Lyn St. James. The name conjures up images of the manicured coifs and Mid-Atlantic accents of the black-and-white film stars. You could see her, the Ms. St. James, as a plucky journalist, as a woman with a strong conviction and the attitude to match. But our Lyn St. James is so much more than any comfortable movie stereotype. Our Lyn St. James is a racing driver who defied expectations to become the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year at age 45. She’s a woman who started out as a business major and who went on to compete in the world’s most iconic endurance events, taking class victories at the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. Our Lyn St. James is real.

Welcome to Women in Motorsport Monday, where we share the stories of the badass women who have conquered the racing scene throughout the years.

Born Evelyn Gene Cornwall in Willoughby, Ohio in 1947, Lyn St. James stumbled into racing. As she told , she “moved to Florida, got married, and the guy I married was kind of a car and motorcycle guy.” One trip to the Daytona 24, and she was hooked.

She continued:

“I remember doing research, you know this was way before the internet and all that, so I remember looking in the Yellow Pages. Ultimately I found the Sports Car Club of America and went to West Palm Beach. I became a member of the SCCA and found out you had to go to driver school to get your competition license. My husband went first, and I had so much fun just being there, even though I was nothing but crew, but I loved the experience of the whole thing. He looked at me and said ‘Do you want to do this?’ and I said ‘Yes!’ So after he got his license, I got mine. I got a Ford Pinto to race so I could go get my license.

“Watching Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in 1973, I think that must have left a message in my brain that a woman can do something against guys and be okay. 24 Hours of Daytona, Sebring, sports-car racing, SCCA, watching Billie Jean beat Bobby Riggs, all of that kind of said to Lyn, ‘If you want to do this, go do it.’”

By the time St. James started racing competitively in amateur SCCA races, St. James was 26, and She was a full-time secretary and piano teacher, and she was competing behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto that doubled as her daily — and that she proceeded to drive into a lake next to the Palm Beach race track.

It took five more years before St. James started getting serious. She recalled seeing an article in Car and Driver that noted how Ford wanted to provide more competitive opportunities for women in order to get women to buy more cars. St. James realized that she could be that person if she marketed herself correctly — which resulted, in part, in her name change to the catchy Lyn St. James. And three years after that, she was an official Ford driver.

But there was one thing missing from St. James’ ascendance to the top tiers of motorsport: Women.

While women have always raced, in the 1970s through 1990s, it was fairly rare to see someone like St. James at anything but an amateur local race. And that is, in part, why it took until 1992 — when she was 45 years old — before Dick Simon took a chance on her and signed her for the Indianapolis 500. And that’s when things changed.

“Every driver earns the respect and the ability to get the support that they need — and that includes having everybody on your team, including the team owner, want to see you succeed,” St. James said in a February interview with Jalopnik. “I really didn’t have that until I got to Indy with Dick Simon. I had a team owner who saw my talent and really wanted me to succeed.”

The fact that she was in her mid-40s says a lot. And the fact that, on her debut, St. James finished 11th in the world’s most iconic race — and took home Rookie of the Year honors against a rookie class that featured Paul Tracy and Jimmy Vassar — proved she had a deep talent that had been overlooked.

And with that accolade, St. James smashed countless stereotypes. While women have often been considered to be worse drivers than their male colleagues, older women face incredible amounts of social stigma. That St. James could prove neither age nor gender mattered behind the wheel was an exceptional feat.

“I love the sport,” St. James told Jalopnik when asked what kept her going. “It’s like I found my home in me, in racing. Yes, it was a hard journey every step of the way, but it only made whatever I accomplished more meaningful because it was hard.”

St. James, though, was humble: “But, at the same time, it’s hard for every driver. I mean, hung out with with Scott Pruett and my teammates in the Indy world — every other driver that I was around, of which 99.9 percent of them were men, was trying to build their career while I was trying to build my career, and they were struggling as much as I was.”

“So, it was like I had to walk two lines,” she said. “I had to try to right the wrong, that it wasn’t just me that was having a hard time, that it’s a hard sport. And then, on the other hand, I was also then trying to encourage more women that were in it, to help them understand what they needed to know, what they probably didn’t know, that could help them be more successful.”

Despite its late start, St. James’ racing career included nine attempts and seven starts at the Indy 500 — and during her last start in 2000, the grid featured fellow female driver Sarah Fisher. She competed in CART and IndyCar. She raced countless endurance events and became the first woman driver to crest 200 mph on a race track.

And off the track, she founded organizations like the Women in the Winner’s Circle Foundation, which strives to get more women behind the wheel of race cars. She’s acutely aware of the direction motorsport needs to go in the future, and she’s been pushing for it for years.

“I know the sport will be better the more it represents society,” she said. “[Racing] is an elite sport. It takes money, and there is a certain elitist to the people that are in it. But, there’s no reason that we can’t have more women. more people of color.

“In other words, there’s no gender or race prerequisite to do it. The only prerequisite is that you have to have a passion for it.”

And it’s passion St. James has in spades.