Relentless. Vain. Unapologetic.
Shirley Muldowney was a great many things during her NHRA career.
Though she has affectionately become known as the “First Lady of Drag Racing,” she wasn’t met with much adoration or respect during her early years in the sport. Rather, as the sole woman in a field full of men, she dealt with more opposition and contempt than most could imagine.
But in her heyday, Muldowney did what no other woman had ever done in motorsports — she stuck around year after year and irritated her competitors to no end by winning races and championships.
That’s part of the compelling narrative Fox Sports’ new documentary, “Shirley,” brilliantly conveys during its hour-long running time.
The feature premiered on FS1 on Wednesday, March 20.
In the opening segment, a montage of TV clips from the 1970s play back-to-back, with Muldowney’s male opponents spitting out their charged opinions about her entry into drag racing.
“We designed it, we invented it and now here comes a gal and she’s beating us at our own game,” one said. “It’s a hard pill to swallow.”
Truly, that statement just scratches the surface of the deep-rooted animosity that surrounded Muldowney, who translated her behind-the-wheel talent from street racing to the local drag strip in 1958.
Here’s a few bullet points of what occurred when she started knocking on NHRA’s door:
- Wally Parks, founder of NHRA, originally rejected her competition driver’s license in 1965
- She nearly burned to death in a crash at Dragway 42 in 1972, but decided to stay in the seat because her departure from the sport “would’ve stopped progress”
- She won her first NHRA national event as a Top Fuel racer at the 1976 Spring Nationals
- She had trouble securing crew members, both because she was a woman and she required them to wear a pink shirt to match her signature pink dragster
- She won her first world championship in 1977
Of course, there were many more hindrances and triumphs she experienced during her career that are further detailed in “Shirley” — including her relationship with Connie Kalitta and the media attention she earned — but there is one overarching message to understand.
Muldowney made noise wherever she went.
Also known as “Cha-Cha,” she wasn’t afraid of a dogfight, she didn’t have a filter and she continually believed she was the best racer in the field. Muldowney had hotblooded rivalries with many of the drivers, but most of all, with Don “Big Daddy” Garlits.
As she put it in the documentary, “He hated me, I hated him.”
Nothing could stop Muldowney — not even the many injuries she suffered.
That ranges from her first fiery crash in 1972 to a death-defying wreck in 1984 where her dragster blew a left-front tire and flew into the air, off to the side of the drag strip at Canada’s Sanair Speedway. The 247-mph accident crushed her hands, legs and pelvis.
It was miraculous that she survived, but even more so, it was incredible she came back to race again after it. It took 19 months of painstaking recovery, but she eventually returned to the seat in 1986.
She won her 18th and final national event in 1989 in front of a colorful crowd at the FallNationals, held at Arizona’s Firebird Raceway.
Muldowney, now 83 years old, retired from NHRA competition in 2003.
“I miss it every day,” she mentions in the documentary.
In the present day and age, NHRA remains one of the most diverse forms of motorsports. Last year, across all four classes, eight women competed regularly. While it doesn’t seem like a high number at first glance in comparison to the 40-plus men who are on NHRA’s roster, one must compare it to the rest of the racing world.
There is only one woman running in one of NASCAR’s top-three national series’ (Hailie Deegan), two competing regularly in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (Sheena Monk, Katherine Legge) and zero full-time female drivers in IndyCar.
After hearing that, eight women in NHRA is impressive.
According to six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders, the current women of drag racing owe it all to Muldowney, as her one-of-a-kind career continues to set the standard.
“She definitely paved the way for the current girls, like myself, Leah (Pruett), Angie (Smith), Brittany (Force), Alexis (DeJoria) and all of us. She’s the reason why we get to do what we do,” six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders told SPEED SPORT.
“Knowing what we deal with currently, I can’t begin to fathom what she went through during the 70s and 80s when it wasn’t necessarily OK for a woman to do the things that a man could do.”