Janet Guthrie, the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, had to take a second before answering a question about how she planned to watch this year's race.
"Had there been a woman in the race, I would certainly have watched it on television," Guthrie, 82, said. "But I barely keep up with how it's happening anymore."
Guthrie is hailed as a pioneer for women in motorsports as the first female to qualify and compete for the Indy 500 title. She was also the first woman to race in the Daytona 500 the same year, in 1977, before finishing her NASCAR years with a career-best sixth-place finish and placing ahead of names like Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott.
She said she still gets calls and emails from fans and reporters over four decades after her first major race entries, although Guthrie now lives a more quiet life _ free of engine revving _ in a Colorado ski town, which has been made all the more secluded by the coronavirus pandemic.
Recently, Guthrie said she did a Skype interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bob Jenkins to discuss her recent induction into the Indianapolis Motorsports Hall of Fame alongside Earnhardt Sr. She stopped me when I asked about her NASCAR Hall of Fame nomination, technically a nomination for the Landmark Award won by Ralph Seagraves.
"I'm not eligible for the NASCAR Hall of Fame," Guthrie said. "Because you have to have driven for 10 years, and I didn't find the money to do that. I only raced five years in NASCAR, which was absolutely devastating to me that I couldn't find the money to continue, because I was certain that I was going to win races."
"I had led a race. I had run with the leaders. And I could see what was coming," Guthrie added. "But without the money, you're just a fast pedestrian."
Guthrie was neither the first nor the last female driver stunted by this fact of motorsports _ economic barriers to entry are high and disproportionately affect minorities, including women and people of color. Throw a global pandemic into the mix and this is what you get: No women in the Indy 500 lineup for the first time in 20 years.
"There are women out there with the talent," Guthrie said. "But what I've always said is that what the sport really needs is a woman with all the stuff that it takes: The talent, the desire, the focus, the emotional detachment, all the things driving requires, plus her own fortune."
The female driver seemingly closest to that combination this year was British IndyCar racer Pippa Mann, 37, who made her seventh Indy 500 start last year and finished in a career-best 16th place as the only female in the 33-driver lineup. Mann, however, wasn't able to secure the corporate sponsorship she needed to attempt entry this year.
So after Guthrie's initial Indy 500 start, Sarah Fisher's nine races, Lyn St. James' and Simona de Silvestro's Rookie of the Year victories and Danica Patrick's third-place finish, there will be no gender barrier broken at the Indy 500. At least, not this year.
