Motorsports History – Trailblazing Car Owner Vollstedt Passes at 99
Longtime Indianapolis 500 car entrant Rolla Vollstedt, who is perhaps best remembered for bringing Janet Guthrie to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1976 as the first female to be entered for the Indianapolis 500, passed away Sunday, Oct. 22 in Portland, Oregon. He was 99. Passionate, articulate, outspoken and persuasive, Vollstedt was a high-profile member of the board of directors for the United States Auto Club who served as USAC’s car entrant representative from the late 1960s until the 1980s.
After a dozen years of fielding drivers like Billy Foster, Cale Yarborough, Dick Simon, Tom Bigelow, Arnie Knepper, Larry Dickson, Denny Zimmerman and others, Vollstedt made headlines in 1976 by providing a car for Guthrie.
Plagued by mechanical issues, the team was forced to withdraw the car without Guthrie having an opportunity to make a qualifying attempt. But the following year, she was back, qualifying on the fourth and final day with the 18th fastest speed overall and the fastest of the entire final weekend.
Guthrie managed only 27 laps of the race before a timing gear broke, but history was made.
Vollstedt often was the first to file an entry for an upcoming “500,” and invariably, a car of his was the first to take a “shakedown” lap once the track had been opened for practice at the beginning of May. He learned these most effective publicity-grabbing “stunts” from the very colorful Bryant Heating and Cooling dealer, Phil Hedback, with whom he was often associated, and in turn, Vollstedt passed them on to another longtime partner, Dick Simon.
Vollstedt was one of the great characters of the Speedway and a mentor to countless mechanics and engineers over the years, including Grant King, Hal Sperb and numerous others. He also came across as a pure enthusiast who, even when he wasn’t an official entrant, always seemed to be aligned with a team in some sort of advisory capacity, official or unofficial.
