My website devoted to pioneering women drag racers only includes women who competed against men. It does not include the powder puff women racers. It focuses on the women who raced in the first thirty years of drag racing. It has pages for the 1950s (16 women), 1960s (41 women), and 1970s (52 women). I'm also very interested in learning more information about the women who raced in the 1950s. To that end I am looking through the pages of Drag News and old newspapers to try to find more ladies who raced against the men during that first decade. So far I have found about 50 women. I have created a spread sheet list with their names, where they lived, vehicle, class, drag strip, date, ET and speed, etc. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all this research other than entering some of them on Bill Pratt's Drag List website. Thus far I have entered Helen Root (she drove a C Street Roadster at Pomona and Colton in 1954-55), Madeleine Stephan (she won the C/SP class 9 times at Lions in 1956 in her '55 Vette), Sharon Warner (she took class wins in C/S at Little Bonneville in San Jose in 1957-59), and Fran Warner (who was a regular winner in the late 1950s at San Fernando). None of these ladies are household names in drag racing history, which makes it all the more interesting to discover what they accomplished and give them a little recognition. The link to my "Women Drag Racers" website is: https://benelliman.wixsite.com/women-drag-racers
The only two I knew of as a kid was Vida Orr and Shirley Muldowney. But now, I know a few....Diana Branch, Kendra, my friend Sarah, and my late friend Jessie Combs. ,
Peggy and her Husband Irv went on to open Hondo Boats and built many record holding hulls with many drivers through the 1970's-80's
Nora has the heart. We’ll see if she sticks with it. A lot of my work on the jalopy is setting up jobs for my kids to succeed at. We must be the example. Girls can wrench and drive too!
The Jalopy Journal
