away from racing. Then one day about eight
years ago, April May asked her husband (who had never been to a
race) if he would like to go to Claremont Speedway. She remembers
the look on his face as he was thinking: If she likes it, it’s
probably too much of a girl thing.
Twenty minutes into the first race a car caught on fire in turn
three and April May’s husband has been hooked ever since!! From then
on both she and her husband could be found every Saturday night, no
matter what the weather, at the race track!
Six years ago the track started a new mini-stock division for
four cylinder cars. As the division started to grow, April May told
her husband that she thought it would be cool to drive one! The next
thing she remembers is being in Goshen, NH, dragging a derelict 1979
Ford Mustang out of a field. The rest is history!
| a year to get the car
ready... | It took them
about a year to get the car ready to race. A friend re-built the
engine. They painted the car black and orange with donated paint and
gave it the number of 76 which was the number of their favorite
prostock driver at Claremont.
April May showed up at the track's spring "pre-season" car show
and knew immediately they were in trouble!! Their car was the
roughest looking one there, and it hadn't even been on the track
yet!! Over the winter the other drivers had put money into their
paint schemes and it was very apparent!!
Even though April May was clearly the black sheep of the racing
family, you could see the pride in her face as she showed off her
very own race car!!
Practice day finally arrived after a year of waiting and the
moment of truth had come. April May admits to being a little worried
about how she would react the first time she got in the car and
drove it on to the track. This would, after all, be the very first
time she would ever drive a race car. She had no idea what to
expect!!
Her first time on
the track was somewhat of a fright to the crew. They were sure she
was scared to death or there was something very wrong with the car.
She was doing 29 second laps. (To be competitive you need to do 17
second laps.) When she came in from her first laps around the track
the crew was relieved to see that all was well. April May was just
laughing so hard that she couldn't drive any faster. She was
thinking: this is just TOO COOL!!
Needless to say her first year was somewhat of an eye opener. She
realized that she certainly had a lot of work to do to the car and
to herself as the driver to become competitive. But she was having
fun!! That first year, 1996, she finished 29th in points (a feature
race only has 24 cars in it).
In 1997, she improved dramatically. She won a race, received the
award of Most Improved Driver in the division and finished 13th in
points!! In 1998, she finished 10th in points and received a five
foot trophy!! In 1999, she won Best of Show at the Claremont car
show and was nominated for the Most Popular Driver award.
2000 is April May’s fifth year of racing. She still loves it and
her enthusiasm is contagious. And it is something that she and her
husband can do together. As she says: She wrecks the car and he
fixes it.
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