Guthrie

CONCORD, N.C. — Long before the garage gates swung open to Danica Patrick, Katherine Legge and Erin Crocker, there was a time when women weren't offered sponsorship opportunities, competitive rides or warm receptions at the race track.

Women simply weren't welcome in the good 'oil boy network of hardcore racing. They were criticized as poor drivers, couldn't get up to speed and generally viewed as a hazard on the track.

Janet Guthrie heard all the criticism, withstood all the snide comments and climbed in her car ready to race. And 30 years after she became the first woman to race in the Coca-Cola 600, she's dismayed at how few have followed.

Although Patrick will start her second Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, the NASCAR race at Lowe's Motor Speedway will go green with an all-male field. No woman has raced in the 600 since Guthrie, and the Nextel Cup series has not had a female racer since Shawna Robinson ran seven events in 2002."Obviously, I'd like to see a lot more women on the track," Guthrie said this month. "Money is still a big problem. I mean, the last I heard, it was $15 million a year to run a Cup car. That kind of money doesn't come easily for anybody, less easily for a woman, I believe."Guthrie never set out to be a pioneer, even though her accomplishments made her one.The first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500 in 1977, that same year she became the first to run in the Daytona 500. A ninth-place finish at Indy in 1978 stood as the best by a woman until Patrick was fourth last season.As Guthrie built a resume of 33 Cup races and 11 Indycar starts over five years, she never focused on her gender. She left that to the men who didn't want to share the track with her."I knew the woman part was irrelevant, but nobody else seemed to," she said. "Sometimes I could laugh at it, but sometimes it could make me mad. The important part was I was able to get my hands on cars and go out and compete at this level."I am a racer right through to my bone marrow, and that's what it was all about for me."