There should be a parking spot for Guthrie in NASCAR Hall
NASCAR recently announced nominees for its 2021 Hall of Fame Class, and the potential inductees are divided into three categories for the first time since it began honouring racing personalities in ’10.
The new divisions are the Modern Era ballot, Pioneer ballot and Landmark award.
The first category includes racers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Harry Grant. Red Farmer, Banjo Matthews and Ralph Moody are on the Pioneer ballot, comprised of racers previous to 1961. Former NASCAR president Mike Helton and Pocono Raceway owner Dr. Joseph Mattioli have been selected for the Landmark award.
There’s another candidate on the Landmark list, a name that has been nominated. Again.
Each year since 2016, Janet Guthrie has been nominated to be honoured in the stock car giant’s Hall of Fame. And she has missed the cut for each of those years. In fact, one year she was dropped from the list before the voting started.
Guthrie made history when she competed in the 1977 Indianapolis 500, the first woman to do so. She was the first woman to race in the Daytona 500, one of 33 Cup races she took part in during the late ’70s. As well, she did a lot of road racing, starting with a Jaguar XK140 in ’63 right up to a stint as a Peugeot factory team driver in endurance racing in the ’80s.
Guthrie also raced in the Goodyear 200 at Cayuga Speedway in ’79. Driving a Don Biederman-prepared automobile, she placed 12th in the 30car field. Several times under his ownership, track owner Bob Slack would bring in big NASCAR names for his races to give the fans a treat, and Guthrie, with both NASCAR and IndyCar experience, was a natural.
Guthrie said she felt a bit out of her element on a short track oval such as Cayuga.
“It was a good car, but it just didn’t fit me,” she said after the race, which was won by Butch Miller.
“I just didn’t have enough time in the car. I just wish I had had an extra day to practise with the car.”
Guthrie’s day job was as an aerospace engineer. One of her driving suits and helmets is in the Smithsonian Institution and, in 2006, she was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Surely this pioneer deserves to be honoured by NASCAR.
III
NOTES: While we all hope and pray we can return to “normal” soon, the COVID-19 situation has hit the Canadian SuperBike Championship hard. With the loss of its major sponsorship from Mopar and FCA, the series has had to cancel its three opening events and is hoping to resume with its 40th anniversary schedule in late July . ... The next round of nominations for the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame will be accepted starting May 1 at cmhf.ca . ... Last week’s photo of Don Douglas and Larry Rook was courtesy of photographer Kenny Kroeker. ... Ford has built a one-off electric-powered, 1,400-horsepower Mustang for drag racing and named it with a nod to the automaker’s drag-racing past. It’s called the Cobra Jet 1400.