For all three women who will make history Sunday in the 91st Indianapolis 500, the issue has become passé. Women can drive race cars against male competitors; that much was proven more than 30 years ago when Shirley Muldowney started winning drag races.
The significance of this year's version of the media overkill on the female racers story, then, lies with two points: First, the numbers are growing, and second, for the first time a woman is considered a legitimate contender to win the race before it begins.
Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher and Milka Duno (in order above) have been mobbed by reporters in the days leading up to the Indy 500, and the questions are the same ones they've been answering since they reached the top levels of motorsports:
- Do you feel like you're making history?
- Can women compete against men?
- Is this a significant statement for women?
- What will it mean if a woman wins the Indy 500?
And, of course, each year a bungled question to a female driver comes out as this: How does it feel to be a woman?
Never before have three women started in the Indianapolis 500, which has featured female drivers off and on since 1977, when Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify for the race. In fact, women have competed in 13 of the previous 15 Indy 500s, including every one since 2000. The increasing number of female competitors is reason for attention, but the three women don't see it as a significant landmark.
"Just because there are other women out there doesn't make me want to go any harder or faster," Fisher says. "Everybody is the same in my mind. I think it's great what this has done for the league and the sport. We've drawn a lot of attention to it. It's made the league more popular. People are tuning in. That's awesome. As an open-wheel fan, I couldn't want any more for the series, so that's great. But to me on track, they're just two more cars."
More significant than the numbers is the quality. Patrick is considered a serious contender, one of 10 to 12 drivers given a valid chance to win the 500. It is the first time a female driver could be thought of as a contender before the race. In 2005, Patrick was strong in practice and qualifying, but wasn't given much consideration as a possible winner.
This time, starting eighth in a top-flight Andretti Green Racing Dallara-Honda, she is.
"I want to get it over with so I don't have to answer anymore questions and so it doesn't have to be sitting on my shoulders, being that burden," Patrick says. "But I can't imagine that I feel any different than anyone else who hasn't won their first race, too. It's one of those things when you finally do it, it's such a relief."
For the most part, their male counterparts don't begrudge the women their place on the racetrack. Patrick and Fisher both have reputations as clean, capable drivers — the jury is still out on Duno —and most of the men in the field at Indy have raced against women since their karting days. Ability isn't necessarily the issue; publicity is.
The attention the female drivers receive sometimes gets to the men, and their point of contention is reasonable. During a recent media tour of New York following qualifying, Duno, whose racing resume is slim, was approached by a reporter for the New York Times. A top male driver seated nearby grumbled quietly. "The only time the New York Times ever interviewed me, they wanted to ask me about Danica," he said.
For the record, four women have raced in the Indy 500 a total of 18 times. After Sunday's race, those numbers will increase to five women and 21 times. Critics of the women-in-racing theme say it's not news anymore, yet the drumbeat continues in the mainstream media, perhaps in anticipation of victory. A woman has never won a major closed-course auto race, and a win by a woman Sunday would be a monstrous, global news story.
"You have more attention because it's a woman in a male sport," Duno said. "At the same time, we have more pressure. Everybody is looking at what the women are doing. Nobody sees how many cars are behind the women; they only see what the women are doing."
But the simple fact that women race against men is old news, and even the women are growing tired of the same old theme.
"It's a special moment, but it's a reflection of our time," Duno said. "Women are able to do anything they want. Women are presidents, engineers, race car drivers. It doesn't matter if you're a woman or man; it matters how good you are."
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