- Giuseppe Victorious
- Car or Driver
- Hy-Vee To Sponsor INDYCAR Weekend At The Historic Milwaukee Mile
- Rolex 24 Race Report
- HSR Classic 24 At Daytona
- Rennsport VII
- UPDATE: Ben Keating – Ironman
- Motul Petit Le Mans – Redemption
- IndyCar Returns To The Milwaukee Mile For A Tire Test
- Anticipation Builds as Larson Passes Indy 500 Rookie Test
Movie Review – “Qualified”
- Updated: October 31, 2019
by Paul Gohde
It’s not often that movie-goers will find a racing film on the schedule of the Milwaukee Film Festival, but one appeared this year that combined the competition aspects of motorsports with the struggles that female athletes in many sports face: recognition of their varied skills and financial support that often lags far behind that of their male counterparts.
And so it was that film director Jenna Ricker and producer Caroline Waterlow approached ESPN films with a story that featured those elements along with a racing tale that explored the highs and frustrating lows of 1970’s woman racer Janet Guthrie and her attempts to become the first woman driver to compete in the Indianapolis 500.
Guthrie, a rather shy person is who now 80 and resides in Aspen, CO, was at first reluctant to participate in the movie project, but eventually decided that her story might help to inspire other women to achieve their dreams. “We felt the time was right to shine a light on Janet again and to put her story back in the history books and back on people’s radar because it’s been forgotten a little bit,” explained Waterlow, who has been involved with other sports documentaries for ESPN.
Guthrie’s story is familiar to most racing fans but might be a bit lost on current women athletes who continue to face the challenges that Guthrie dealt with over 40 years ago.
She was an aeronautics engineer with a youthful zest for sports car racing in the 60’s and 70’s who was offered an unlikely chance to try to become the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, a race dominated by male drivers since its inaugural run in 1911.
Through the use of vast amounts of archival racing footage (perhaps 80% of the film), combined with interviews with drivers, crewmen, motorsports figures (think AJ Foyt and Johnny Rutherford) and Guthrie herself, the 80-minute film tells her story, highlighting her success in striving to reach her goal.
But all didn’t end happily for the then 40-year old driver as financial support that could have led to a full-time drive for a top-tier team dried up by 1980, along with a recurring theme among some in the motorsports community that a woman just couldn’t be successful in facing the demanding pressures of the sport.
“She ultimately left the sport in a bittersweet fashion,” Waterlow noted. “A hard departure for her that dredged up a lot of that history when she first saw the movie.”
Along with her eventual three-year run in the 500, Guthrie also raced in many NASCAR stock car races including the Daytona 500.
Ultimately, “Qualified” shows that not only did Guthrie Qualify for the Indy 500, but that women in other sports are every bit Qualified to compete in a man’s world.
This ESPN documentary premiered at a film festival in Austin, TX and another in Aspen at which Guthrie appeared and received a standing ovation from the audience. It can be found streaming on several television outlets and is highly recommended, especially for those who want to know more about this pioneer of the sport and those who helped her reach her goal; and some who brought her career to a sad halt.
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”