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Ihthought,hwell,hI’llh competing in local gymkhanas races through comjusthgohtohworkhforhah —plextimed obstacle courses — and climbs in New York State, couplehofhyearshandhearnha hill she earned membership in the Car Club of America littlehmoneyhandhperhaps Sports (SCCA), which ran races for amateurs. Most of those amateurs get a car that’s worth men, but some women did more than $8 .h.h.hbuthbyh were compete, so Guthrie’s arrival make waves. thehtimehtwohyearshwereh didn’t In her autobiography, Janet A Life at Full Throttle, up,hsportshcarshalreadyh Guthrie: she writes: “I had nothing resembling a feminist hadhmehonhthehhook.
renting a two-seater plane and skipping over to Detroit for a day. After sophomore year, she took off a year, getting her commercial pilot’s license and hitchhiking through Europe for a couple of months. After graduating, Guthrie moved to Long Island, New York, to take a job as a research and development engineer with Republic Aviation, which was just breaking into the aerospace industry. Given her intellectual bent, graduate school might have seemed a logical next step. In fact, says Guthrie, she seriously considered applying to the American University of Beirut, which offered a master’s degree in physics. “I’m not sure whether or not I ever applied, because I was really tired of poverty,” she admits. “I thought, well, I’ll just go to work for a couple of years and earn a little money and perhaps get a car that’s worth more than $8, and then I’ll go to graduate school. But by the time two years were up, sports cars already had me on the hook.” And she was able to buy cars worth more than $8. Guthrie’s first four-wheeled love was a Jaguar XK120, and she was eager to
put it through its paces. After
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consciousness at the time I started racing. . . . I simply declined to identify with the women about whose driving men made jokes: they weren’t talking about me, I thought.” She competed at events like the Watkins Glen 500 in 1964 (with an engine she’d built herself ), the Sebring 12-hour race, and the 24-hour race at Daytona. Surprisingly, entering the Indianapolis 500 wasn’t even one of Guthrie’s goals. Women journalists had finally gained access to the pits and garages at Indianapolis in 1971, and there was nothing in writing that prevented a woman from trying to qualify for the race, but “there was an unwritten rule,” Guthrie says. Instead, her sights were set on European road races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans. (Left) In 1976, with 13 years of racing experience behind her, But a persistent and forwardGuthrie readied for her debut thinking IndyCar team owner as the first female entrant in named Rolla Vollstedt had the Indy 500. something to offer first. Re(Middle) Guthrie in February members Guthrie, “I got home 1977, just before she raced in from my garage one day and the Daytona 500, where she finished 12th and earned Top found a message on my answerRookie honors. ing machine: ‘This is Rolla Vollstedt from Portland, Or(Right) The all-women racing team comprising, left to right, egon, and would you be interSharlene Seavey, Judy Konested in taking a shot at the Indratieff (standing), Rosemary dianapolis 500,’ and I thought, Smith, and Janet Guthrie, readied for the 12 Hours of Sebring oh yeah, right, another joker.” race in 1970. Mindful of what she describes as scams in which other women racers had been set up to announce they were going
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