On the Right Track

Indy's Gasoline Alley, the row of machine shops that line the famed old oval, roared last week with the sound of 900-h.p. engines being pushed to their limit and bustled with mechanized frenzy, profanity and machismo as next Sunday's 500-mile race drew nearer. The Alley is the ultimate in that American male sanctuary, the local garage. TIME's Barrett Seaman reports how a woman was faring there last week:

The instant she saw the faces of the four veteran United States Auto Club drivers who had judged her in the U.S.A.C. 20-lap "rookie test" last Monday afternoon, Janet Guthrie feared the worst. Solemn, with eyes that avoided hers, Gary Bettenhausen, Al Loquasto Jr., Tom Bigelow and Graham McCrae offered their critiques: "shaky," "afraid to go to the wall," "frightened." Then Bettenhausen could contain himself no longer and began to laugh.

"You s.o.b.s!" blurted Guthrie, 38, the first female to break into the super-macho world of Indy-car racing. The fact is, Guthrie had passed the Indianapolis 500's rookie test with honors. "The smoothest rookie I've ever seen," proclaimed Bigelow. Added Loquasto: "Definitely a heads-up driver."

This interim triumph in the face of agonizing pressure was one of precious few highlights in Janet Guthrie's two-week introduction to Indy. From the first day, when American Airlines lost her luggage--driver's suit, crash helmet and all--it had been an uphill battle.

Endlessly the butt of off-color jokes, harassed constantly by reporters, both legitimate and bogus, and jeered by frequently unsympathetic crowds at every stall or slip, Guthrie had persevered. So thick were the throngs outside her garage in Gasoline Alley that race cars were unable to get through to the track. Accused of entering just as a publicity stunt, mislabeled caustically as a women's libber and once even asked outright if she was a lesbian, Guthrie calmly disclaimed all, except to say: "I'm a driver, period."

Impressive Wins. Her problems were not new ones. In Turin, the world's best woman race driver, Italy's Leila Lombardi, 33, who competes on the Grand Prix circuit, recalled last week that "only in the United States have I recently encountered real prejudice. Why do American men say, 'No, you're out of it because you're a woman.' So many American race drivers behave like male chauvinists instead of men who practice a sport."

The daughter of an Eastern Air Lines pilot, Guthrie grew up in Miami, Fla., in a world of combustion engines, went on to log over 400 hours as a pilot herself, and has been driving fast cars since 1963. Single, a resident of New York City and a physicist, she was one of four women considered for astronaut status by NASA in 1965. She has competed in more than 120 recognized auto races; her most impressive wins were in the "Under 2 Liter Prototype" class at Sebring, Fla., in 1970 and in the "B Sedan" class in the 1973 North Atlantic Road Racing Championship.

Her performances were far from enough to impress diehard traditionalists like 1975 Indy Winner Bobby Unser. (By his own ordination, Unser is the chief chauvinist in Indianapolis this year; on his garage is a sign that reads MALE CHAUVINIST PIGS NEED LOVE TOO.) But her credentials were good enough to make independent Car Designer and Builder Rolla Vollstedt think that he had found what he wanted: a woman driver to add to his team, which is headed by Veteran Dick Simon.

"Rolla asked me to watch her in a race at Ontario speedway in California last year," said Simon. The verdict Simon returned with: "You'd be stupid if you didn't sign her up."

It was not until this January that Bryant Heating & Cooling, the team's corporate sponsor, felt it could afford a second driver. Since then, the road has been rough, even when Janet has had the chance to get out onto it. The Vollstedt team, lacking the big backing enjoyed by teams sponsored by giant oil and tire firms, has moved forward in fits and starts. The worst worry: continual mechanical problems in Guthrie's Vollstedt-designed car.

Last Thursday, as time and chances to qualify for one of the ten remaining openings in the 33-car field closed in on her, Guthrie huddled despondently on a workbench in the back of her garage, looking haggard, while teammates lowered the fourth new engine in two weeks into her balky No. 27. Burned-out pistons were a consistent problem, but even when running smoothly the car was no blue streak, failing to get within reach of the 180-m.p.h. speed probably necessary for qualification. With her best lap going into the last day of qualification a low 173.611, Guthrie had a lot of m.p.h.s to pick up before making the 500's starting field. Curiosity seekers, badgering journalists and sexist detractors all considered, what bothered Guthrie most was getting the car up to speed. "The rest," she said glumly, "you can roll with."

Bigtime Racing. Guthrie's role in this year's 500 would not be determined until the last of the qualifying runs were made. But make it or not, "The Girl," as she is regularly called, has paid her dues in big-time racing. As for the adversity? "I think it actually is helping her," said Indy's chief steward Tom Binford. "If she'd come out here in some slick car and zipped around, people would've said, 'Well, hell, anybody can do it with that car.' " Said another Indy official privately: "She hasn't got a chance in that car. In another car, she'd finish the race."

But Gasoline Alley is still full of those who say the 5-ft. 9-in., 135-lb. Guthrie will never make a showing in any car, because first, she is a woman, and, second, she doesn't have the physical strength to finish a race, the rigors of which sometimes cause drivers to lose 10 lbs. "That's a bunch of malarkey," says Teammate Dick Simon. "Anybody who's been around here long knows it's the mental strength that counts." Janet Guthrie has displayed plenty of that.

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