"I Never Understood the Utility of That Particular Appendage"

Originally Posted on May 2, 2006 on foxsports.com

Before Danica-mania, there was Janet Guthrie.  Guthrie was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame late last week for her contributions to the sport.  It is Guthrie's contributions to the sport that opened doors for Danica, Sarah Fisher and other women to enter motorsports.

Guthrie was the first woman to earn a starting position in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500.  And she accomplished it in the same year, 1977.  She ran races in both the Indy car series and Winston Cup in the late 1970's.

It was not easy going for Guthrie, and she had to endure the trash-talking by a large number of the men she raced against.  Guthrie kept her sense of humor and won many of them over by her fearlessness, speed, and her car handling abilities. 

One of the stories Guthrie told during her acceptance speech was about a French driver who was asked what he thought about (professional) women drivers. The driver replied "I think they'd be missing something between the legs." 

"I never understood the utility of that particular appendage" retorted Guthrie to the laughs of the crowd.  She continued by telling another story about out qualifying three time Indy 500 winner Johnny Rutherford.  After her qualification run, David Pearson commented "She's got to have them somewhere."

Guthrie was a racers racer - she's raced a variety of cars and has had success doing it.  Like many of her contemporaries, she drove both the nascar circuit and the indy car circuit along with other series and car types.

Sports Cars

Prior to her success in Indy cars or Nascar, Guthrie spent 13 years in sports car road racing where she built and maintained her own cars.   This was only natural given her physics degree and experience as an aerospace engineer and flight instructer.  During her sports car days, Guthrie had two class victories at the 12 Hours at Sebring.

Indy Cars

In 1976, Guthrie attempted to make the field at Indy, but was not fast enough.  The next year, she showed up and set the fastest time of the day at Indy on May 7th and May 22, 1977.  At the Indianapolis 50, Guthrie had the best finish by a woman until last year - she finished 9th in 1978.  To put this in perspective, in 1978, there were 92 entrants for the Indy 500 with 33 awarded starting spots.

She finished fifth in a race at Milwaukee in 1979, which was the best finish by a woman for 21 years.  That same year, she qualified fourth at Pocono to A.J. Foyt, Danny Ongais and Johnny Parsons.

Nascar

Guthrie is the only woman to lead a Cup race.  Her 6th place finish at Bristol in 1977 is the best finish by a woman in the superspeedway era.

She out qualified and/or finished better than Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Richard Petty, David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Neil Bonnett and Johnny Rutherford at Talladega in 1977.

Guthrie out qualified and/or finished better than Elliott in 7 out of 10 races in which both ran.  She out qualified and/or finished better than Dale Earnhardt in 2 of 3 races in which both ran.  She out qualified and/or finished better than Johnny Rutherford in all 3 races both ran.

Given these statistics, the induction into the Hall of Fame was well deserved.

 Information from janetguthrie.com, nascar.com, indianapolis motorspeedway, indy racing league.