Janet Guthrie is the patron saint of female race drivers

The first woman to compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500 in the seventies continues to advocate for equality in motorsport today

31 October 2021 - 00:00 By Paula Andropoulos

There’s just something about Janet Guthrie. Now 83 years old, the Iowa-born pop-culture icon has packed a million different lives into one lifetime. She has a physics degree from the University of Michigan; she worked as an aerospace engineer and a flight instructor, and she built and tended to her own race cars, all in addition to making history as the first woman ever to compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, both in 1977...

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