KEY POINTS:
Danica Patrick has captured the attention - and the eye - of modern IndyCar followers.
But it was Janet Guthrie who broke the ground, becoming the first woman to sit wheel-to-wheel with the men when she joined the grid at the testosterone-fuelled Indianapolis 500 back in 1977.
Patrick
became the first woman to win a major open-wheel race at the Twin Ring Motegi in Japan, making her an instant household name and a photogenic dream for the sport's marketers. A fine driver, she rightly received great accolades for being the first woman to beat the men on an oval.
But if you think Patrick has put a few noses out of joint, imagine the damage Guthrie did to various male egos when she not only out-qualified a good number of blokes - in somewhat less-enlightened times - but put up a good fight until mechanical gremlins dropped her back to eventually finish 29th.
"I was shocked at the level of antagonism but most of those had never had the experience of running against a woman and they were sure they weren't going to like it," said Guthrie. "The presumption was that since I was a female I had no driver skill. They soon found out I was a good clean driver and could give them some good competition and so the attitude changed."
Having earned a commercial pilot's licence and a flight instructor's rating by the end of college, Guthrie sent her life in a different direction when she bought a 7-year-old Jaguar XK120 in 1960, subsequently going sport car racing for the next 13 years.
"A racing driver's make up is a bit different to others and I think you have to be born that way and I think I was one of those different people," said Guthrie.
After a couple of class wins at the Sebring 12-hour endurance race (1967 and 1970), a first in the New York 400 (1971) and becoming the North Atlantic Road Race champion (1973) Guthrie was out for bigger challenges.
"By the end of the 70s I had made the transition from racing as a vocation to an obsession," said Guthrie. "Just as I was beginning to think ahead to making provisions for my retirement I got a call from team owner Rolla Vollstedt to test a car for the 1976 Indianapolis 500."
The offer was a good one. Guthrie became the first woman to pass the rookie test in order to be allowed to race in the Indy500.
"By May it was obvious the Vollstedt car was not fast enough to make the field," said Guthrie. "But then AJ Foyt let me drive his back-up car in practice and I ran that fast enough to make the field. But he decided not to let me [attempt to qualify] with it."
The next year Guthrie set the fastest time on the opening day of practice and the fastest times of any driver the second weekend of qualifications. Her best finish was ninth in 1978.
"One of the biggest incorrect assumptions was the cars were so physically tough to drive that a poor weak feeble woman couldn't do it - but that wasn't so," said Guthrie.
Further cementing her place in the sport's history books, Guthrie was the first woman to race Nascar in 1977 and was named Top Rookie at the Daytona 500 in the same year. Her helmet and race suit can be found in the Smithsonian Institution. She was also one of the first elected to the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame and was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2006.