All She Needs Is an Engine : St. James Shows She Can Drive Indy, but Car Is Too Slow

Lyn St. James isn’t in the Indianapolis 500 yet, but she’s having the time of her life trying.

“The biggest surprise about coming here for the first time is how much fun it is,” St. James said Monday as Dick Simon and her crew worked on the 1991 Lola-Cosworth she has been driving at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“Every time I get in the car and get out on the track, it’s like being in heaven. I’m elated that I’ve adapted so well, and I’m really looking forward to getting in the race.”

St. James, 45, is driving the “Spirit of the American Woman” entry in hopes of becoming the first woman since Janet Guthrie in 1979 to compete in the Indianapolis 500. Desire Wilson of South Africa is the only other woman who attempted it. She failed to qualify in 1982.

“If the car just had a little more power, we’d be in the field,” St. James said, sounding like many of her male counterparts. “I felt comfortable at 219 (m.p.h.) in practice last week, and with just a tiny bit more boost, I could get to 222 or so and qualify.”

In St. James’ only qualifying attempt last Saturday, she was averaging 216.005 m.p.h. after three laps when Simon called off the run. She will get her next chance Saturday when time trials resume to fill the remaining six positions in the 33-car field for the May 24 race.

It probably will take 218 m.p.h., maybe 219, to make the field.

Simon remained optimistic, despite the disappointment expressed by St. James.

“Our original plan was to wait until the second week for Lyn to qualify because we felt she needed more experience on the big (2 1/2-mile) oval, but she adapted so well that we tried to qualify her the first day. She’s still ahead of her schedule,” Simon said.

St. James’ 216.159-m.p.h. third lap Saturday is the official one-lap record for a woman, shattering the 191.042 by Wilson. Guthrie, who drove in three races from 1977 to 1979, ran 190.325 in 1978, the year she finished ninth.

The biggest problem St. James faces is that the engine in her car is three years old and has been seriously outdated by the new Ford Cosworth, Chevrolet and Buick power plants. Only one other driver, Jovy Marcelo of the Philippines, is using an old Cosworth DFS, and his best speed in practice has been only 214.193.

“I didn’t know I’d be the Lone Ranger here,” she said. “But there are a lot of politics involved.”

St. James has been a spokeswoman for Ford for the last 10 years, and the only other engines seemingly available to the Simon team are Chevrolets or Buicks. Only two teams, Newman-Haas’ and Chip Ganassi’s, are contracted to have the new Ford Cosworths.

The lack of horsepower seems to have been a more serious stumbling block than her lack of experience in Indy cars.

When St. James arrived for rookie orientation April 23, she had virtually no experience in the open-wheel, open-cockpit cars.

“I drove Dick Simon’s car for a few laps in 1988 at Memphis, and then in November of 1990 I drove Scotty Brayton’s car for 50 laps here at Indy,” she said. “That got me over the awe and fright of going around Indy with all its history and lore and stuff like that.

“I drove very cautiously and didn’t know what to expect from speed, but at least I got acquainted with the place.”

St. James knows the feeling of speed, however. She drove NASCAR driver Bill Elliott’s Ford Thunderbird to a women’s closed course record of 212.577 m.p.h. at Talladega, Ala., in 1988. She was clocked at 232 m.p.h. through a straightaway speed trap.

“Remember, that was in a coupe with sheet metal all around me,” she said in discussing her Talladega run. “All my 16 years of racing have been in cars with a roof over my head and Dick knew I needed to get the feel of the air rushing past me in an open cockpit car, so he took me to Texas World Speedway last month where I lapped at over 220.

“Rookie orientation, which was a fascinating experience, was like going to finishing school. But I learned that no matter what you think about Indy, when you get out on the track, you have to think about it the same way you do any other strip of asphalt where you race. You can’t start thinking about what’s happened here before, you’ve got to concentrate on the moment at hand with all the powers you have.”

St. James was so intent on putting together an Indy car program that she moved to Indianapolis from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., in September of 1990 to work on finding a sponsor and a team.

“I’ve been dreaming about driving at Indy since I came here in 1966 and peered through the fence at guys like A.J. (Foyt) and Parnelli (Jones) and Bobby and Al Unser. Now I have to pinch myself that I’m out there on the same track with some of them.

“I’d like to have been here sooner, but it’s taken me four years and 150-plus sponsorship search-negotiations and dialogues before I landed JC Penney. Sponsorship is probably the toughest part of this sport, and there are a lot of extraordinarily qualified and talented and successful race car drivers who are not racing because they don’t have sponsors. So I consider myself privileged to have one.”

Then she added, with a laugh, “I get some fringe benefits from my sponsor that some of the guys don’t get--like lots of new clothes and getting my hair styled.”

Reaction from her competitors has been largely positive, she said, both on and off the track.

“Two incidents in particular I cherish,” she added. “When I was walking out to my car for qualifying last Saturday, Gary Bettenhausen was standing alongside his car in the pits and as I walked by, he said, ‘You’re doing a hell of a job.’

“Then I got a note from Pete Halsmer (former Indy car driver and teammate of St. James in Trans-Am). All it said was, ‘Believe your butt,’ and that may be the best advice I’ve had all the time I’ve been here.

“There are no reference points here, so you’ve got to drive by the seat of your pants. If you try to override that feeling and do something more than your gut feeling tells you, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Simon, who was also Guthrie’s car owner and mentor when she first came to Indianapolis in 1977, said there is a world of difference in the attitudes toward the two women.

“Janet was not accepted,” Simon said. “Back then, the other drivers just didn’t think she belonged here. She was not only a woman, she was considered to be from the ‘sporty car’ set. The guys didn’t want to race with her.

“Lyn is different. She’s been around. She’s driven in the 24-hour races at Daytona and LeMans, real high-speed racing, and you can witness the difference in attitude when other drivers drive up alongside of her or enter the corner with her. They’re not gun-shy at all. They pull right up alongside, and they have all the respect in the world. It makes working with her a whole lot easier for me.”

Although her deal with Simon and JC Penney is for this race only, St. James hopes her performance will result in some other Indy car offers.

At the moment, her post-Indy 500 racing schedule involves only driving a Ford Ranger for Bill Stroppe’s team in the High Desert Racing Assn. series in Nevada and Arizona.

“That kind of racing is far removed from Indianapolis, but I love it, too,” she said. “Page Jones and I finished fourth in the Mint (Nissan) 400 last month.

“But right here is where I want to be. There’s no greater satisfaction in the world than driving down into Turn 1 when the car is right, with my foot flat on the pedal, knowing that I’m in the groove and feeling the bite as the tires grab hold going through the corner, then knowing I have the exact right amount of power coming out heading for the short chute. Then heading down into (Turn) 2, setting up for the long run down the back straight. Oh, what a feeling.”

And oh, what a little more horsepower would do.