Concours d' Elegance of the Eastern United States WelcomesConcours d' Elegance of the Eastern United States Welcomes
Guest Speaker Janet Guthrie
Janet Guthrie is the first woman to earn a starting spot in the Indianapolis 500 (1977) and in the Daytona 500 (1977), where she was Top Rookie. Her ninth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 (1978), with a team she formed and managed herself, was the best by a woman until 2005. She set fastest time of day at Indianapolis on May 7 and May 22, 1977.
In her brief career at the top levels of racing, she earned top-ten starting positions and posted top-ten finishes in both Indy-car Championship races and in NASCAR Cup races. Her fifth-place Indy-car finish at Milwaukee in 1979 was the best by a woman for 21 years. Her sixth-place NASCAR Cup finish at Bristol in 1977 remains the best by a woman in NASCAR’s superspeedway era. She is the only woman to lead a Cup race. She was Top Rookie in five NASCAR Cup races.
Prior to Indianapolis, Guthrie had 13 years of experience in sports car racing, including First Under-2-Liter Prototype (1970) and First GT6 (1967) in the Sebring 12-Hour race. She began competing in the Sports Car Club of America in a Jaguar XK 140 in 1963, and won the North Atlantic Road Racing Championship in 1973 with a Celica that she built with the help of a few volunteers.
A graduate of the University of Michigan (BSc in physics), she was formerly a flight instructor and an aerospace engineer. She is a charter member of the Women’s Sports Foundation Hall of Fame. In 2006, she was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. Her helmet and driver’s suit are in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
Sports Illustrated called her 2005 autobiography, Janet Guthrie: A Life at Full Throttle, “an uplifting work that is one of the best books ever written about racing.”