Wayne Carini talks to drag racing legend Shirley Muldowney on Talking Classic Cars

It's a badass car, boy, I'll tell you two fuel pumps and that's what the PSI does. I regulate the amount of fuel M in the pumps, you know, a pump burns and then when you're ready to start, you remove it right here. this here remove that hey, I'm Wayne Kini from Talking Classic Cars and I'm here at the Sao Museum in Carterville Georgia and I'm here with someone who I've admired for almost my entire life. I mean, you know, when I start, when I started looking. Drag Racing. I spent a lot of time at Connecticut Dragway and it was wonderful to see someone like you do so well.

You know, it's always fun to see people succeed, but someone who never thought you would succeed. and look what you did, you broke the barrier and you made sure to move on, so Shirley malani is here with us, thank you for and and what a thrill you walked in the door today and I was standing here and you, the first thing you did was you You got in that car and you got in right away. I couldn't do that, I couldn't even fit in there and I'm not that big, but you gotta have, you gotta have a way to get in I saw you get in yeah you gotta know how to do it of course the car is built for me so it's pretty easy, but before my knee replacements, I was able to get in and out of the race car many times. easier, so today we watched the video of your life and it was that it really was that my eyes filled with tears several times, but U, but it's a great story of your life and if someone would tell me about 20 years ago I was sitting here

talking

to you, I said you were crazy, but yeah, it's not that hard to find, but how many walls do I explain to people that Wall-E is the ultimate, it's the trophy, but do you have? to win it you certainly have to earn it, it's not like a committee that chooses that your car is better than Joe's, you have to earn it, yes, you go out and it's a series of eliminations, you know, one against another, it starts with the 16 plus fast. for qualifying and then it's Sunday, which is race day 16.

Cars, one round, now you're eight, yeah, then you're four, it's not like you can come back again, you're one and done, that's right, yeah , there are no sandbags in the home stretch and uh, you have Beach, you are, you are out, you are the trailer playing cards, that's a we, we play cards, but uh, uh, yeah, sport is, uh, uh, it's a lesson to learn to be ready not to rush, but how to be ready for probably the ring in your life, you know, now we watch the NH on TV and you see these huge teams with all these sponsors and everything this money that wasn't you when you got into this, was the SE in your pants, yeah, well that's what got me out of the sport, the cost, yeah, and I'm probably still a car owner, huh, but it's They turned it into a money pit, I must say, and it's not a pleasure.

Me, but these team leaders who tend to think they are the stars, and some of them do, take that away from them, but the team members work very hard with the team leaders, they shout orders and everyone runs and hides. but, uh, as it stands today, it's uh again a money pit and you don't go with a couple of spare sludge, you don't destroy it between rounds, you just put another, as you say, bullet in the chassee. and uh, they've turned it into a sport for rich kids, yeah, and the little one, the little one that used to be able to look at it and have visions of I could do this if I had my dad's help.

I build my hot rod I could go out and you know there's a class for every car, it's not like that anymore, but what really intrigues me about you is that you had this drive and there's so many things involved in time management, I mean. you have to make sure you are at the event you have to make sure you do the round you have to make sure the car is ready for when the round comes so you're on it I mean, there's so many things involved and you were doing it almost alone, you had your son with you, but it was still a small team, a small team, well, three guys and yours truly, they would do it.

I went with the car most of the time, so you ride in the truck. I rode on you. I've known the right seat for many years and, uh, I enjoyed it at the time, I enjoyed it, but it's now, you know, they fly with their first class boarding pass and their helmet in one hand in the other and you know, direct me in the right place uh drivers today have no idea yeah what it took to build the sport to where it is today yeah but you nailed it I think just in The Sweet Spot. It was really The Sweet Spot in the '70s and '80s, I think.

That's when television was starting to pay attention to what was going on in sports and it was something that a lot of people couldn't understand why you were so intrigued by watching a car run by just for a time. very very few seconds then go 300 thousand hour hour yes but if what you have to do is go to the track and you have to watch you can see everything you can see on television but if you have not seen it live you have not seen anything You have to see it live these

cars

are spectacular fuel

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fuel means nitromethane right and you know I haven't been in probably 25 or 30 years I know I know one that I used to go to, it was the best thing to do is sit, you know, 20 feet from cars, since they make the engine sound and the sound is one thing, but the vibrations when they hit your chest, yeah, well, it's the sound waves, yeah, you're

talking

like today, 10,000 horsepower, yeah. and you were driving cars with how many horsepower, about eight, about 8,000 hor I I I uh, I stopped at 03 and what they do is they just add more Nitro to the tank in percentage and a cubic inch always stays the same M and uh they put some limits in what used to be unlimited fuel

drag

ster i love the sound of that it's beautiful now it has to be so far off the ground uh so long alone so long that everyone was relegated to that uh uh that rear gear that i feel like is too low gravels the engine and just rev up the RPM of that car going through the lights and there are some changes that I would love to see made that would reduce the cost of the sport oh that's key for the little guy yeah yeah so what?

How fast is the engine running in RPM when you go through the lights? I don't have, I don't really know, probably 15,000 16,000 RPM. I know what you sat in the car today, you said two gauges, that's it, I got them, you know? It had two oil pressure gauges, which are the x-rays of what's happening inside that engine and, uh, a PSI gauge and what that does, it tells you the fuel pressure M and you want a certain pressure with what is burning. pressure to back into a nidle and then pull fuel both pumps for gear and uh uh we have two fuel pumps and we burn only one in high gear and to keep the RPM low now they have a throttle stop that the driver goes in and just buries the accelerator to the floor and it could only go so far because they have a throttle brake so don't cultivate new drivers that have a good sound and feel.

Then and now I am but a conductor of sound and sensation and that is all I know. I can get out there and I could get tired of the sound and feel of it and, without accelerating, stop most of your drivers. Nowadays I couldn't do that, when I went to the

drag

races years ago, there was a group of guys that would come and there would be Perome and you and Connie and B Big and a group of people and it was like a spectacle that went all over the place. country, yeah, you know, it was wonderful to be able to see all of you in one place, it was so cool, the big ones, yeah, the big ones, and uh, the fans were able to come up to us, the fans loved it. cars back then, but they were scared to death and they would need to be very, very strong cars, um, they're uh, you're setting yourself up for a problem once you turn that thing on and uh, it's only if you lean on it.

Lean on it hard, um, it'll respond, yeah, and you can't give it too much because you know they're prone to breaking and breaking means nitrated oil in the hot exhaust, right? and you and you've had your share of those things oh yeah, I sat behind him for several years, three years in the funny car and I just got tired of it a little burned out, woo, get it on, you know I got tired of it, yeah , and you know what you were talking about. about the feel and that's maybe something that some of the new drivers don't really have.

I mean, no, they don't, for example, when you give the engine too much power and suddenly the tires go off. release exactly, you know it, so you have to have that feeling of what is the right amount to do the job, yes, but still not have problems exactly, you just said it and you know it comes out and finally, somewhere downwind , you're going to get one on one and that's what you want, right, they have to tune these cars to the point where it's, uh, you know, they don't dominate the race track because then we dominate, you spin the tires, you spin the tires, the competition is.

If you're going well, you snap them a little down the line or even a quarter of the way down, release them and that's it. At the end of the race, you won the endurance race, so it's about finding a middle ground and these crew members are very Sharp, uh, a lot of the teams are very good, they know how to dial it in, they are very good, then We got some phonies, some phonies, and they get these big salaries and they can't beat each other's asses with both hands, excuse me, that's fine, but you know it was all that, that's what you had and and it was a little bit of mind games, you know, with Connie with Don, yeah, you know, it was that mind game and with with you with the pink painted dragster they couldn't miss you well, yeah, right, you know, needless to say they would look and look, oh no, not her again , yes, not her again, yes, you just said it, that's great, it's a great pleasure to meet you, oh, it was a pleasure, thank you so much for talking to us and we look forward to seeing the video next Wednesday on FS1, yes, and it will be available for many years, yes, thanks to Fox Sports.

Well, thank you, grateful for that, thank you, yes, sir, break your hand, greatness, look, it's a badass car, boy, I'll tell you and I insisted on the button, yes, turn, hit, don't turn, because those turns They come without turning and I have seen it happen. uh, that's what drives the whole car, that axle, yeah, that's awesome, wow, inbel, of course, this is just a tank and it's a requirement, it's kind of ugly, yeah, okay, but it's a, keeps track, oh, the only thing I want. about you don't want to lose that thing, speed, it will make everything turn where it wants to go, it's the boss.

I've always said these cars are Bal, the most important thing in the whole car is probably who packs your shoes, yes I pack the shoes, that's because you want to make sure it's not. I have this is so you know, the right overflow, everyone will do it and this is the one that is ballistic, that's right, if the blower explodes, that's the pie in pieces. right, yeah, well, this was the car, this was the last trip I took. Well, thank you very much, thank you very much.