Lyn St. James was originally born Carol Gene Cornwall, but her name was changed to Evelyn shortly after birth, after her aunt. She later legally changed her name to Lyn St. James.
St. James competed in endurance racing in Europe, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, where her AMC Spirit AMX team placed first and second in class in 1979. In 1985, she became the first woman driver to exceed 200 mph on a race track, driving a Ford Mustang Probe GTP to a lap of 204.223 mph at Talladega Superspeedway.
St. James has been recognized for her achievements with several honors. She was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 1994 and is one of only two women inducted for auto racing. She served as President of the Women's Sports Foundation from 1990-1993. In 2023, she was inducted into the West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame. Sports Illustrated named her among the “Top-100 Women Athletes of the Century,” and Working Woman Magazine included her in the “Top 350 Women who changed the world between 1976-1996.”
St. James set the world closed-course speed record for women on three separate occasions. In 1985, she reached 204.223 mph. In 1988, she set a new record at 212.577 mph in a Ford Thunderbird stock car. During qualifying for the 1995 Indianapolis 500, she achieved a lap speed of 225.722 mph.
St. James has been invited to the White House on multiple occasions, meeting Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Since 2015, she has served as an appeal panelist for NASCAR's National Motorsports Appeals Panel and also serves on the board of trustees of Kettering University. She founded the Women in the Winner's Circle Foundation in 1994 and continues to work as a motivational speaker.
Lyn St. James got the idea for her professional name from the name of actress Susan Saint James. Upon her divorce from her first husband, John Carusso, she legally changed her name to Lyn St. James.
St. James competed in the IndyCar series, with eleven CART and five Indy Racing League starts to her name.
This article is based solely on a Wikipedia article about Lyn St. James. No external sources, including primary archives, autobiographies, period programmes, or specialist publications, were consulted.
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