Janet Guthrie is a true pioneer. A licensed pilot who made it through the first round of eliminations for NASA’s astronaut program, Guthrie worked as an aerospace engineer after earning a physics degree from the University of Michigan. Not satisfied with those accomplishments, she strived for greater heights. A mere six years after it was taboo for a woman to be in the garage area or the pit area at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Guthrie successfully qualified for the 1977 Indianapolis 500 in Rolla Vollstedt’s Lightning Offenhauser. Imagine that: no women were allowed in the garages or the pits—not even Maude Yagle, who was the winning car owner of the Ray Keech-driven Simplex Piston Ring Special in the 1929 Indianapolis 500—until 1971. Guthrie overcame all of this negative history to make the first of her three consecutive starts in the Indianapolis 500. In 1978, Guthrie returned with her own team and finished ninth in the Indianapolis 500 in a Wildcat DGS Offenhauser, setting the stage for what she thought would be her best opportunity the following year. The 1979 season seemed to be a real chance to do something special with her new team owner, Sherman Armstrong. Guthrie had a big-name sponsor in Texaco, and she had chief mechanic Huey Absalom, who had won the 1978 Indianapolis 500 and the Indy Car Triple Crown with Al Unser driving. Guthrie even had the same type of car and engine that Unser had all that success with a year earlier: this Lola T500 with a Cosworth racing V-8. After Guthrie qualified a very respectable 14th, it all came undone when a burnt piston put her out of the race after a mere three laps. The result was an incredible disappointment, but Guthrie soldiered on and went on to show the car’s true potential by finishing fifth at the 1979 Tony Bettenhausen 200 at the Milwaukee Mile. She ended up competing in 11 Indy Car races and 33 NASCAR races during her career. It helped set the stage for the female drivers who would follow Guthrie, culminating in the first and only win by a woman in Indy Car competition in 2008, when Danica Patrick won in Motegi, Japan. Ray Evernham, the famed chief mechanic and team owner, has a great appreciation for the barriers that Guthrie broke. To this end, he put this car through a meticulous restoration to correct specifications at his Mooresville, North Carolina, race shop. Originally built by Lola Cars Ltd. of Huntingdon, England, Chassis No. HU 3 is powered by a 2.65L turbocharged Cosworth V-8 engine mated to a Hewland 4-speed manual transmission, rides on Goodyear white-letter racing tires and comes with an external starter. A copy of the documentation video that Gary Runyon commissioned with Janet Guthrie and Ray Evernham to be submitted to the Library Of Congress for Guthrie’s induction is included along with restoration photos, a Cosworth DFX technical specifications sheet by GE Autosports of Avon, Indiana, Cosworth DFX engine information sheets, Hilborn fuel-injection technical specifications sheets, Hewland gearbox technical specifications sheets, suspension diagrams, race car history and Janet Guthrie racing results sheets, and a Texaco Janet 1979 folder. It’s eligible for Vintage Indy and SVRA vintage racing events, and its new owner will always be able to say they are the only one to have the last car that Guthrie raced at Indianapolis.
