IHRA: Muldowney battles back after surgery

When your phone's caller ID says "Shirley Muldowney," you answer. And yes, a year or so ago it was Shirley, the First Lady of drag racing, but she wasn't calling to talk about herself. She was calling on behalf of her friend, former IHRA Top Fuel champ Doug Herbert, who was about to conduct a driving safety school for teens called B.R.A.K.E.S. (Be Responsible and Keep Everyone Safe).

"Can you help get the word out?" she asked.

• Muldowney diagnosed with lung cancer

Typical Shirley. She has this reputation as sometimes being acerbic and contrary, but when a friend needs help, she's there.

Shirley could probably use a little help now; she's recovering from having a lung removed. The lung had a tumor that might have been cancer. At last report, she and her family were still waiting on word, but she is recovering nicely and is in good spirits in a hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina.

If you want to drop her a card, it can be sent to: Shirley Muldowney, c/o Geiger Media Global, 526 Kingwood Drive, Suite 96, Kingwood, TX 77339.

Shirley's history with the IHRA goes back as far as the IHRA itself. Muldowney would post her first national event win at the sanction's Southern Nationals in Rockingham, North Carolina, in 1971, and a runner-up finish at the same race a year later.

A devastating crash in 1983 took her a year to recover from, but she made it back to the track, and ran with the IHRA periodically. One of her more memorable events was in 1997, when she scored a big victory at Norwalk Raceway Park on May 24 when she clocked the quickest and fastest run in IHRA history during a special match race with Doug Herbert.

Muldowney was paired with defending IHRA World Champion Herbert during the track's Budweiser/Coca Cola Fox Hunt, where she clocked the 4.854-second run at 301.30mph to win the first round of competition. She followed that effort with a 4.944-second, 299.10mph pass to win the second and final round of the match race.

Unfortunately, it didn't count in the record books since it was a match race, but in March of 1997 Muldowney, runner-up to Herbert in 1996's IHRA Snap-on Series, set what was then the official IHRA Top Fuel miles per hour performance world record of 294.98 mph.

If anyone can snap back, it's Shirley Muldowney. "I'm a fighter," she says, "always have been, and I'm going to fight this as best I can with everything I've got."