America’s first fast lady, Janet Guthrie

The Indy 500 attracts drivers from all over the world for a multitude of reasons; the occasion itself being one but it’s also a race for history makers and this one in particular is special; Janet Guthrie, the first woman to quality and race in the illustrious 500, among her exploits in other race events.

Born in 1938 in Iowa to Jean and William Guthrie, both pilots, Janet was destined for a special life from the start. Raised then in Miami after her father accepted a job that based him there as a commercial pilot, Janet would go on to gain her own pilots license at age 17 before also going to become an aerospace engineer with a physics degree from the University of Michigan. Quite the CV already.

Janet went on to cut her racing teeth racing sports cars in 1963, and by 1970 was racing full time, and had two class wins in the 12 Hours of Sebring and a NASCAR career that would eventually see her take the best race finish by a female driver of ninth at Bristol Motor Speedway, a record that has been matched and never beaten to this day. On top of all that, she was known to have fixed her own cars and built her own engines, because she didn’t have the sponsorships or funding her male counterparts had.

📸With her car at Daytona.

In 1977, she became the first woman to qualify and race in the Indy 500, but ultimately suffered engine problems and finishing 29th after a 26th place qualifying. She’d return a year later, and secured the second best Indy 500 result by a woman of all time as she moved from a 15th place qualifying to a ninth place finish, a result bettered only by Danica Patrick’s 2009 podium finish.

Janet would enter three more Indy 500’s, but she was unable to finish better than her previous - but her place in history was cemented, and then immortalised in the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2019, and at the time was the fifth woman to have the honour.

📸At the Indy 500.

Today, Janet is fast approaching her 88th birthday, and as recently as 2020 continued to be outspoken and supportive of other women in racing. A truly remarkable woman.

"You can go back to antiquity to find women doing extraordinary things, but their history is forgotten. Or denied to have ever existed. So women keep reinventing the wheel. Women have always done these things, and they always will." - Janet Guthrie, 2019.

📸Image credits: Revs Institute, IndyCar.