The Lawton Constitution from Lawton, Oklahoma • Page 35

24 THE LAWTON CONSTITUTION, Wednesday, June 3O, 1976 Firsf Woman To Run Auto Race Ready For Acfiofi I MOUNT POCONO, Pa. (AP) A lady in a helmet is painted on Janet Guthrie's car. She looks beyond the past races and the races ahead and see the track that Janet must drive. The lady is Athena, goddess of war, arts and intellect. And, says Janet Guthrie, the simple white profile on the hot blue engine cowl is her symbol of "resolute courage." A righteous patronness for a woman racing driver who also loves the grace of ballet, the discipline of physics, the exhuberance of a rose.

"THIS SUNDAY will test Janet Guthrie and her balky racing machine as she becomes the first woman to run in a 500-mile championship auto race, the Schaefer 500. "Very -little in civilized existence requires all your mental, emotional and physical energy. Racing does," says Janet Guthrie, slowly sipping a beer and contemplating her long blue car. "You use everything you've got in racing. It takes finesse and delicate concentration," says the tall, slender driver gesturing with long, delicate fingers.

There's a quiet intensity, a directness, as she says, "I am a driver. I love it. I think I'm pretty good. "When you've run a good race, everything in life is better, sweeter, clearer." She knowing the thrill and knowing well its cost. "Racing enhances everything, but it substitutes for nothing." Physicist, pilot, would-be astronaut, Janet has been racing cars sports cars and a winning Toyota for 13 years.

Her victories and performance have been impressive. This year the 38-year-old driver entered the toughest, most competitive, male-dominated field of championship auto racing. THE CARS, noisy, gaudy metallic insects, swallow their tiny a i drivers in a fusion of man and machine that is the stuff of hero worship. Janet was the first woman to enter the Indianapolis 500, but failed to qualify because of car trouble. Veteran driver A.J.

Foyt loaned her his car, and she proved she could qualify. She is under contract to car designer-owner Rolla Vollstedt of Portland, through next year's Indianapolis 500 and her major goal is funding and sponsorship. Much of the to-do over being a woman driver is personally embarassing, she says, and she rejects the woman driver label. "We're all drivers here. I'm a driver who happens to be a woman," she says.

"There is no reason, physical, emotional or psychological, that a woman cannot drive a car as well as a man. And when men don't feel ashamed of being beaten by a woman, we will have come a long way," One bitter driver whom she passed on a track said later: "I was determined the bitch wasn't going to pass me." Janet said: "I was determined the bitch would." Although she is increasingly accepted, there are grumbles from a few male drivers. Snide remarks. NOT TOO surprising in a where women Once were barred from the pit area, where it was once thought bad luck if a woman touched or sat in a car before a race. Janet hasn't come up the ladder the way they did, they say.

She hasn't had their experience in championship cars. She's trying to prove something. She's too old. She's had breaks, they claim. All of that she rejects, noting that other drivers are her age or older, and saying: "It's an absurd notion that a 38-year-old woman is over the hill." She doesn't consider herself a feminist.

"I'm not political," she says, "but I do the women's movement for creating the atmosphere which made my ride possible." Reared in Miami, Janet Guthrie is the eldest of five children of an airline' pilot. Although they're glad she's doing her parents really don't like her racing and don't like to watch her race, she says. She holds a bachelor's-degree in physics from the University of Michigan. She has a commercial pilot's license with 400 hours in 23 a i a types. She was one of four women who passed the first tests for-NASA's scientist-astronaut program was eliminated because she lacked a doctorate.

She worked in the aerospace industry as experiment coordinator on an orbiting solar observatory. Eventually racing demolished her career in physics. She also teaches safe driving for Toyota. THERE ARE no regrets, but the road hasn't been easy, says Janet, "and I can't begin to tell you what the psychological cost has been. "I haven't led a civilized existence in the last four years," she says, "but I love racing and get a lot out of it." But there's no time to have friends over for dinner, no time for' gourmet cooking, no time to attend the ballet or listen to music, no time for- picnics, little money for clothes.

"I know what it's like to lie uijider a car for 24 hours, to spend all night in a grubby shop where you cari hear- the rats running around. And you spend most of your nights like that. "You're forever behind the you're trying to keep a voluntary crew together." She remembers leaving wiirk on Friday, hitching her car, an old Jaguar XK-120, to an old station wagon, driving all night, working on the car, racing, loading up, driving all night Monday morning. 'Janet is alone, poised, in a flashy racing world where most drivers are accompanied by wives, girlfriends or groupies. "Yes," she says, resting in the corner of her garage, "being alone is quite miserable." her team, including codriver Dick Simon, is warm and supportive, "like an extended family." AND, SHE adds: "Generally one is very busy." Not too busy to joke with her crew, to put her arm around someone's shoulder, to welcome a little, boy who wants her autograph.

Not too biiisy to appreciate a flower. An occasional djaiisy. or clover blossom dangles from tlie pocket of'her racing SUit. Before hpr first stock car race in Charlotte, N.C.j the greeted Janet, saying: "Welcome to i.he gates of Heaven. Yjbu are about to enter the Garden of Ederi." Janet replied that her chances of salvation wertf: uncertain since 'every day on the way to the track, she stole a rose.

The frustrations are great. On the night before' qualification zit Pocono, the crew stayed up in a faster engine and another mission fen: her Vollstedt-Offenhaeuser. On the day of qualification, Janet had just one hour iwf practice to check cat the car. quietly, she drank hfer milk, pulled om her white hood, her white helmet, her fragile wire glasses and climbed in. Gripping the wheel, she looked straight ahead, driving the ixmrse in her mind, feeling the bumps, living the turns.

IGNITION. IT started like the thunder rolling over the warm meadow. Good. Then the gears: stuck. Frantically, the crew pushed it back into the garage.

The transmission was opened. Oil drained like sickly green blood from the insect car as time was running out. Janet watched, then turned away, returned to the pit area, sat silently on the ground with her hands over her face. The practice had ended. When qualification came, she turned three practice laps and was waved aside by her crew who wanted more time.

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