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It's a muggy early summer afternoon and in the paddock at Shannonville Motorsport Park near Belleville even the crackle of open exhausts seems dulled by the heavy atmosphere.

Under a screened canopy Nancy Turnbull of Toronto is seated on a lawn chair quietly reading a magazine while the sun glints off the polished alloy bodywork of the partly dismantled vintage Lotus racing machine parked a metre or so away.

Husband David is off on an errand somewhere, so we chat about cycling through the Rockies, Alpine skiing, flying the Atlantic in a single-engined, 1963 Mooney, and, of course, racing. All of which, and more, this 70-something woman and her husband have participated in during what she says has been "a wonderful life."

It's only noon on Saturday, but the Team Nancy Lotus is done racing for the weekend we learn when David returns -- damaged cylinder bores.

Both are philosophical. It's all part of the challenge of racing vintage cars, something they've enjoyed for a decade and a half now. But not much of a 70th birthday present for David.

It was during a pause in a training ride for a cycling trip in 1989 that David (who says he became an engineer so he could play with cars) mentioned he might like to go vintage racing, recalls Nancy, who was director of nursing at Cambridge Memorial Hospital.

David, he'd like to get a car, restore it and act as crew chief, she said. Then he asked, "How would you like to be the driver?"

Over 60 at the time, and with no real knowledge of what was involved, it took her only until their next rest stop to decide to give it a whirl.

After a session at racing school (David took it with her so he'd understand what was involved) she received her competition license in 1990. "After day one there was no doubt who was going to be the driver. I was enthralled. Just obsessed with it," she says.

She competed initially in a 1959 Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite. "My best-ever Christmas present one year wasn't lingerie, but a set of big, fat racing tires," she said. She made the switch to the 1959 Lotus in 1994.

The Lotus Seven is a gem. Britain's legendary Colin Chapman created the Series 1 Lotus Seven in 1957 as a kit car (to dodge British purchase tax). Its main purpose was to achieve a little positive cash flow to keep his other, more elaborate projects, such as the new Elite and the Formula One cars on the rails.

The ultra-simple Series 1 was produced until 1960, as the Seven and Super Seven, with some 243 being built with a variety of engines. Many were purchased by club racers.

Series 2, 3 and 4 followed with the latter being taken over by a company called Caterham, which still produces a version of the car to this day.

From the factory in 1957, a Series 1 would have cost you £526.

What you'd have bought was a sophisticated tubular space frame chassis with prop-shaft tunnel and floor acting as stressed members. To this was affixed an independent front suspension with transverse wishbones and coil springs. At the rear was a live axle located by twin parallel trailing arms and a diagonal member, also on coil springs.

Drum brakes were used front and rear and either a worm-and-nut or rack-and-pinion steering system. Wheels were 15 by four-inch bolt-on steel rims fitted with skinny 520/15 cross-ply tires, but wire wheels were optional.

The Spartan two-seater bodywork was made from hand-formed aluminum with cycle-type fenders up front. "Nonsense on a racing car, apart from looking pretty," grumps David of the car's pretty alloy skin. All left the factory in this bare metal state leaving the owner to paint or perpetually polish as they saw fit.

Under the "bonnet" of the Turnbull car is a 948-cc BMC A-Series engine (like that found in the Austin A35 or Austin-Healey Sprite) that in twin-carb form originally produced 42 hp at 5,200 rpm. In modified racing form today, it makes more than twice that. Behind it is a four-speed gearbox.

That may not sound like much power, but the entire car weighs in at just under 410 kg. so performance is surprisingly lively and top speed on the order of 190 km/h.

This particular Seven arrived in Canada in 1975 from England and went through a couple of hands before the Turnbulls purchased it in partly restored condition in the early 1990s.

The move to the lightweight Seven meant learning a new driving style, said Nancy. "You had to drift every corner or you just weren't going fast enough. It took a while to settle in, but once I did, it gave me a real lift and I decided 'This Is Fun.' "

The pair have raced the car at tracks as far afield as Road Atlanta in Georgia, Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Mid-Ohio. A weekend is deemed a success when the car runs well, and the lap times are improved upon, they both agree.

A medical problem forced Nancy to stop driving the car in 1997, but David stepped in to take over the wheel and has been racing the Seven ever since with her continued support. They also still own and enjoy a 1960 Aston-Martin DB4 and a vintage Morgan sports car.

Any thoughts of slowing down? "I'm not ready to quit yet," says David while contemplating a full engine rebuild with some exasperation. "And I've decided I'm still going to Alpine ski until I'm 85," says Nancy.

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Vintage festival

You can see the Turnbull's car and others like it in action this weekend at the Vintage Automobile Racing Association of Canada's 26th Annual Vintage Racing Festival at Mosport International Raceway near Bowmanville (just east of Toronto).

A wide variety of vintage racing machinery, more than 200 entries, from Canada and the United States will be on hand and there's also a vintage car show.

Action begins at 9 a.m. each day and entry to the track is $35 for the three days, $15 for Friday and $20 Saturday or Sunday.

For more information, check out http://www.varac.ca

benglish@globeandmail.ca