ENCORE: THE FIRST FUNNY CAR WIN FOR SHIRLEY OFTEN GETS OVERLOOKED IN DRAG RACING HISTORY

by Bobby Bennett    Tue, 2023-01-10 14:15

 

Four-time Top Fuel champion Shirley Muldowney has more than enough accomplishments to quantify her status as a drag racing legend. However, one of her most significant accomplishments often gets overshadowed.

Muldowney is heralded for her exploits in driving a dragster. Let the record reflect she is also in the drag racing history books as the first female driver to have ever won a national event behind the wheel of a nitro-burning Funny Car. After a storied career, an event in 1971 stands as the only Funny Car national event victory for the lady whose Mustang also featured sponsorship from Frederick's of Hollywood.

"It wasn't the safest time for me in my career," Muldowney admitted. "Those were very dangerous days. It's not like it is now. I was more or less a Guinea pig."

The early days of 1970s Funny Car racing, labeled as the greatest by many drag racing historians, were also some of the most perilous days, largely because of their propensity to catch on fire.

"That's why all the drivers back then were really respected," Muldowney said. "The fans looked up to the drivers because they were so fearless."

On the historic occasion, Muldowney beat Connie Kalitta in the final during the IHRA Southern Nationals at Rockingham Dragway, driving a Mustang Funny Car she had purchased from him. According to noted drag racing historian Bret Kepner, who provided us with the stats, Muldowney ran a 7.39 elapsed time at only 132 miles per hour for the victory when Kalitta killed an engine.

The event, which was the second of three races at the historic facility that season, was run on July 25, 1971. Muldowney, en route to history, stopped Della Woods, Casey Powell, and Tom Hoover to reach the final round.

"I don't remember much, but I do remember Jack Muldowney did a great job working on the car," Muldowney recalled. "I have a picture of Jack and myself standing in the winner's circle, and he looked like he had crawled through a mud puddle. He was black. The front of his jeans were black. Jack did a good job that day."

What does stand out in Muldowney's mind is the crude creation she raced.

"I was driving a used car that didn't even fit me," Muldowney said. "Had a round steering wheel. It had an air slave cylinder in it so I could shift it, I tried using a hand shifter, and I couldn't even pull it. That was ridiculous. So they put a jack on the slave cylinder, but the ironic part of that was, it wasn't set up to do a burnout in high gear, only because if I did that, then there was no way to get it back into gear for the run. I had to do the burn out in low gear, which I mastered."

While getting through the burnout was a challenge, knowing once the light on the Christmas tree turned green, the great unknown was whether or not the car was going to be on fire at the finish line, which remained a mystery.

 

 

 

"You never knew when you left the starting line if the thing was going to fire up on you," Muldowney added.

Admittedly, there was an attraction to this volatile car that attracted Muldowney.

"I did like it," she admitted. "I liked the false sense of security when they lowered the body. But the bad thing that freaking car had a habit of was flopping the body up at the end of a burnout. So we lowered the pressure in the front tires down and cured that problem. But one time down in Maryland, it did it in the lights, and Tom Prock was coming back down the return road, and he saw that and believed it was all over for me. And I somehow gathered it up. That was not fun. That puts your heart right in your throat, boy, let me tell you."

So dangerous were those early days of Muldowney's Funny Car, and their propensity to blaze up, that when it came time to portray this era in her career during her bio-pic "Heart Like A Wheel", Muldowney said the film crew combined all of her fires into one nasty one based on the 1973 U.S. Nationals fire.

"I tried to tell our production people, 'man, don't do this,'" Muldowney said. "I was fearful for the stunt woman. I was afraid for her. She had a lot of nerve, a lot of brash. Kerry Kullin was her name. She was a delightful person to be around."

Muldowney admits there's a part of her that would love to give a modern fuel Funny Car a try, but for right now, she's content to live vicariously through others.

"If I was feeling better than I am right now, I would do it in a heartbeat," Muldowney said. "You don't lose that desire to compete. The cars are pretty sophisticated and they're not bad to drive. If it's a great car with good people working on it, who knows? That's the simple truth."

One truth Mudowney admits is that she never realized how that hot and sticky weekend in July would play a pivotal role in her illustrious career.

"I never realized that it was going to help make me into what I am today," Muldowney admitted. "We had no earthly idea what the whole thing was going to turn into."

 

 

 
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