Shirley Muldowney

Shirley Muldowney
Debut season	1958
Previous series
NHRA Top Fuel
Championship titles
1977, 1980, 1982	Points champion
Awards
1990, 2001, 2004	Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, National Hot Rod Association top 50 Drivers of 1951–2000, International Motor Sports Hall of Fame

Shirley Muldowney (née Roque, born June 19, 1940 in Burlington, Vermont), the "First Lady of Drag Racing", is a pioneer in professional auto racing. She was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a top fuel dragster. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980 and 1982, becoming the first person to win two and three Top Fuel titles. She has won a total of 18 NHRA national events.

Racing career

As Shirley Roque, Muldowney began street racing in the 1950s in Schenectady. "School had no appeal to me. All I wanted was to race up and down the streets in a hot rod," declared Muldowney. When she was sixteen, she married nineteen-year-old Jack Muldowney, who would build her first dragster.

It was Jack Muldowney who first taught me how to drive a car. Jack was the mechanic. He was the guy who tuned the cars that let the girl beat all the boys. I was a kid from upstate New York with no guidance, no direction. I was headed for trouble, nothing going for me. Then I found the sport at a very young age and was able to make something out of it.

In 1958, the then eighteen-year-old made her debut on the dragstrip of the Fonda Speedway. She obtained her NHRA license in 1965. She competed in the 1969 and 1970 U.S. Nationals in a twin-engine dragster in the Top Gas classification, but with Top Gas losing popularity, switched to Funny Cars, buying her first from Connie Kalitta.

Around this time, she and her husband Jack drifted apart. "He didn't want to go nitro racing and we parted, but we stayed friends all those years until he passed away just recently."

She won her first major event, the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Southern Nationals in 1971. From 1972 to 1977, she teamed up with Kalitta, competing in match races as the "Bounty Hunter" and "Bounty Huntress".

She stepped up to Top Fuel, getting her license in 1973. An unprecedented three NHRA Top Fuel world championships followed, in 1977, 1980, and 1982.

Muldowney's success came in the face of enormous opposition from those who felt drag racing (or any form of motorsport, for that matter) was no place for women. Don Garlits, the "Big Daddy" of drag racing, has said about her:

Now, if you ask who do I have the most respect for, I'd say Shirley Muldowney. She went against all odds. They didn't want her to race Top Fuel, the association, the racers, nobody...Just Shirley.

Muldowney noted, "NHRA fought me every inch of the way, but when they saw how a girl could fill the stands; they saw I was good for the sport."

A crash in 1984 crushed her hands, pelvis, and legs, necessitating half a dozen operations and 18 months of therapy. She was sidelined for a long period, but returned to the circuit in the late 1980s. She continued to race, mostly without major sponsorship, throughout the 1990s in IHRA competition as well as match-racing events. She returned to the NHRA towards the end of her career, running select events until her retirement at the end of 2003.

Muldowney was described by longtime drag racer Fred Farndon as the "best 'natural' driver (top fuel or funny car), no question."

Perhaps one of her most notorious nicknames was given to her, although inadvertently, by Connie Kalitta, when her fiery temper caused him to reply "Cha-Cha-Cha," hence her public nickname during the 1970s, "Cha-Cha." She despised the moniker and later dropped it, stating, "There is no room for bimboism in drag racing."

Recent activities include the dictation of her memoirs, Shirley Muldowney's Tales from the Track, which Bill Stephens transcribed, and which Sports Publishing L.L.C. published in 2005.

Awards and Honors

• In 1975 Voted first woman member of 10-person Auto Racing All-American team by AARWBA (American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association)
• In 1976 Named Drag News Top Fuel Driver of the Year. Voted to Auto Racing All-American Team for the second time.
• 1977 Won the NHRA WINSTON WORLD points CHAMPIONSHIP, becoming the first woman in history to claim-drag racing's most prestigious title. Recipient of "Oustanding Achievement Award" from United States House of Representatives-October 14,1977. Named Drag News' Top Fuel Driver of the year for the second straight season. Named Car Craft Magazine "Person of the Year" during annual Car Craft Awards Banquet,Indianapolis,Indiana. First Top Fuel Driver to win three NHRA national events back-to-back.
• 1980 Won NHRA WINSTON WORLD points CHAMPIONSHIP title twice.*1981 Won AHRA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Voted to Auto Racing All-American team for the fifth time. Voted Car Craft Magazine All-Star Team, Top Fuel Driver of the Year,for second year in a row. *1982 Won NHRA WINSTON points CHAMPIONSHIP, becoming the first person in history to claim drag racing's most prestigious title three times. Voted to Auto Racing All-American Team for the fifth time. Ran Many Match races and National events up to 2003 and Retires with "Last Pass" Tour concluding at Pomona.

• In 1990, She was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.
• In 2001 She is Ranked Number 5 on the National Hot Rod Association to 50 Drivers, 1951-2000.
• In 2004 She was inducted into the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame.
• in 2008, ESPN Ranked her 21st on their top Drivers of All-Time, citing her record as the first woman to win a major racing championship.

Personal life

Shirley was married first to mechanic Jack Muldowney (who died in 2007). They had one son John, who served as Crew Chief and Master Fabricator/Chief Engine Builder. He took on those duties in 1978 when Connie Kalitta left the team. Her second marriage was to her former crew chief Rahn Tobler in the late 1980s. She divorced him in 2006.

Cultural references

The 1983 film Heart Like a Wheel, about Muldowney's life and career, starred Bonnie Bedelia. Muldowney would rather have had Jamie Lee Curtis play her; she called Bedelia "a snot," and stated, "When she was promoting the movie on TV shows, she would tell interviewers she didn't even like racing. She got out of race car [sic] like she was getting up from the dinner table." Muldowney had mixed feelings about the film itself, stating, "No, the movie did not capture my life very well at all, but more importantly, I thought the movie was very, very good for the sport."

L7, an all-female punk band, featured Muldowney in their 1994 track "Shirley," on their fourth album Hungry for Stink.

External links

• Muldowney's official site