DRAG STRIP BLAST OFF GIRLS
SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY & STACY "the Femme Fatale" PAUL
by Cole Coonce
The sound of a dragster is nothing if not the sound of destruction.
Every time a valve opens in the combustion chamber of a supercharged
Top Fuel motor--an action that takes place as many as 80 times a second
per valve--it allows a highly volatile mixture of oxygen and
nitromethane (a fuel developed by Third Reich scientists as a rocket
propellant during WW II) to penetrate the cylinder.
This incendiary cocktail then awaits a high-amperage spark so it can
EXPLODE. Not burn like the gasoline in yer grocery-getter, but
detonate like the Manhattan Project in minutia. This series of (barely)
controlled explosions in the motor's cylinder heads is what propels
these contraptions down the race track at speeds in the 300
mile-per-hour range. This whole experience is somewhere between an
orgasm and a glimpse of Armageddon. It is l-o-u-d. It is primal. It is
ferocious.
I have been fascinated with the machinations of nitromethane and its
incumbent pyromania for quite some time. I am also fascinated with
women who harness, finesse, dominate, and control the fierce, unwieldy
machines of drag racing. That is to say, women who drive dragsters.
Recently in Oklahoma City I had the honor of meeting two feminine
archetypes of the drag race culture: Shirley Muldowney and Stacy Paul.
That's right, Ms. Shirley Muldowney, the High Priestess of Top Fuel and
the driver formerly known as "Cha Cha," was "in the house" for a best
2-out-of-3 match race against her longtime nemesis, the Grand Ol' Man
of Drag Racing, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits aka the "Swamp Rat." Inarguably
the two most epic figures in the sport of drag racing, Shirley and
Garlits were facing off for bragging rights at the Thunder Valley Nitro
Nationals in the heart of Sooner Country, OK.
Meanwhile Stacy Paul, considered by many motorsports pundits to be Ms.
Muldowney's heir apparent, was gracing the Okie race fans with her
presence by competing in a class of dragsters known as Junior Fuel
Eliminator.
But the Main Attraction of the Thunder Valley show: Shirley Muldowney
versus "Big Daddy" Don Garlits. (Wo)Mano-a-mano. The Grand Dame of "Go!
Fever" facing off against the man who once eschewed anesthestics after
getting half of his right foot blown off by an exploding transmission
in 1970. Garlits and Shirley have had an on-again, off-again love/hate
relationship that dates back to the early '70s, but here in Oklahoma,
on the cusp of the new millenium, their once-adversarial relationship
had mellowed into a more good-natured grudge match. Indeed, "Big Daddy"
was not even driving his black-as-a-subatomic-particle dragster known
as the "Swamp Rat." He had recently relinquished the steering yoke to
his pal Richard Langson. (After doctors predicted "Big" would
eventually go blind, Garlits climbed out of the cockpit. He suffered a
series of detached retinas from the negative 5g impact after deploying
the parachutes used to stop his dragster.) But none of this was
important to the gathered bleacher bums in Oklahoma: It was still, for
all practical purposes, the Shirley Vs. Garlits Show, a marquee matchup
guaranteed to pack 'em in.
But to understand Muldowney's appeal, one must follow the arc of
Shirley's exalted racing career: From street racing with her high
school snookums, Jack Muldowney, in the Teenage Badlands of
Schenectady, NY, to driving a supercharged, twin-engined Top Gas
Dragster in the late '60s, to driving a nitro-burning Funny Car in the
early '70s, known as the "Bounty Huntress." (Speaking of the
notoriously fiery and unstable Funny Cars and the accompanying danger
of gnarly and potentially fatal oil fires she said, "I drove 'em when
they were really bad machines." She still bears the scars.)
No, Ms. Muldowney is no ordinary drag strip girl. Indeed, she has
become its suffragette. Once marketed by the drag culture Svengalis as
a feisty feminist temptress--part Gloria Steinem, part Tura Satana in
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Shirley allowed herself to be
photographed in hot pants, go-go boots, and a halter top that left
little to the imagination, moments before donning an asbestos firesuit
and climbing into the fire-breathing "Bounty Huntress.") She was a
pretty girl driving a he-man's race car, but something clicked in
Shirley's psyche back then that told her this image rang hollow. And
after a particulary brutal Funny Car fire in 1973, she changed. Shirley
was now no longer "Cha Cha." In fact, she later uttered this pearl of
wisdom in denigration of a bleach-blond female Top Fuel driver, "There
is no room for bimboism in drag racing." As a coda to this anecdote it
should be noted that the shoe (that's dragster parlance for "driver")
she was dissin' has since retired due to a lack of funds. Shirley,
despite likewise suffering from a lack of Other People's Money,
continues to burn down the quarter-mile on her own dime, nonetheless.
Shirley spews that, "I am grouped in this women's drivers group that
could not find serious funding if their lives depended on it, and it
just pisses me off." Shirley is nothing if not candid. The truth is
that professional drag racing today is a billionaires boys and girls
club that depends on corporate financing for its existence. Shirley,
with the able assistance of her husband (and pit boss) Rahn Tobler,
generates a positive cash flow without the help of the Fortune 500
patronage, thank you. No less a source than "Big Daddy" Garlits hisself
has been quoted as saying, "Theirs (Tobler's & Muldowney's) may be
the only Top Fuel team in the country that still makes a living drag
racing."
Yes, Shirley is ignored by the Movers & Shakers of the Corporate
Drag Racing Establishment despite accomplishments such as being crowned
the NHRA Top Fuel World Champion 3 times (a feat matched only by
Garlits and "Joltin' Joe" Amato). Currently, there are a few other
female Top Fuel shoes gettin' fat off of Daddy Warbucks' bankroll, but
Shirley agrees that most of 'em are "glorified trophy girls." She
says,"They are a product of their crew chief."
Which leads us back to Oklahoma, the Fall of 1995, and the setting for
a Battle Betwixt the Sexes, specifically Shirley and "Big Daddy": In
the first session Langson, Garlits' driver, was disqualified for
"red-lighting," the drag strip equivalent of premature ejaculation,
while Shirley "smoked the tires" or overpowered the race track with too
much horsepower--sort of like coitus interruptus or something. So,
despite a less than stellar performance, Shirley was the winner of this
round due to Langson's foul start In the second heat it was "Big Daddy"
who dialed in too much horsepower for his driver Langson, while in the
other lane Shirley expertly rocketed down the drag strip in victory,
covering the quarter-mile track in a scintillating 4.91 seconds, with a
terminal velocity of 295 miles-per-hour. Final results from the OK
Corral: Shirley 2, Big Daddy 0. Wow.
After Ms. Muldowney disposed of her long-time rival in two
straight contests of horsepower, she found time to riff and
ruminate on the trajectory of her life. Your humble
reporter was then granted a private audience with a living
legend, drag racing's Queen Bee. There was something Freudian and
cool about chatting with Shirley Muldowney, 55 years old,
in the privacy of her trailer. I felt like I was in the the same
room with greatness, like I was allowed to peer into the
soul of a woman I admired tremendously from a grandstand. And
that is to say, a woman I consider to be every bit as epic
as any Matron of Nobility that has honored Western
Civilization with her aura in the last 100 years: Sylvia Plath,
Amelia Earhart, Marlene Dietrich, Emma Goldman, Simone de
Beauviour, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Stanwyck, or even Grace
Slick.
In the confines of her trailer Shirley was gracious,
existential, and open with her thoughts. Her state of mind in
1995? "I have [DRAG STRIP BLAST OFF GIRLS] changed," she
said. "I have mellowed. It's not the fight that it was in the
early days. Not that I've relaxed myself at all--I still
want to win as much, I want to kick butt as much, because that is
my competitive instincts, I want to show them the way home.
That's normal with all drag racers."
Her station in life? "It would be nice to have someone pay
your dress shop receipts every month, but that has not ever been
the case for me. I've been at this a long time, I've worked
hard at it, I'm disappointed that it hasn't done anything to
secure my future. I'm pretty sure that once I am out of the
race car there will not be a place for me in this sport."
So is there, in fact, life after drag racing? "When this is
done I will probably go get a job at Hudson's in the Store
Decoration Department or something," she said
facetiously. "I am a driver and I do not make a good spectator."
When [Image] she does hang up the firesuit will there be a
lot of fanfare?"No, I would quit before I would retire."
Talk about bowing out with grace and
dignity... [Image]
What are her thoughts towards the state of the female condition in
1995? "It's ideal," she says, "Because the door is wide open now. If
you want to do something bad enough there are ways in which you can do
it. But you gotta stand your ground--if not they will walk on you like
an old shoe."
Regrets? Nyet. "Without drag racing, I can only imagine where I would
be today. I only pray that I have done as much for this sport as it has
done for me. A lot of people are aware that the early years were really
hard..."
The moral of today's drag strip history lesson seems to be this: In
life, either you conquer the circumstances or the circumstances conquer
you. In Shirley's case, it was the former. But what is Shirley's
rationale for her accomplishments? How did she do what she did? "It's
because I'm a tough old broad," she said.
Yes, drag racing gave her a sense of purpose. And who amongst us isn't
searching for a sense of purpose? Who amongst us isn't looking for a
reason for being, a sense of fulfillment?
Apparently 26-year old Stacy Paul, that's who. Perhaps the spiritual
goddaughter of Shirley Muldowney, Stacy "the Femme Fatale" Paul is the
1/4 mile's new Queen of the Hop, or Drag Strip Debutante. And when
Muldowney finally does quit, she will probably ceremonially hand over
her well-worn tiara to this new-chick-on-the-block from Auburn,
California. And if Shirley's
career mirrored and helped propel the rising tide of women's
awareness, suffrage, and liberation, then Stacy's career stands to reap
the benefits from the seeds
that "Don't Call Her Cha Cha" has sown. And Stacy will be the first to
acknowledge the debt of gratitude owed to the lady from Schenectady.
She says, "Shirley Muldowney
definitely inspired me. From the time I could watch drag racing I
remember seeing her and thinking how neat she was. After I watched the
Heart Like A Wheel movie (a
film biography of Shirley's
life)--I thought she had really accomplished something,
going where no women had gone
before and just tearin' it up." Another beacon of guidance, or voice of
inspiration, or exemplum of do-it-yourself feminosity was Stacy's mom.
She says, "My mom also inspired me a lot as far as doing something that
I wanted to do. She pretty much raised us by herself without a whole
lot of money. She wasn't afraid to just jump into something and okay,
let's go, let's make the best of this. I think that gave me a feeling
of being able to accomplish anything you set your mind to. She told me,
'There are never any boundaries, the only boundaries are in your
head.'" Are you listening to this, you slackers?
Yes, Ms. Paul is hardly the glorifed Trophy Girl that Shirley alluded
to earlier. To wit: At age 14 Stacy built, from the ground up, a
powerful '57 Chevy Bel Air with assistance from her dad (fellow
dragster driver Jim Paul). She drove this doorslammer, not only at the
local drag strip, but also to her high school prom. Stacy then started
climbing the ropes in various race cars, until scoring a ride in the
"Mischief Maker" Junior Fuel dragster. This type of machine is a sort
of little brothe.., er sister, to the Top Fuelers like Shirley drives:
It sports a small-block Chevy motor (with trick Buick heads)
injected-on-methanol (as opposed to blown-on-nitro big block Hemi
timebomb that propels Ms. Muldowney). This 800 horsepower combination
enables the "Femme Fatale" to cover the 1/4 mile at around 7.60 seconds
at nearly 175 mph. When she drops the clutch and stabs the loudpedal,
Stacy's digger pushes her firmly back in the seat, and she likes it
like that. In fact, her driving philosophy consist of this strategy:
"Take a deep breath and hammer it." Beautiful...
Mega-stardom may be looming on the horizon for the talented Ms. Paul.
Presently, some multimillionaire race teams are sniffing around Stacy's
pit area, soliciting offers for a possible ride in a Top Fuel car. But
Stacy is philosophical about drag racing's casting couch, and is
content with her status as one of Jr. Fuel's preeminent aces. "I think
it's kinda' cool to be able to work my way up, starting in the lower
classes when I was 16, and then working to Junior Fuel," she said. "I
like getting the whole feeling of racing from the bottom up, rather
than being thrown into something way out of your league."
Ms. Paul was being modest--the consensus amongst the drag strip
cognescenti is that the "Femme Fatale" can handle any type of machinery
that is designed for the race track. Regardless, her humility is quite
becoming. Presently, her status as a dragster driver is an uncanny
reflection of where Shirley Muldowney dwelled almost thirty years ago.
In Oklahoma, I felt blessed, charmed, and honored to witness the
existential throughline of these two talented "blast off girls." Though
still flourishing, Ms. Muldowney's lifework may be in it's autumn. Ms.
Paul's is blossoming as if its spring. And as I reflect on what I have
been privy to, I feel kinda warm about humanity and the nobility of
achievement, especially as exemplified by the spirit of these inspiring
constituents of the fairer sex. Drag racing can be enlightening like
that, y'know what I mean?
CLUTCH DUST VAPORIZES INTO THE ETHER: THE COLE COONCE READER