Shirley Muldowney was born on June 19, 1940, in Burlington, Vermont. She 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. She was quoted saying: “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.” She was 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. In 1958, she made her debut on the dragstrip of the Fonda Speedway located in Fonda, NY. 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, a former NHRA drag racing professional class. With Top Gas losing popularity, she switched to Funny Car, buying her first car from Connie Kalitta. The U.S. Nationals is an NHRA-sanctioned drag racing event, generally considered to be the most prestigious drag racing event in the world due to its history, size, and purse, held annually at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis in Brownsburg, Indiana. 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. She won her first major event, the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Southern Nationals, in 1971. She stepped up to Top Fuel, getting her license in 1973 (making her the first woman to do it), behind the wheel of Poncho Rendon's digger; Don Garlits signed her application, one of three signatures she needed to make it official; the other two were Tommy Ivo and Connie Kalitta. From 1973 to 1977, she teamed up with Kalitta as the Bounty Hunter and Bounty Huntress in match races, in a pair of Ford Mustangs, hers a Buttera chassis, his a Logghe. The Bounty Huntress Mustang caught fire at Dragway 42 in Ohio in 1973. At Columbus, Ohio in 1976, she dominated Top Fuel, qualifying #1 by 0.05 second, setting low elapsed time and top speed of the meet, having the low elapsed time in every round, breaking her own top speed record in the final, and winning the class. She won an unprecedented three NHRA Top Fuel Dragster world championships followed, in 1977, 1980, and 1982. Her success met enormous opposition from those who felt drag racing (or any form of motorsport, for that matter) was no place for women. Garlits has said about her: “Now, if you ask who I have the most respect for, I'd say Shirley Muldowney. She went against all odds. They didn't want her to race Top Fuel, the association, the racers, nobody...Just Shirley. “ She noted, "NHRA fought me every inch of the way, but when they saw how a girl could fill the stands; they saw I was good for the sport." A crash in 1984 crushed her hands, pelvis, and legs, necessitating half a dozen operations and eighteen months of therapy. She was sidelined for a long period but returned to the circuit in the late 1980s. She continued to race, mostly without major sponsorship, throughout the 1990s in IHRA competition as well as match-racing events. She returned to the NHRA towards the end of her career, running select events until her retirement at the end of 2003. She was described by longtime drag racer Fred Farndon as the "best 'natural' driver (top fuel or funny car), no question." In March 2016 Muldowney disregarded a cancer scare to be the official starter of the Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals. Having been given a diagnosis of lung cancer prior to the event, Muldowney was later given a diagnosis of histoplasmosis, a curable and non-malignant fungal infection which can mimic cancer Recent activities include the dictation of her memoirs, Shirley Muldowney's Tales from the Track, which Bill Stephens transcribed, and which Sports Publishing L.L.C. published in 2005. Recent activities include the dictation of her memoirs, Shirley Muldowney's Tales from the Track, which Bill Stephens transcribed, and which Sports Publishing L.L.C. published in 2005. She operates a charitable organization, Shirley's Kids, which helps children in need in cities where drag racing is part of the community. Some information gathered from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Muldowney