The queen of drag racing – Shirley Muldowney
Shirley “Cha-Cha” Muldowney – a notorious street racer in her teenage years – is the queen of drag racing and was the first woman to win an NHRA World Championship!
She was also the first woman ever to earn a Top Fuel dragster license.
“School had no appeal to me. All I wanted was to race up and down the streets in a hot rod”,
Muldowney said of her early years.
This queen of drag racing married Jack Muldowney at age 16, who would later build her first dragster. She made her debut in 1958 at only 18 and obtained her NHRA professional license in 1965.
Many people at the time felt that drag racing was not well suited for women. Muldowney recalled that,
“The 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.”
That didn’t stop her though, as she forged ahead and started to break records. She won her first major event in 1971 and soon after that, in the 1973 season, decided she wanted to participate in the Top Fuel class.
Her first Top Fuel Championship took place in 1977, which she took first place, as well as placing first in the 1980 and 1982 championships. She was the first woman to break the five-second barrier and became a member of the exclusive “Four-Second Club” in 1989, with a run of 4.974s at 284 mph!
While she enjoyed a very successful career in drag racing, it never came easy. Trying to compete in a male dominated sport, she had to endure numerous fires and crashes. The worst of which, involved an accident in 1984, where her hands, pelvis and legs were all crushed. Requiring half a dozen operations and 18 months of therapy.
She didn’t let that stop her though and continued to race until 2003! Drag racing legend Don Garlits said of Muldowney,
“She went against all odds. They didn’t want her to race Top Fuel, the association, the racers, nobody…”
Apart from paving her own way into this male dominated discipline, she blazed a trail for every other female racer who has come after her!
Source: AutomotiveHallfOfFame