October 08th, 2010

We unearthed this vintage article from Time Magazine in 1976 about Janet Guthrie’s rookie season in Indy. The following year, in 1977, Guthrie became the first woman to compete in the Indy 500.

The reporter writes that Guthrie, who was 38 at the time, was “jeered by frequently unsympathetic crowds at every stall or slip…Accused of entering just as a publicity stunt, mislabeled caustically as a women’s libber and once even asked outright if she was a lesbian.” Boy, we’ve come a long way! Guthrie’s response, “I’m a driver, period.”

The article also mentions Leila Lombardi, the Italian driver, who in 1976 was 33 and racing Formula One. Lombardi’s comment was an interesting one, she claimed: “only in the United States have I recently encountered real prejudice. Why do American men say, ‘No, you’re out of it because you’re a woman.’ So many American race drivers behave like male chauvinists instead of men who practice a sport.”

But not every American male was so chauvinistic: Tom Bigelow, and Indy driver at that time, had this to say about Guthrie: “The smoothest rookie I’ve ever seen.”