The Indianapolis 500 is racing’s most
important event.
Formula 1 racing has a bigger
footprint, worldwide, than does IndyCar and that’s nice for the F1 crowd, but
no single racing event is bigger than Indy. You avoid absolutes as often as
possible when writing for public consumption, but it is safe to say that very
few sporting facilities have been around as long as the midwestern jewel and
none have the rich history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 500 captures
the attention of the world’s sporting public every year and drivers the planet
over want to race on the famed American oval.
Some of those drivers are women.
Women
have been racing in the 500 since 1977 when Janet Guthrie became the first of
her gender to make the 33-car field. Including Guthrie, nine women have started
the great race. Guthrie started three, Lyn St. James was the 1992 Rookie of the
Year at Indy and had seven career starts in the 500, Sarah Fisher started her
first 500 in 2000 and was in the field nine times during her driving career.
Later Fisher fielded a competitive team as an owner at Indy. Danica Patrick had
her first of eight 500 starts in 2005 and Milka Duno raced three times at Indy,
starting with the 2007 race. Simona de Silvestro raced as a 500 rookie in 2010
and had five Indy starts. Ana Beatriz was also a rookie in the 2010 race and
had four total starts. Pippa Mann, who is racing in her seventh 500 this
weekend, had her first 500 start in 2011. Katherine Legg has had two starts,
beginning in 2012.
Your Loyal Blogger has been fortunate
enough to interview Guthrie, St. James, Fisher and Duno. Without exception, all
are great interviews. St. James took
YLB around the street course at the Long Beach Grand Prix in a press ride-along
event one time. The car was a standard-issue street car from a local Ford
dealership and friends, she hustled that car around. At one point, St. James said, “Oops,” which nearly caused
heart failure on the part of her passenger. When we slowed to return to the
pits St. James explained that she said “Oops,” because she had missed the
racing line by a few inches in that corner. A few decades later, during a
casual conversation, YLB told St. James that she’d nearly caused a heart attack
by saying, “Oops,” and related the story. She grinned.
It says here that a woman will win the
500 someday. It’s hard to tell whether a woman will be elected President of the
United States before we have a female kissing the bricks, but both are going to
happen. In 1977, when Guthrie made the field for the first time, this writer
expected that a woman would have won the 500 by now.
Eight years earlier, YLB expected the
Colts to beat the Jets in Super Bowl III, so take this prediction stuff with a
grain of salt.
The key point here is that automobile
racing is one of the sports where men and women can compete equally and we
should celebrate the emergence of more and more women into the highest levels
of the racing world. Read it here and understand this: Having an increasing
presence of women in racing is good for the sport. Women racers give racing a
more modern, inclusive profile. If you care for the sport, you support women as
racers.
Think I’m wrong? Take a look at drag
racing, where women have been winning championships for a long time. The
National Hot Rod Association enjoys great popularity these days and some of the
most popular drivers are women. Check it out sometime. Anyone who can handle an
11,000-horsepower monster at 340 mph can also do any darn thing else that she
wants to do. You want to get in the way? No, I didn’t think so.
At Indianapolis, Patrick has the best
finish among women, third. Recently retired from racing, Patrick also finished
fourth and sixth at Indy. Patrick also had the best starting position, fourth,
in 2005 and has led the most laps among women, 29.
Fisher
has the most starts, nine. In 2010, the field for the 500 included four women
racers and that’s the most ever. The women on the starting grid that day were
Patrick, Fisher, Beatriz and de Silvestro.
This
year, only Mann will carry the women’s flag and we wish her well.
A final note: The recent ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Guthrie's first attempts to qualify at Indy, Qualified, was excellent and is highly recommended here.
