NASCAR’s First Female Phenom: Janet Guthrie

Long before Danica Patrick ever even thought about becoming a race car driver, a woman by the name of Janet Guthrie was busily setting the racing world on its ear with her passion and zeal for excitement. Not to diminish or tarnish Danica’s many accomplishments, but she may well have been a non-entity, were it not for women like Janet Guthrie to pave the way for her. And Guthrie did so at a time when "the good ole’ boy club" ruled every sanctioned racing body in America: not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. Before becoming the first woman ever to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, Janet Guthrie was a pilot and flight instructor, an aerospace engineer, a technical editor, and a public representative for ...

Read Complete Article at Bleacher Report - Motorsports
Article is property of BleacherReport.com