The Driving Woman

My first Gatornationals blog entry mentioned the 1983 movie “Heart like a Wheel,” which told the story of legendary drag racer Shirley Muldowney. She was the first woman to break down innumerable barriers in NHRA and qualify to run Top Fuel, so you can imagine what a thrill it was for me to speak with the legend herself on Saturday at Gainesville Raceway.

Here’s some breaking news:  Shirley is actually a bit (just a bit) of a softie.

Yes, she has quite a battle-axe reputation after over 30 years of drag racing, but maybe that’s what it took to break in.  You know how it is:  A hard-nosed man is “driven and aggressive,” but the same type of woman usually gets tagged as a “b*tch.”

Shirley is pretty phlegmatic about her rep, saying, “Yeah, I took the hits as a woman first coming into the sport, but I was perfect for that.  I’m respectful and even kind, and I can be presentable in public, but my style works for me and the sport now seems to accept me.”

That’s an understatement, since Ms. Muldowney earned the ultimate accolade when she was inducted last week into the Drag Racing Hall of Fame.  The Gainesville ceremony was presided over by another legend, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, one of the racers who signed her original Top Fuel license application.  My, how that wheel of life does go around. 

We talked about being a role model for other drivers, particularly other NHRA women. Shirley is obviously pleased with the progress made by women in her chosen field, but she does wonder if some of the younger ones fully acknowledge how hard it used to be to blast your way into this tight community. 

Comments Shirley wryly, “Girls seem to come and go in this sport; I’d like to see some longevity out of some of them.  I did it when it was hard to do; no one handed me a ride. Also, so much of the talent is within the crew (mechanics for the car).  All drivers need to learn the basics and then stick with it.  I know what it took back then, and I guess I can take pride in that.”

As with so many women who broke through glass ceilings in non-traditional professions, Shirley is able to look back and be pleased with the improvements since her day, plus the sport is certainly safer.  She just wants “respect for what’s come before.”

Muldowney's advice for combining motherhood and racing is pretty succinct: “Nannies!”  Of course, her son John (now working as a fabricator) was included in her career and races at an early age, and he was almost grown when she was really hitting her stride, so that helped in terms of juggling everything. We spoke with Melanie Troxel earlier that day about the same issue; no getting around it, having kids is tough for the women, as it is with all careerists.

Now, I had to ask Shirley about her car’s sponsor, StriVectin, makers of a stretch mark cream that is also marketed as an anti-wrinkle elixir. “Better than Botox?” is emblazoned across the team tractor-trailer… quite a contrast to the usual sponsors like Skoal, MAC Tools or ACDelco. Throughout her career, Shirley has enjoyed beating rivals in her boldly-painted hot pink dragsters: The StriVectin-SD car has a female model’s face on it; the car and team wear a pink and black color scheme.

The driver is a personable Aussie, Dave Grubnic and those guys from Down Under are known for having a pretty healthy dose of machismo. 

I was curious; how do the mechanics and driver feel about all that pink?  Ms. Muldowney chuckled in her trademark throaty way, assuring me that they loved their rather unlikely benefactor. “The costs of racing are overwhelming, so StriVectin-SD is a godsend.  They offered me a program without requiring me to be the driver, and they’re wonderful, top of the line, spare no expense.”  As for the pink, a guy on the team grinned and said, “Hey, man, as long as the checks clear, I’ll wear any color.”

OK, but does the cream work?  Shirley swears up and down that it does!

So, what about that claim that the Drag Diva is a “softie?”  Well, you should see her grin widen and her face light up when she talks about her pets back at her house; three wild cats that she feeds out her back door (still wild even after she trapped and fixed them) and her two Chihuahuas, Peanut and Midnight.  Her fantasy outside of the drags would be to run a home for abused animals.

I hate to claim that age may have mellowed Shirley Muldowney (because she’s the sort who’d hunt me down and clock me if I made her mad), but I think maybe she’s settling into the idea that as a Hall of Famer, she can relax and let the world know that even tough broads have a human core. The icing on her cake at the 2006 Gatornationals was when her StriVectin car and driver won the Top Fuel race, beating… a woman, Melanie Troxel.  Looks like the women really have arrived.