Jack Muldowney, 70, ex-husband of drag racing's Shirley Muldowney
wazzzy
Jack Muldowney, who not only shared his last name with one of drag
racing's greatest legends, three-time NHRA Top Fuel world champ
Shirley Muldowney, but more importantly helped launch her career,
passed away May 24 of cancer. He was 70.
Shirley married Muldowney, an amateur hot rodder, at age 17, and it
was his love of fast cars that ultimately gave Shirley her start on
the quarter-mile, first in a variety of street cars and then an
injected gas dragster. The duo racked up more than 200 wins in their
early days.
Muldowney, a longtime member of Schenectady N.Y.'s Road Kings Car
Club, hand-built that first dragster and she earned her dragster
license in 1965 and the couple match raced in the East and Midwest.
That injected car was followed by a pair of blown gas dragsters, the
second being a twin-engine monster with which she competed at the 1969
and 1970 U.S. Nationals and at Division 1 events.
With Top Gas dying in 1971 and Funny Cars on the rise, the Muldowneys
bought an old Mustang Funny Car from Connie Kalitta and ran it on the
match race trail. Muldowney won her first major meet, the IHRA
Southern Nationals in Rockingham, N.C., that year, and there was no
turning back.
"We won the first Funny Car I ever entered, at Lebanon Valley," she
recalled. "We beat everybody -- Ramchargers, Brutus, Color Me Gone -
and then went on to Rockingham and won there."
Although the two divorced in 1972, they remained good friends
throughout, and her and their son John were able to see him before he
died.
"He was a great guy," said Shirley. "We got along great and kept our
friendship all these years. He taught me how to drive; if it wasn't
for him, I never would have been able to do what I've done. He really
was the one.
"He stayed involved in drag racing on a smaller level, helping people
in Schenectady (N.Y.) with their hot rods. He was a great craftsman
and fabricator and did beautiful painting and lettering as well. He
was one of the first - if not the first - in Schenectady to have a
full-detailed car."
Despite their divorce, Shirley kept the Muldowney surname on which she
had built her early fame. "I think it's a beautiful name," she said,
"and, of course, the fans knew me by that name and that was the name
of our son."
Muldowney is survived by sons John and David (from a separate
marriage), and sisters Patty Scott of Baltimore and Joan Belitz of
Long Island.
by Phil Burgess