Drag Racing @ MindSay

My friend Frank Noone and I at the track.  I ended up winning two rounds and a new best time at 11.01 seconds @ 123 mph !!! (1/4 mile)

 

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Auto Racer

Name at birth: Shirley Roque

In 1965, Shirley Muldowney became the first woman to race dragsters with the National Hot Rod Association. She was known on the race circuit as Shirley "Cha-Cha" Muldowney, and after racing funny cars in the early 1970s, she turned to racing Top Fuel dragsters. She was the first woman to win a Top Fuel title and the first driver of either sex to win three world titles (1977, 1980 and 1982). After a bad crash in 1984, Muldowney was out of racing for almost two years, but returned to win races, and in 1998 she set a speed record for the International Hot Rod Association. She retired at age 63 after a final racing campaign in 2003. Her life was depicted in the 1983 movie Heart Like a Wheel, with Muldowney played by actress Bonnie Bedelia. She published the memoir Shirley Muldowney's Tales From the Track in 2005.

 

Extra credit: Muldowney dropped the use of the nickname "Cha-Cha," after 1973. She once said, "There is no room for bimboism in drag racing"... Muldowney took her name from her first husband, Jack Muldowney. She married her crew chief, Rahn Tobler, in 1988.

 

 

http://www.who2.com/shirleymuldowney.html

 

 

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Last weekend I just installed a 720 plus Horse Power Pontiac stroker motor into my TA.

Normally, I woud not be awake and online after one o'clock in the morning on a weeknight.  But this apparently isn't a normal night.

 

This evening, I was over at Butch-n-Nellie's, working on my upcoming class.  I had a mocha.  And I forgot to ask for decaf.  Upon returning home, I read for about an hour, then went to bed, where I read for another half hour or so, until I started nodding off.  So I put the book away and shut off the light, and was soon asleep.

 

However, it didn't last long.  I woke not long thereafter, then tossed and turned for far too long.  I started to contemplate getting up, just because lying there not sleeping was driving me nuts.

 

It was around then that I heard an all-too-familiar sound in my neighborhood:  squealing tires and a revving engine.  Fuckin' tweeners around here are such assholes.  It's not uncommon for them to burn rubber down the empty streets in the post-midnight hours.

 

This time, however, the drag racing sounded different.  The squealing tires sounded more like a car swerving.  That doesn't sound good, I thought to myself, just before another sound filled the air: a nasty, unmistakable crunching of metal.  Followed immediately by a car alarm erupting.

 

The fucker had hit a parked car. 

 

Then, more squealing tires as the son of a bitch took off.

 

Naturally, I got up.  Through my dining room window, I could see the flashing lights of the car with the alarm still sounding.  It was a solid hit, too, not a sideswipe... directly over the front driver's side corner of the car.  In short order, there were close to a dozen people gathered out there, flashlights out and cell phones open.

 

Tough break... hit and run.  The owner of this sleek red car was probably screwed.

 

Ah, but maybe not.  "Whoa!" I heard one of the guys below yell.  "The guy's license plate fell off!"  I chuckled as I saw him pick up the plate from the ground.  Very cool.  I doubt very much that anything would've come of this, otherwise.  But now...  busted by karma.