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Profile Spyder Creative
Rally Car Wrap
Age: 24
Location: Kent
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 50 kilos
Loves: Jaffa Cakes
Hates: Losing
Favourite driver: Sebasatien Loeb
2010 set goal: To come top 10 in the BRCC
2010 achievement: Top 10 in the BRCC
Championship titles" BRCC RC4
Ultimate goal: First female world rally
champion
Interests: Keeping fit, playing the piano,
drawing and CARS
1st stage rally: Rockingham Stagers, 51st from
105 drivers
Louise got her first taste of driving when her
late father bought her a battery powered car on her
6th birthday which she would put her pet rabbit in
the back of and drive round for hours each day
until the battery went flat. Robert may have
regretted this gift after Louise wrote off the
conservatory twice, two garden fences and took the
front axle off it.
Louise's first experience of driving a rally car
was when she was 19 and studying Car Design at
Coventry University. Louise was at a car show and
saw a competition advertised to get more women into
Rallying. Cookie entered and found herself
runner-up out of 1000 women. With no previous
motorsport experience, Louise was amazed and this
gave her the confidence to enter her first ever
rally, the Rockingham Stages. Thanks to her student
loan, Louise achieved a creditable 51st out of 105
in an old Peugeot 205.
Cookie was desperate to find a way of rallying
more often than once a year. So she came up with an
idea called Promotion50. The target was to gain 500
fifty pound sponsors to raise £25,000. Cookie
dragged herself around Trade Shows and the
Industrial Estates of Kent knocking on businesses
doors asking for the support of £50 day in day
out. Louise managed to get 300 companies on board
and just about got her first season underway in
2010 competing in a Fiesta ST in the British Rally
Championship Challenge. Sacrifices had to be made
though; Louise had to sell her much loved Ford
StreetKa road car to get to the first round. She
also gave up her full time job to commit fully to
her chosen sport and £50 campaign.
In 2011 Louise stepped up to the British Rally
Championship where she became British Female Rally
Champion and came 2nd in the Fiesta Sport Trophy.
In 2012, Cook threw herself into the deep end and
made the massive step to the World Rally
Championship, where she became the first ever
female to win an FIA Rally Title, excluding the
ladies cup.
News
Cook number 55 for WRC3 2013
The 2013 season is set to be Cook's toughest test
yet. The World Rally Championship has made big
changes for 2013, gone of the Production World
Rally Championship and Super World Rally
Championship now to be replaced with new
championship categories of WRC3 and WRC2.
The Production World Rally Championship now
being replaced with WRC3 as undergone the biggest
change. The regulation change as seen the dropping
of 4WD production based vehicles such as the Subaru
Impreza and the Mitsubishi Lancer being replaced
with the new bread of R class cars. The R class
cars are cars specifically designed for rally and
the higher the R number the higher the machine
specification i.e. R1 basic spec and R5 the top R
spec. WRC3 class is only open to the front wheel
drive machines being R1, R2 and R3 type cars.
The difficulty is a top class WRC3 car, being a
R3 variant is significantly more costly than a car
that would compete for outright victory
in the previous PWRC class. A 4WD Production
World Rally Championship car would be around
£50,000 with a new class leading competitive
car for WRC3, an R3 variant would be a more
substantial cost of around £80,000.
Cook is planning to contest the 2013 season to
develop her experience and talents further with a
compromise R2 class car and look to upgrade to the
R3 class in the 2014 season.
“It is not ideal, we had a 3 year plan to
win PWRC. This year was about gaining 4 wheel drive
experience then challenging for the PWRC
championship in 2014. We have had to adapt to the
changes and 2013 is taking the same route but now
in a slightly different way. Staying with a front
wheel drive car for 2013 will give me more pace
long term. The 4 wheel drive machines give a lot
more grip and if you learn to go quickly with less
grip in 2 wheel drive, it should be easier in some
ways to push the 4 wheel drives to the limit later
on.” Said Louise.
Source: www.rallyteamgb.com/2013/02/cook-number-55-for-wrc3-2023
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