Shirley Muldowney was the first woman that received a license to drive a dragster. She is the first woman ever that drove the fast modified car.
She wasn’t only a dragster driver she was a true champion. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship on multiple occasions.
Shirley Muldowney won the NHRA title in 1977, 1980 and 1982. NHRA stands for National Hot Rod Association and is a drag racing governing body that pretty much sets the rules and hosts drag racing events in the United States and Canada. There hasn’t been a female dragster driver like
Shirley Muldowney again. She had to put her career on standby in 1984 when she crashed during a race and got injured. It al happened during a race in Montreal Canada. One of the tires of her car failed and as a result her dragster crashed while traveling with the a speed of over 250mph.
Shirley Muldowney almost died in the crash. She underwent surgery many times on her badly broken legs. Many believed that the accident would prevent her from ever racing again. Nevertheless, Shirley Muldowney came back to the racetracks in the last years of the 1980s.
Shirley Muldowney continued to race without any money backing her efforts, no major sponsorship, throughout the 1990s. For those who are not familiar with the sport, drag racing is a sport in which special cars or modified motorcycles race on a track, a straight distance with no turns and aim to go as fast as possible. The basic concept behind a drag race is, two vehicles drive side by side on a straight line for a quarter of eighth of a mile. The cars and drivers wait in the starting line for the lights to turn green and let the drag race begin.
Shirley Muldowney is a revolutionary; she re-defined the sporting event of drag racing. Before
Shirley Muldowney people thought that there was no place for women in drag racing. Shirley Muldowney changed all that, she redefined the sport she went against all odds and was very successful in drag racing. There was even a movie made for
Shirley Muldowney in 1983. The movies title was Heart Like a Wheel and it was about the efforts and the successes of
Shirley Muldowney. During her career she has received many achievement awards. She is a true American motor sport female hero.