1. Car racing is a very exciting and popular sport. But how many women racing car drivers can you name? Probably not very many! On 7 May 1997, some women racing car drivers were invited to Washington. People in Washington wanted to honour them because they were pioneers for women in car racing. One of the women was Janet Guthrie. Janet was one of the first women racing car driver in the world. She was also very successful.
2 Janet Guthrie was born in Iowa, USA, in 1938. She studied physics at university then became a pilot and an engineer. In 1960 she even tried to become an astronaut. But her dream was to become a racing car driver. Because she was a woman, it was very difficult At that time, most people thought that only men could be racing car drivers. So Janet started building and racing her own cars. By 1972, she had given up her other jobs. She was a racing car driver!
3 However, Janet couldn't drive in big races. Nobody would let her drive because she was a woman. Then in 1976, she was invited to drive a car in an important race, the Indianapolis 500. She drove very well. After that, Janet became the first woman to drive in many famous races. Janet drove in her last important race 1979. When she stopped racing, her helmet and racing suit were put into a museum
4 Janet Guthrie had shown the world that women could drive just as well as men!