No Challenge too Great

The resume is impressive—college graduate in physics, aeronautical research engineer, licensed pilot and instructor, NASA Astronaut candidate, but there is more. Now add SCCA sports car competition, the Daytona 24 Hour and Sebring 12 Hour sports car races, IMSA-Firehawk Series, and North Atlantic Road Racing Champion. No, we’re not finished yet—from sports cars, let’s move on to Champ Cars, the Indy 500, USAC, NASCAR, keynote and motivational speaking and, most recently, author. To excel in any one of these disciplines would be a satisfying career. But to excel in all these areas is—well—astounding! So, who is this multi-talented person? Here is a clue: Who was the first woman to race at the Indy 500? If you answered “Janet Guthrie,” you are correct. However, competing at the Indy 500 is just one chapter in the life of this remarkable individual.

The story begins in Iowa City, Iowa, where Guthrie was born in 1938 the first of five children. Guthrie’s father was an airline pilot, and as a result, the Guthrie family relocated several times before settling in Miami, Florida when Guthrie was three years old. Throughout her childhood, Guthrie’s parents emphasized the importance of education. With this parental encouragement and her love of reading, Guthrie excelled in school while enjoying her interests of swimming, music and catching crawfish in the waters around her home. But unlike most other young adults her age, she had an unusual passion—flying. By 13, she was already flying a light plane with her pilot father as instructor. Not satisfied with just flying, she took up another challenge and completed her first parachute jump at 16 while also receiving her drivers license. Interestingly enough, cars were not of any particular interest to her at this age—they were just a means of transportation. Then one day at high school, she saw a friend’s Jaguar sports car for the first time. It made such an impression she promised herself that someday she would have such a great-looking car. She would keep that promise a few years later. In the meantime, flying was still her passion; and at 17, she earned her pilot’s license and at 19, her commercial rating.

Upon graduation from high school, Guthrie chose to enroll in the Aeronautical Engineering program at the University of Michigan. After the first year, she switched her major to physics because she felt a career in this field would be both challenging and “an adventure for the mind.” During her summers, she worked at a local Miami airport giving flying lessons, eventually logging over 400 hours in 23 different types of aircraft. However, cars and racing were still not on her radar screen. Shortly after graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physics, she considered several job offers before accepting a research engineering position with Republic Aviation Corporation. She moved to Long Island, New York in 1960 to start her new career, and would begin working on programs that were precursors to Project Apollo.