— Early on, she ran on the drag strip driving a push-button Super Stock Plymouth
— Plymouth provided her a Plymouth Satellite Funny Car body named “The Bounty Huntress”
— In 1977, Shirley was bestowed an Outstanding Achievement Award from the U.S. House of Representatives after winning the NHRA Winston Top Fuel Championship in her Top Fuel Dragster

A lot of race fans visualize Top Fuel dragsters when the topic of Shirley Muldowney comes up. However, in the first part of this series, we look at her early career, which included the time she spent behind the butterfly of her nitro Funny Car!

Born in 1940, Shirley Roque grew up in Schenectady, New York, and learned early on how to take care of herself. Her father, “Tex”, was a bear of a man, drove taxi cabs and sometimes was a pro boxer. One time, young Shirley came home from school and after telling her dad some other kids were bothering her, he told his daughter, “Here’s what you do, you pick up a board, you pick up a pipe, you pick up a brick, and you part their hair with it.” Her mother Mae remembered, “She was real interested, and she went along with it. There was no more coming home beat up.”  

By age 16, she had done plenty of fast driving in her boyfriend Jack’s custom ’51 Mercury on the streets where she grew up. Her and Jack Muldowney were soon married. She was 16, he was 19, and when she quit school, her dad made her promise to get her diploma, which she did some eight years later.

After Jack had taught her how to handle a fast car on the streets, Shirley got her start in “legal” drag strip racing in the late 1950s, driving a variety of cars including a Cadillac-powered ’40 Ford, a tri-power 348 Chevy and a Corvette, then she moved on up to a Super Stock ’63 Plymouth! With her driving skills and husband’s mechanical abilities, she was able to run a then-incredible time of 11.78 seconds in that 426 Max Wedge car, equipped with an automatic transmission. Here’s how Shirley told that story to National Dragster’s Suzy Beebe in a “Women in Drag Racing” article:

“Jack felt that I was a better driver, and he used to get his kicks out of watching me beat the boys. He just loved it! They had advertised Hayden Proffitt as the first Super Stocker in the 11’s, with an 11.96, and we had to call Chrysler right away to tell them that they were wrong!”

After that phone call, Shirley was invited to Detroit to “talk a deal” with the Plymouth people.

“They offered me a full assistance program at that time, with the only condition being that I had to purchase the car.” Without having that money at hand, she went back to New York and had to sit out the season as they needed their car as a family vehicle. Losing that deal set her back, however, she continued on with a B/Gas and then a BB/Gas dragster, and by 1968, they were not making any money. “I wasn’t getting any national recognition, even though I knew it in my heart that I had the ability.”

The time had come to move on, and to a nitromethane-fueled Funny Car! By searching the back pages of the NHRA house paper, National Dragster, Shirley saw an ad for a used Mustang Funny Car, complete with Logghe chassis, supercharged late-model HEMI^® engine and instructions on how to run it. The seller was Connie Kalitta, and soon the car was on the way to its new home in Schenectady.

Husband Jack did prepare the car and it was a winner right out of the box. Hot Rod Magazine interviewed her about her Funny Car career and here’s what she said about her first “burnout” in the fiberglass Mustang: “My first burnout didn’t bother me. Everyone told me when they closed the body down, it would get to me, but it didn’t. On my first run, I was off it and in it…back and forth, changing lanes…just frightening. I was sure something was wrong with the car. There had to be. The burnout was beautiful, but I couldn’t get the car to go straight.”

Shirley knew where her future was and started to get the ball rolling to become a full-time professional driver. Funny Car racing wasn’t easy. Things started to really move for Shirley’s racing career; all the while, the marriage suffered. Jack wasn’t as into the move to full-time drag racing as Shirley so they split in 1972, their marriage produced a son, John. Next a romantic relationship was started with Kalitta and the two raced their Mustang Funny Cars side-by-side at match races (as the “Bounty Hunter” and “Bounty Huntress”). In a 1972 story in Hot Rod Magazine, she described Funny Cars as “a money making monster.” However, that wasn’t worth it to her for the lack of safety.

1973: CHA-CHA IN A PLYMOUTH FUNNY CAR

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“Cha-Cha Muldowney” paint scheme featuring coin logo and green money roll, indicating she’s after earning race-winning money! Because of her association with Connie Kalitta (known as the “Bounty Hunter”) her car was adorned with Bounty Huntress markings. The 114-inch wheelbase Logghe Stage 4 chassis incorporated a torsion bar front suspension setup, Ramchargers magnesium Dana 60 rear, 5.14:1 gear ratio. The continual fires however got her to switch to the safer Top Fuel dragsters!

When Plymouth gave Shirley a new Satellite body for her Funny Car, they also started to include her in their media campaign for promotions, including this studio photo of her with a go-go girl outfit, popular attire at the time for women that could pull it off, and Ms. Muldowney could pull it off.  

“I started to make a few dollars then because Connie taught me so much about racing. I’ll always be grateful to him for that,” she shared with Beebe. Even though Kalitta had been a big-time drag racer for several years, Shirley quickly became the bigger draw of the two. During 1972, she experienced a nasty fire in the Mustang (ruining the car) and Chrysler racing representative Moon Mullins got involved and provided a fiberglass Plymouth Satellite body for the project and that started her long-running association with Chrysler Corporation. Then, the following season, at the 1973 U.S. Nationals, her engine burst into flames again and this time around the fire was so intense that it burned the goggles right off her face. Plastic surgery had to be done to her skin around her eyes and ever since she wore large sunglasses whenever she could. 

POPULAR IN THE AUTOMOTIVE MEDIA!

June of ’73 Hi-Performance CARS Magazine ran a cover feature of Shirley’s ’73 Plymouth Satellite Funny Car, and highlighted the details of the Keith Black engine, which ran a Moldex 1/2-inch stroker crankshaft, which bumped up the displacement to 488 cubes.

THE SWITCH TO TOP FUEL

It was late in 1973 that she borrowed Pancho Rendon’s dragster and with Don Garlits, T.V. Tommy Ivo and Connie Kalitta in attendance, to sign off on her new upgraded NHRA license, she earned the right to compete in the top drag racing category: Top Fuel.    

Barb Reyes captured Shirley, then 33 years old, and her first Top Fuel dragster in Playa Del Rey, California, in this cover shot of the May 1974 issue of Drag Racing USA magazine. “‘Cha Cha’s’ close friend Connie Kalitta has influenced her racing career, and it was the former great himself who bought her new car. His commercial flying of Ford parts keeps him off the strip these days, yet he wanted to stay close to racing.” The chassis was from Ron Logghe (226-inch wheelbase) and power came from an iron block Keith Black 488-inch stroker HEMI engine fitted with Danekas blower.

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By 1976, Shirley had a competitive racecar, a stylin’ operation (complete with Dodge Dually, Chaparral trailer) and sponsorship from Amalie Oil and English Leather Fragrances, “Plymouth” on the cowl.  

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Be it at a national event or a match race, Shirley was just as exciting to watch in the pits as she was on the track, which further highlighted her as the hottest thing going in drag racing!

FEATURED IN NATIONAL ADVERTISING

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Be it motor oil or spark plugs, Shirley was highlighted numerously in automotive consumer publications. While it was clear that her opponents on the track largely didn’t like her, it was a different story all together with advertising agencies! 

Winning the 1976 Springnationals was the start of a historic run of wins for Shirley, shown here June 13, 1976, celebrating with Miss Winston and NHRA Founder Wally Parks. “Nobody could hold me back from what I wanted to do,” she said of her early days of NHRA racing. “When the NHRA saw that I was capable in the driver’s seat, they relaxed and were great. They were very accepting. They knew I could sell tickets and that I had the goods.”   

By a large margin, the readers of Drag News voted Shirley Muldowney “1976 Top Fuel Driver of the Year” and that was a great indicator of her growing popularity with the fans.

ON THE COLOR PINK

On the color pink, and what it did to her competition and the fans, here’s what Shirley had to say: “Something about that pink color makes them shake in their boots. I’m not particularly fond of pink, I like more basic colors. But being the only pink car out there, when people saw it, they knew who I was.” Pink became her trademark and here’s her Top Fuel entry circa 1977, with 250-inch wheelbase Ron Attebury chassis, 484-cid KB alloy HEMI and Hays triple-disc “pedal clutch.” Her best time was 5.77 at 253 mph.

REPEAT WINNER AT NHRA SPRINGNATIONALS

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Here’s a news media B&W shot of her winning the NHRA Springnationals that was published August 1977 in newspapers with this copy: “Shirley Roque and Jack Muldowney did marry and enjoyed life together back in Schenectady, NY. Their street drag racing became a serious thing and John built his bride a genuine professional car to race competitively. Jack’s business began to grow and prosper. He no longer had the inclination nor leisure time to bounce around the country to go racing every weekend. But the vivacious Shirley — affectionately called ‘Cha Cha’ by her fans — had become infatuated with the sport and its way of life. The desire to continue was too keen to ignore.”

The June 24, 1977, National Dragster cover shot with her in the winner’s photo, flanked by NHRA founder Wally Parks.

1977 WINSTON TOP FUEL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Top Fuel was good to Shirley. After winning the NHRA Top Fuel championship at the end of 1977, she was proud to be the first woman ever to do that feat. It was a very historical night at the NHRA Championship Award Banquet that year. In her emotional speech that evening, Shirley recognized her former husband, Jack Muldowney, for building her first car, then thanked Connie Kalitta for building her best car. But the missing element of the night for her was that her father, Tex, who didn’t live to see her success in Top Fuel, wasn’t there. She did end her speech by telling the packed house that her late father “always knew I could do it.” The U.S. Government even took notice, as the House of Representatives bestowed upon her an Outstanding Achievement Award.

1980: ANOTHER WORLD TITLE!

With this car, shot taken during the 1979 season, she secured enough NHRA points to once again win the championship. It proved she was no fluke and could win on her own without Connie Kalitta. 

This shot was snapped during the second round of competition at the 1981 NHRA Winternationals at Pomona. At the hit Shirley went into an immediate “powerstand” and she skillfully stayed with the wheelie for some 500 feet, up until the car started drifting on its back wheels to the guardrail. It’s impossible to see and steer a car at this altitude and she wisely backed out of it when it was time to give up the chance for winning the round.

PIONEERING WOMAN

September 1981 saw the announcement of Pioneer Electronics of America to be the primary sponsor of Shirley Muldowney starting in the 1982 racing season. Here’s the original rendering and how the press release read: “Our latest market research shows that some of the largest gains in the car stereo market are in the female 25-34 year-old group. We hope that our association with Shirley will help us address that growing market.” In the announcement, they went on to point out “Shirley has more 5-second runs in the record book (750) and has exceeded 250 mph more often than any other driver in history.” She went on to win the NHRA Winston Top Fuel Championship again on 1982!

NATIONAL DRAGSTER COVERS ’83

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NHRA’s house organ National Dragster had featured Shirley’s Pioneer dragster “cover shot” throughout the 1983 season. Starting with the “What’s New” report where they visited her Northridge, California, shop and including her Gatornationals and U.S. Nationals victory trophy celebrations.

JOINS DIRECT CONNECTION!

It was December of 1982 when Shirley signed on with the Direct Connection program. Here’s what she said about it: “Direct Connection is a natural progression from my previous Chrysler association, most of the parts and pieces we use for the Chrysler HEMI in our dragster are available from Direct Connection performance parts catalog at Chrysler. I am very happy to be a part of it!”

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A new look for 1983, this postcard image with the revised Pioneer/Valvoline/Direct Connection graphics. Part of the advertising campaign of one her sponsors for 1983 (NGK Spark Plugs) shows her in a unique split-image shot with race and street attire plus a photo of her racecar, truck and personal vehicles. She was a top drag racer for cross-promotional advertising programs.

THE NAME “CHA-CHA”

That came from a tech worker at a dragstrip in Sanford, Maine, in 1958, who saw her and put that name in shoe polish on her car. That’s how it started. “Paint it pink, and keep the name ‘Cha-Cha’ on it,” was what Tommy Ivo told her early on. It was a fantastic promotion! She did take it off her helmet in 1978, however.

Coming up in Part II: The movie that chronicled the career of Shirley Muldowney: Heart Like A Wheel!

Watch this Top Fuel highlight reel from the 1982 NHRA U.S. Nationals with the quickest side-by-side drag racer ever:

AUTHOR: James Maxwell