Shirley Muldowney

Shirley Muldowney
Muldowney's dragster at the 1986 NHRA Nationals
Born	Shirley Ann Roque (1940-06-19) June 19, 1940 (age 76) Burlington, Vermont
Debut season	1958
Previous series
NHRA, Top Fuel
Championship titles
Top Fuel 1977, 1980, 1982
Awards
1990, 2001, 2004	Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, National Hot Rod Association top 50 Drivers of 1951–2000, International Motor Sports Hall of Fame

Shirley Muldowney (born June 19, 1940 in Burlington, Vermont ), also known professionally as "Cha Cha" and the "First Lady of Drag Racing", is an American auto racer. She was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a Top Fuel dragster. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980, and 1982, becoming the first person to win two and three Top Fuel titles. She won a total of 18 NHRA national events.

Born Shirley Ann Roque, Muldowney began street racing in the 1950s in Schenectady, New York. "School had no appeal to me. All I wanted was to race up and down the streets in a hot rod," declared Muldowney. When she was 16, she married 19-year-old Jack Muldowney, who would build her first dragster.

It was Jack Muldowney who first taught me how to drive a car. Jack was the mechanic. He was the guy who tuned the cars that let the girl beat all the boys. I was a kid from upstate New York with no guidance, no direction. I was headed for trouble, nothing going for me. Then I found the sport at a very young age and was able to make something out of it.

In 1958, Muldowney made her debut on the dragstrip of the Fonda Speedway. She obtained her NHRA pro license in 1965. She competed in the 1969 and 1970 U.S. Nationals in a twin-engine dragster in Top Gas. With Top Gas losing popularity, Muldowney switched to Funny Car, buying her first car from Connie Kalitta.

Around this time, she and her husband drifted apart; they finally divorced in 1972. "He didn't want to go nitro racing and we parted, but we stayed friends all those years until he passed away [in 2007]," she later said.

Muldowney won her first major event, the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Southern Nationals, in 1971. From 1972 to 1977, she teamed up with Kalitta, competing in match races as the "Bounty Hunter" and "Bounty Huntress".

She stepped up to Top Fuel, getting her license in 1973. That year, she teamed up with Connie Kalitta as the Bounty Hunter and Bounty Huntress, in a pair of Ford Mustangs, hers a Buttera chassis, his a Logghe.Bounty Huntress caught fire at Dragway 42 in Ohio that same year.