SVRA: Steampunker at the wheel

She loves renaissance fairs, uses a refurbished turbo-diesel ambulance as a tow vehicle, swears by MG sports cars and "drives the hell out of them" in vintage races. At the end of the day stop by her ambulance and you might find whiskey sours and tequila margaritas dispensed from IV bags. She is Lou Marchant, one of the biggest personalities in the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) paddock this weekend at NOLA.

Despite our progressive times, Lou shares that some of her male counterparts still do a double take when they realize the driver is a lady. She recalls one occasion when after dicing it up with an unfamiliar driver during some spirited vintage racing the gentleman approached what he thought was a man only to find a woman when she removed her helmet.

"You mean I got beat by a girl?" the man said.

LEFT: Lou Marchant at home at the wheel. Note the "Cougar" nickname on her door - a moniker assigned to her by fellow drivers.

Part of the confusion is the name, "Lou." No, it's not short for Louise. It's just Lou.

"It's a family thing. Some of us are 'Lue,' others 'Lou' and they are both pronounced the same," says Marchant. "It's just something my family started doing."

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Beyond fielding questions like, "Are you any good?" from people learning about her racing, Lou reports it's no big deal. As an engineer, she says, she has lived in a male-dominated world all her adult life. When a graduate student at SMU in the early 1980's she adapted upon learning the engineering school's main building did not have a women's restroom.

"I just take everyone as they are," Lou says. "I do a good job and people get over it. They get to know me and say, 'that's just Lou."

The daughter of an engineer with a passion for coach building Lou was raised a self-described Wyoming "ranch kid" in the "middle of nowhere." She was able to acquire a driver's license in 1971 at age 13 – but not before she had been on the open roads with an assortment of American Muscle – Mustangs, Camaros, T-Birds and the like. Much to her father's chagrin it was a 1962 MG-A parked at an Esso station that caught her eye. It had a "for sale" sign on it.

Unable to resist his daughter's pleas, her dad caved and bought the car for her. His worst fears about the reputation of the marque were confirmed when it failed to start. After towing it home he placed a condition on continued ownership. Lou would work on the car to bring it to life. She eagerly accepted and a father-daughter bonding project emerged. Lou still owns the car, one among 20.

She has three racecars in her stable, all MGs of course. There are two MG-A racers plus a 1934 MG J2. The J2 is special to Lou, who has a passion for early automobiles. She took the car to England to find the craftsmen to do the kind of painstaking restoration she envisioned.

The J2 has an Ash-wood body with an aluminum skin. The project involved marine woodworkers to get the body right and specialists in MG restoration to make sure everything was authentic. The work required five years.

"I wanted everything to be perfect, right down to the tires," Lou says, very proud of the results that garnered her a trophy at the 2015 Brickyard Invitational (ABOVE, Kim Hill photo).

as best pre-war car. "I love the feel of the pre-selector gearbox. The body is beautiful and the sound of the supercharger at nine pounds of boost is awesome."

To cap it off, Lou raced the car at the Silverstone circuit. While she has driven at the home of the British Grand Prix several times, she has only been on track with the J2 there once. The other times were in different racers, but always an MG. She reports that the MG events in England are the world's largest and the drivers are more aggressive.

"It's not like vintage racing here," she says. "They race each other hard. I want to be competitive but I don't want to touch anyone. I race against myself – I just want to beat my own best time."

That's not to say she sees American vintage racing as a walk in the park. In fact, it can be a bruising experience.

"We are not parading," Lou reports. "In fact, we are driving the heck out of those cars and get tossed around. I come off a weekend pretty bruised and banged up but I love it. I can't get enough."

Lou has been racing vintage cars for 15 years. A confessed "car freak" since childhood, she engaged in competitive events such as autocross and rallies since meeting MG mechanic Reed Yates and his wife Linda in 1980. She graduated to wheel-to-wheel competition with vintage cars in 2000 by joining the Corinthian Vintage Auto Racers, a club racing with the SVRA this weekend. Her first SVRA race was in 2005.

"I really enjoy SVRA. Everyone is so welcoming," she says. "But what I really appreciate is when they say they are staging a pre-war race, that's what they do. All the cars are pre-war and that's important to those of us with cars like my J2."

Lou's story is typical of a lot of vintage racers who work hard at their careers to build financial security and the resources to tick off items on their bucket list. Now her daughter Julia, 21, races one of her MG-A racers. After Julia, a cheerleader, suffered a chipped tooth, a sprained wrist and several other injuries, Lou grew concerned.

"I told her to take up something safer, like racing cars," Lou quips.

That is Lou, a woman of big personality and hearty laugh. There's a serious side about her racing, though, and she's not shy about letting people know she has 12 CVAR checkered flags – accounting for overall wins – against 1950s Corvettes and formula cars. The lady can drive.

She is also clear she likes to have fun. Several years ago friends introduced her to renaissance fairs and from there she got caught up in the "steampunk" craze. The pop culture movement celebrates the industrial revolution spanning the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

The steampunk movement is reflected in the fashions and technology shown in movies like the Robert Downey Jr. interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. The costumes enthusiasts wear are exaggerated versions of garments that might have been worn by characters from Jules Verne or H.G. Wells novels.

"That time period is so fascinating," Lou says. "I love the design, the innovation. There were so many advancements. It was an age of invention."

Perhaps it's no surprise that a woman who has so abashedly, so cheerfully invented her persona would appreciate such an era. Gangway fellas, this steampunk lady is coming through.