Have you ever squeezed a watermelon seed?

Janet Guthrie likened it to squeezing a watermelon seed.

Guthrie, the first woman to qualify and race in the Indianapolis 500, did not make the field in her first attempt at the big race. Driving a car fielded by a veteran but under-funded team, Guthrie struggled to find enough speed in her first Month of May at Indy. Qualifying was spread over two weekends in those days and on the final day it was fairly clear that her car was not fast enough to be one of the 33 starters.

A.J. Foyt, Indy’s Grand Master, gave Guthrie the chance to run a few laps in one of his backup cars in the final hours of the final day. Guthrie was immediately fast enough to make the show but Foyt eventually decided not to put her in one of his cars that year. He was still chasing his fourth Indy win at the time and he probably wanted to avoid any distractions that might come his way by fielding a car for the first woman ever to race in the 500.

Your loyal blogger interviewed Guthrie several months later and she likened driving Foyt’s car, which was faster than hers, to the watermelon seed. It was a simply marvelous description, simple and illustrative.

So imagine what former NASCAR champ Kurt Busch experienced when he drove a Michael Andretti car at Indy last week. Busch has extraordinary driving talent and he has driven open-wheeled cars before. Still, jumping into an Indianapolis racecar with no real world preparation and then zipping around the famed oval at competitive speed is a tremendous feat.

Busch’s best lap in the Andretti car was a few ticks better than 218 mph.

Most of Busch’s career has been spent in heavy stock cars. The stockers behave differently than do the lighter and lower, winged dragons that flit around the Indianapolis oval at enormous speeds. The adjustment a driver must make before switching between the two types of racing cars is significant.

It is the kind of adjustment that Indy drivers made more frequently in Foyt’s era than they do today. When the United States Auto Club sanctioned the 500 and ran all of Indy racing, they used to stage companion races wherein there would be a 200-mile Indy car race followed by a 200-mile USAC stock car race. Most of the drivers would compete in both events. They’d spend the weekend jumping between the different types of cars, squeezing that watermelon seed.

It was the kind of thing that Foyt could do. So could greats like Mario Andretti and Johnny Rutherford. So could Janet Guthrie.

And so can Kurt Busch. His kind of seed-squeezing talent is a rare thing. Let’s appreciate it.

 

           Thanks for seeding…uh…reading.