In the week leading up to the third annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last two years competition. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

Today's story comes from Shirley Muldowney, a quarter-finalist in  last year's War Stories Showdown.

THAT $^%^%&** ASHTRAY SLINGING WOMAN

One round with three more to go, and when you draw John Force in competition you had better come with the guns blazing and with everything you have in the arsenal. I watched that guy come up through the ranks and when you come up like he did, there’s usually a handful of stories that are written along the way.

As I told you last round, many of my stories focus on standing toe to toe with someone slapping it out and I never went looking for a fight, they came searching me out. Let the lesson be known. If you mess with the bull, you get the horn or in my case – the ashtray.

This particular story dates back to our championship season in 1982.

We had just won the Northstar Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., and that brought to an end a frustrating weekend of sleeping in these cabanas the NHRA had booked us into that weekend.

Everything about the place we stayed had bad news written over it. The name of the place was Breezy Point and it was 15 miles from the track down a country two-lane road.

I remember that you had to grease up the bed post legs to keep the bugs and ants from crawling up into the bed with you and when you did make it to the shower, you had these pull strings that operated the flow of the water. Keep in mind these were cold water showers only.

Former Top Fuel racer Doug Kerhulas was in the cabana next to us. Our truck and trailer was red and his truck was red but had a white trailer. Keep this in mind for later in the story.

We won the race and there was a restaurant down in the lobby of the place we were staying. The place was right on the end of a circle drive road. It was right on a lake and the restaurant was on the second floor. One whole wall was plate glass overlooking the lake.

I grabbed that ashtray and from 15 feet out, sailed this thing like a boomerang – you could hear it going – swish – swoosh – swish, almost like a helicopter and it caught him on the back corner of his head and laid him wide open.

We, and I mean the crew and myself, were sitting there enjoying the rest after a long and hard-fought win over Gary Beck.

We were eating our salads when this obviously drunken guy walks up and he’s standing right at the end of the table and he knew who I was, but that didn’t stop him from acting like a real butt head.

He looked at us and asked, “Who won Funny Car?”

We had our race jackets on so it wasn’t too hard to figure out we were racers. We fumbled around and finally gave the answer.

Then he opened his mouth when he should have kept quiet.

“I heard some broad won Top Fuel,” he exclaimed.

At that point, his presence was no longer welcomed.

Then he asked, “Who won Pro Stock?”

He’d already made me mad, so I looked him in the eye and said, “Why don’t you just buy a ticket and go to the race. Then you’ll know.”

This guy and he was a big boy, we later learned he played football for Minnesota, gave us a puzzled look.

He got the hint and went to a table with his wife. They sat right behind us.

We were sitting back-to-back when he turned and said, “Lady, you’re just being a horse’s ass.”

My son John turned around and asked him what he said. John then demanded the guy apologize to me.

The next thing we know this guy pulls out a steak knife and tells John he’s going to cut him.

Both John and Galvin stood up and before they could react, I flung a half-filled jar of wine at this guy and nailed him right between the eyes.

I was always quick at the draw and might have made a pretty good gunslinger in the day, if we were throwing stuff.

This guy is soaked in white wine and Galvin grabs him by the wrist trying to get him to drop the knife. He drops the knife and he’s looking at us like someone is about to go through the plate glass window.

He comes over, grabs our table and completely flips it over.

Salad dressing is dripping everywhere.

I’m grabbing salads and flinging them at this guy as quick as I can grab them. I can remember the look on this guy’s wife as she stands there stunned with Bleu Cheese dressing dripping from her nose.

His wife grabs him and says, “Sit down, you’re being a jerk.”

About that time, our waitress gets there and she’s stunned at the scene.

We decided we’ve had enough, paid our bill and get ready to leave.

I didn’t realize it but we had become quite the scene. The band had stopped playing and was watching the action.

This guy is sitting there at the table and I got really mad. Who was this gorilla to ruin our meal?

That’s where our friend Charlie, a helper on our team, comes into the picture in an indirect way. Charlie was a really great guy and he’d helped us that year and we knew him from the old days back in Schenectady, N.Y. He was dedicated to the team and I can remember once we needed help and he came to help us driving his truck, with a broken transmission, 15 miles in reverse down a dark country road.

Charlie was also a smoker and had used this huge ashtray. This was not your average Winston ashtray like I sailed at the deadbeat promoter in my first round story.

This was a huge one; one of those amber colored, octagon shaped ashtrays that he had gotten from the front desk.

There was no way I was going to let this jerk get the last word.

I grabbed that ashtray and from 15 feet out, sailed this thing like a boomerang – you could hear it going – swish – swoosh – swish, almost like a helicopter and it caught him on the back corner of his head and laid him wide open.

The ashtray, as big and durable as it was shattered in eighth-inch crystals. The glass went everywhere in other people’s plates. I mean it went everywhere.

And, now this guy was bleeding like a stuck pig.

John grabbed me and said, “Let’s get out of here now!”

The manager came over and said, “Someone is going to call the cops, you better get out of here.”

We raced to our cabanas, maybe 300 feet away, and started grabbing our bags and packing. We were throwing everything in the bags – hairdryers, clothes and everything – threw the luggage in the trailer. It was a mess.

The sun had just gone down when we stormed out of there like a bat out of hell, trailer in tow.

Now this is where Kerhulas comes into the story.

He had left his trailer at the cabana but was gone searching for food. We never had a chance to say bye.

We’re about 15 miles into our journey to make it to the Wisconsin state line when cars with blue lights went flashing by us. One, swoosh. Two, swoosh. Three, swoosh and a fourth one, swoosh. They went right past us with Shirley Muldowney’s name in gold leaf on the side of the trailer.

They were after someone. The funny thing is they had passed that someone.

They had just gotten a call telling them that Shirley Muldowney’s crew had assaulted someone and he was bleeding.

We never lifted and we had the pedal to the metal getting out of there.

When we got to the state line we called Kerhulas.

He answered the phone and when he heard my voice he asked, “What the &%$# did you guys do?”

Come to find out, Kerhulas had gotten back to the cabana with his pizza and was swarmed by six cops who pulled him out of his truck and put him up against the fender spread eagle. They had guns drawn on him and everything. The first thing they asked him is if he was in Shirley Muldowney’s crew.

They interrogated him pretty strong looking for us, but we were long gone.

Knowing us, and how we could be, he played dumb.

We finally made it home and there was a call from the hotel manager. They let us know the guy was pressing charges.

As it turns out I had met Robert Shapiro, the guy who defended O.J. Simpson in his murder trial and he ended up representing me in the assault case against this former Minnesota football player.

Amazingly, the bill was exactly $7500; the same amount of money I had won in Brainerd.

I’d call that weekend a break even experience and I’d like to put the emphasis on break.