MULDOWNEY HAS EDGE ON GARLITS

By Susan Wade    Sat, 2019-03-16 13:20

 

Drag-racing icons “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney had matched-raced against each other dozens of times throughout the country in their heydays, but their head-to-head record in NHRA competition, surprisingly, was five and five.

After Friday’s first round of “Unfinished Business” pairings in a showdown of the sport’s legends at the 50th edition of the Gatornationals at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway, it’s Advantage Ms. Muldowney.

In identically prepared Toyota Camrys, Muldowney scored a runaway victory. She’ll meet six-time champion and 97-time winner Warren Johnson, “The Professor of Pro Stock,” in Saturday’s semifinal round. He beat Pro Stock Motorcycle class founder Terry Vance, co-owner of the Vance & Hines two-wheeled empire.

Also advancing was five-time Top Fuel champion Joe Amato, whose 52 victories still rank No. 3 on the class’ all-time list. He defeated six-time champion Kenny Bernstein, who earned his “King of Speed” nickname on this racetrack by breaking the 30-mph barrier in 1992.   And in another highly anticipated pairing preceded by some pre-race trash talk, Ed “The Ace” McCulloch dismissed longtime rival Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. McCulloch, a 22-time winner, said after he outran four-time series champion and 49-time victor Prudhomme, “How cool is he now?

Muldowney’s victory was just the way she planned it – despite the fact she said she’s “in Garlits Country,” where she said she thought upon retirement in 2003 that “I thought it was over with and I didn’t have to put up with his fans anymore.”

The three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion and two-time Gatornationals winner, said, “People came up to me in the pits [before the race, with encouragement]. If I don’t win, I’m in big trouble.” Longtime friend Darrell Gwynn suggested that this might be their last chance to square off against one another, unless the NHRA showcased them in another match-up. Shot back Muldowney, “If I lose, they’d better do it again.”

Garlits offered to race her in his Dodge Challengers.

“You’re never too old to have fun – and make money,” he said.

For their one-time fierce rivalry, Muldowney and Garlits, whose Museum of Drag Racing and International Drag Racing Hall of Fame is down the road at Ocala, Fla., the two actually have similar histories. Both were interlopers, East Coast hopefuls in a world dominated by a strong Southern California clique. Muldowney was doubly jinxed as a woman in a male-dominated endeavor. Garlits, a native Floridian from Tampa, didn’t mind crashing the ruling class’ party, and Muldowney didn’t ask anyone’s permission or apologize for invading their comfort zone.

“I just didn’t have a lot of support. I had to start from the beginning and work my way up the ladder,” she said. “It was worth the fight, if you will, because it just made me better, I thought.” She acknowledged that Garlits, too, had a tough time convincing the establishment he was legitimate. She recalled the Californians referring to him as “that guy from the swamp.”

Garlits remembered another name they called him.

“They called me Dan Garbage,” he said. “In 1959, they paid me 4500 to come out to California to run three events. In 1959, that was a lot of money. I pulled in there to Bakersfield with my car and trailer, and they said it didn’t cost $1,000 to build this whole rig. And they were right. It cost less than $1,000, because I built it myself, and it ran good. “That was the start to his career that netted 35 victories (including four at the Gatornationals) and three Top Fuel championships and a reputation as maybe the sport’s most influential innovators.

“They didn’t like me very much,” Garlits said. “But you know, it all changed, because when the racers feel that way, the fans kind of get a different feeling. When I was at Riverside (Calif.) the following December and won that event, the fans were just cheering. They really liked it that Don Garlits was winning a big race.”

For all their sniping though the years, Garlits signed Muldowney’s Top Fuel competition license in 1973.

“I always thought he did it for the notoriety, because he didn’t think it was going anywhere,” Muldowney said.

Garlits replied, “I didn’t.”

“See?” Muldowney said. “Shirley’s right again.”

She was right on the track, as well, Friday.

 

 

 

 
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