Fans on site for this week’s 55th annual Amalie NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway will have an opportunity to attend the premiere screening of “Shirley,” a documentary on the life of Hall of Fame driver Shirley Muldowney that later will air as a FOX Sports feature on a date yet-to-be-determined.
The Gainesville premiere is set for 7 p.m., local time, Friday at the Hilton University of Florida Conference Center. A panel discussion will follow featuring Muldowney and Florida legend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. FOX personality Amanda Busick will serve as moderator.
Tickets for the exclusive showing are $75 each and, because of limited seating, require an advance purchase and RSVP here. In addition to the documentary and the panel discussion, attendees will receive a complimentary movie poster commemorating the occasion and will have access to food truck fare from 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Muldowney shattered the glass ceiling in drag racing as the first woman licensed to drive the sport’s top-of-the-line vehicles. She subsequently became the first woman to win at the professional level when she beat Bob Edwards in the final round of the NHRA Springnationals at Columbus, Ohio, on June 13, 1976.
The following year, she won the first of her three World Championships, adding titles in 1980 and 1982, punctuating the latter with a final round victory over Garlits, himself a three-time NHRA champion, at the Gatornationals.
Not only was she the first woman to earn her Top Fuel license, the first to race in a pro final (June 8, 1975, at Columbus, Ohio), the first to win a tour event and the first to win the championship, Muldowney also was the first to qualify No. 1 (at Columbus, the day before winning her first event), the first to win the world’s biggest drag race, the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis (Sept. 6, 1982), the first to win outside the U.S. (August 7, 1977 in the Molson Grandnational at Montreal, Quebec) and the first named to the Auto Racing All America Team by the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association (1975).
She was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1990 and into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2004.
This story was originally published on March 7, 2024. 
