Bettie Hendren Reflects on Her Drag Racing Career; Shirley Muldowney, Dick Berggren, Frank Kimmel and Scott Pruett Inducted Into the NMPA Hall of Fame

Bettie Hendren Reflects on Her Drag Racing Career; Shirley Muldowney, Dick Berggren, Frank Kimmel, and Scott Pruett Inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame; Isabella Robusto Ready for 2023 Season

By Rhonda Beck, WISNC Creations/BeckRacingMedia, January 27, 2022

Bettie Hendren of Union Mills, N. C. was a teenager when she started drag racing in the 1960’s near Santa Cruz, Cal. This past weekend Shirley Muldowney, known as the “First Lady of Drag Racing,” was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame in Concord, N.C. and talked about her own career. One of the things Muldowney mentioned was how people come up to her now and ask. ’Could you drive the cars of today?’ Her answer was, ‘What are you talking about? With my eyes closed!’ With a similar grit and confidence, Hendren talked about her own career, which included winning a championship at Fremont Dragstrip in 1965 and driving a dragster in a driving school at zMAX Dragway when she was 68 years old.

Hendren’s late husband, Bill Hendren, was also a drag racer, and her sons Steve and Mike have been involved in dirt late model racing and run Hendren Racing Engines in Rutherfordton, N.C. She talked about her early years in California, including how she met her husband and started racing.

“I went to school with his sister. He was four years ahead of me and so I ‘ve known him almost all my life. But I didn’t like him. But we got together in my senior year in high school, and we got engaged after the first of the semester of that year. We got married that December. So I had just graduated from high school and just turned 18 when we got married,” said Bettie Hendren.

And she wasn’t about to sit on the sidelines while her husband and the other guys raced.

“Well, I wanted to learn how to drive the car. And Bill said, ‘Okay, fine.’ So he took me out on the coast road. He and his buddies had painted off a quarter mile up there and they used to go up there and race on the street. That was just north of our hometown.”

Her husband bet the guys that his wife could win.

“That was Bill’s thing. He thought it was funny to put me behind the wheel and let me race out there. I usually beat the people I was racing. There was one car I didn’t beat.”

She concurred that the guys usually didn’t believe that she would have a chance.

“Oh, yeah. They thought they had it in the bag, you know.”

After racing on the streets, Hendren proceeded to run at Fremont Dragstrip and raced in the super stock and super stock automatic classes.

“I felt pretty confident, and Bill decided it was time for me to try it on the drag strip. So I did. And I really had fun. I really did.”

Several well-known drag racers came to Fremont Dragstrip, just outside of San Jose, Cal.

“Shirley Shahan used to race there. And, of course, Shirley Muldowney. But that was later. She was with Connie Kalitta a lot. Where he was, she usually was. I watched her race personally. I mean, we were there at the track when she raced. But I wasn’t friends with her, or I didn’t know her to speak to her.

Most of the people that I ran against were guys. And there were people like Dick Landy--he came there. Ed Terry was there. Don Garlitz, Malcom Durham, Stone, Woods and Cook. Other great names raced there and Bill and I watched them all. Didn’t know then how great they would all become.”

Hendren especially remembered one race.

“Well, Malcom Durham started back here on this coast, but we went to watch him race. He and Shirley Shahan had a race up there one night and that was awesome. He won it. I will never forget that.”

She thought Shahan was good, just cheered for Durham that night.

“Let’s see. How do I explain this. She was kind of forward and thought that she was pretty good. And I’m not taking anything away from her, because she was. But she thought she couldn’t be beat, and she let everybody know it. And it didn’t work that way.”

Years later Hendren talked to Durham about that race.

“I saw him at a PRI Show several years ago and I asked him if he was Malcom Durham and he said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘I saw you race.’ And he laughed and he said, ‘Wow, you have a memory.’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, I do.’ I said, ‘I was really glad you won that race because I thought it was really cool.”

Hendren said there were a few other women who raced and that Southern California probably had more than some other places.

“There was one gal that I went to school with and she married a guy that had a car and she raced that car. But I really never saw her race. And there were other girls that ran too, but way after I did. The 60’s, the early 60’s, that wasn’t really heard of a whole lot.”

She said that she also surprised people when they found her working on the car.

“That’s where I learned to change spark plugs and set plug gaps and take valve covers off and do all the things that I had to do to make the car run. Bill did all the carburetor work and stuff like that, but I actually changed my own plugs. And most guys were kind of shocked when they’d come up and look under the car and there I was in place of a guy.”

Her husband helped others on dragsters and in the circle track game as well.

“Of course, nitrous oxide back in that day and age was coming on and we never ran with that. But Bill actually built some cars that did. He went into circle track when the boys were little. And he helped quite a few people, like Ray Morgan.”

Both Bettie and Bill Hendren claimed championships at Fremont Dragstrip.

“We were married in ‘64. He’s got the ‘64 Fall championship at Fremont and I’ve got the ‘65 Fall championship at Fremont. I ran a little bit in ‘67 because we bought a 1967 Plymouth GTX with a 426 street Hemi in it. I ran that a couple times and so did Bill. But Steve was born in 1970 so we kind of backed off.”

She worked a variety of jobs and raised her sons, Steve and Mike Hendren.

“For a long time, I worked for a doctor at first and then I went to work for the County of Santa Cruz. And then when the boys came along, I actually went to work for the school systems. I was there up until the time we moved here.”

They started Hendren Racing Engines in California in 1977 and when they moved to N.C. her husband opened his shop in 1997.

Hendren is included on a list of women drag racers from the 1960’s compiled by Mel Bashore on the website Speed Queens of the Dirt. She said when she first came to North Carolina she went with her son, Steve, to an event where they talked to her about her racing.

“We moved here and Steve told somebody or said something about he would like to see more women in racing. So they asked him if he and I would come and be interviewed. We went and they did some kind of--it was kind of like a movie--but I don’t remember. That was 25 years ago, probably.”

After moving to N.C., they concentrated more on circle track and dirt late model racing. She said her sons didn’t really do any organized drag racing.

“Mike drove my Plymouth on the street and he put a race transmission in it and he put a bigger rearend in it. He souped up the motor, you know, but he really didn’t go out and race it.”

She and her husband kept up with the sport through some televised events.

“Sometimes we’d watch T.V. and watch the nationals or something at one of the big tracks back here.”

?But she did experience drag racing in the area in a couple of different ways.

“Well, actually, Bill wanted the boys' wives to experience going to a drag race and feeling the big funny cars take off.?Because you can feel it in your chest. That’s unreal. So we did go to a race and we were able to watch that. I think it was Charlotte, actually. And then after Bill passed, one of my big things was that I always wanted to drive a dragster. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to race it. I just wanted to be able to feel the inertia and the take-off and all that kind of stuff. Well, on my 68th birthday, the boys bought me a ride at zMAX in a dragster and I got to drive it. And was it fun. Did I get to go as fast as I wanted? No. I don’t even remember how fast I went. But I got to drive that thing and all six of my grandkids were lined up on the barrier wall, sitting there watching me. Both my boys were there. And it was just the greatest thing in the whole world.”

She said she received instruction there and also hopes to be in another type of racecar in the future.

“We went in and he told us where the buttons were. And Steve laughed and so did Mike and said, ‘Mom if you weren’t so short, you could reach the pedals better.’ Of course, I have a lot of respect for a dragster, because I know what they can do. We lost a friend in a dragster, actually. But I always wanted to do it. The other thing I want to do is ride with either Steve or Alex when they go out on the track (in a dirt late model car).”

Hendren has had a lot to keep her occupied in recent years including her hobbies, her children and grandchildren and a job as the Finance Officer at Forest City ABC Board.

“I was there for 20 years and I retired about, almost two years ago now. I go in and help the girl that does my job once in a while. For all intents and purposes, I guess you could say I’m retired. Bill always watched drag racing in the evening and I would sit and crochet alongside of him or whatever. But when I got out of it, I pretty well didn’t watch much anymore. Steve took up a lot of time with his racing endeavors and then now Alex is here and he’s racing so I try to get to every one that I can of his races. And my other grandkids are in track and field and band. I like my animals. I have chickens and ducks. I have seventeen chickens and I go out with them a lot and they want to sit on my lap and get petted.?I have dogs and I have cats. And Mike actually has a baby goat. And Steve and Mike both had a skunk.”

Her grandson, Alex Hendren, won the King of the Carolinas late model race last fall at Carolina Speedway with the Blue Ridge Outlaws. Hendren was there and will be following his racing this year and in the future.

“Yes. I’m really happy about Alex. I think he’s done a really good job. And I just love to watch him. I get nervous, a little bit more nervous than I did with Steve on the track.”

Since Hendren’s husband passed away they also have been holding a special Bill Hendren Memorial. Her son Steve Hendren won the first one and in recent years it has been held in Pennsylvania. She is grateful to all who have been involved and hopes it will continue, perhaps closer to home in the future.

“As far as I know, yes. I would like to see it down here sometimes. And I don’t know. This was our home. And that’s a long way. Alex would have difficulty trying to race it because we would have to close the entire shop down to go up there.”

Hendren also has a few thoughts on attitudes towards women in motorsports and assessing her own ability as part of racing history.

“Let me tell you what--I can do every bit the head job on a race motor that Bill could do, or any of the guys that used to work for us could do. In fact, Ray Morgan won a championship with heads that I had done on his racecar. One of the things that I’ve always felt is it’s difficult to get into a man’s game. Very difficult. And racing is a man’s game. I mean, it always has been. But if you’re going to do it, do it properly. Go into it with the idea that you’re not going to try to act better than they do and you’re not going to be prissy. And you’re going to go into it and do what they do. You know what I mean. If they change spark plugs, you change spark plugs. If they have to pull a wheel off, you better be able to know how to pull a wheel off. I welded one whole summer at the shop.”

?She also reflected on Fremont Dragstrip and her family’s history there.

“You know, that track is gone now,” said Hendren. “Before we moved here, Steve had a couple races at Baylands Raceway Park. Baylands was the new version of Fremont Dragstrip. They had a circle track and they had a drag track. So he actually raced at the track that I and his dad did. Only he was on the circle track.”

Like other race fans, she doesn’t like to see all the closings and historic tracks being built over and forgotten.

“It makes me sad. Because racing was a big part of the American people’s way of life for a long time. I just don’t want it to go away.”

Shirley Muldowney, Dick Berggren, Frank Kimmel, Scott Pruett are Newest NMPA Hall of Famers.

On Sunday, January 22, the National Motorsports Press Association held its annual meeting and luncheon and capped off the day by inducting four new members into the NMPA Hall of Fame. They were Shirley Muldowney, Dick Berggren, Frank Kimmel and Scott Pruett. Prior to the dinner they discussed their careers and answered several questions at the NMPA press conference. A few highlights include:

Shirley Muldowney:

Shirley Muldowney is known as the “First Lady of Drag Racing” and started her career racing up and down the streets in Schenectady, N.Y. She became the first woman to earn a Top Fuel dragster license, the first woman to win a NHRA world championship and the first person to win two and then three Top Fuel Titles—1977, 1980, 1982. She obtained her NHRA pro license in 1965, was the first woman to be granted one and won her first major event in 1971. She has 18 NHRA national series event victories and earned a IHRA championship in 1981.

On getting into drag racing and some of her experiences:

“I was over in England on a tour, I’ve been in the States, everywhere, and I could have gone to other venues. I had a number of offers and it just did not appeal me. Street racing is what tempted me initially and what I was doing, and I took it to my first organized drag race. It was in Fonda, N.Y. at?a drag strip which they used as a pit a road that they used on Saturday night for the dirt race. So as we would go down this paved portion of the oval, we would hit that oval and all four wheels were off the ground. We got away with so much back then. It’s amazing how I was able to escape all of the downfalls and here I am today at 82. So it’s not too bad. People come to me now and ask, ’Could you drive the cars of today?’ And I say, ‘What are you talking about? With my eyes closed!’ You know, I’ve ran enough times, a couple thousand runs. I wasn’t the first to run 300 mph, but I was the second driver to run 250 mph, a mark that had been set by Don Garlitz. I ran my first 300 mph in ’07, I think. It’s not easy out there to gain a couple miles an hour. I wouldn’t trade it for any other form of motorsports—not to put anyone down. I probably would like to be able to say that I did it all on my own, but I didn’t. Had some great people, some very good, qualified people. And I then I had some hippies. I had to weed them out, you know. But our sport is—there’s some number of characters out there. There was a guy, T.C. Lemons. He worked for Don Garlitz for a number of years and he was great with one liners. And Garlitz would complain and moan and groan after a weekend in, we’ll say in Wisconsin, and he would go home after getting a real spanking. He would complain to his guys over lunch, ‘Well, she was throwing rubber at me!’ Well, that’s when we used to kick front tires out. And T.C. said, ‘Well, if she was throwing rubber at you, then you must have been behind her.’ That really got his attention. I made my mark, but I made enemies in the early days. But I think that’s what really kept me going.”

In regards to being the subject of a Hollywood movie “Heart Like a Wheel” in 1983:

“I’ve traveled. I’ve met great people. I went from Schenectady to Hollywood.?You hear all the horror stories about Hollywood. I got all the money they promised me. I made a number of friends. Oh, one of the highlights was I flew with the Blue Angels and that’s a trip and a half. There’s no comparison. So again, all the things that I did, I was very fortunate. I was just a kid, with no direction at all and look what I did. But I will admit, they have in Hollywood something that they call a redline script. That’s carved in stone for everybody. And I did not read the script. I was chasing a world championship in 1982 in all my glory, and I didn’t pay attention, so things slipped by. And I thought they were a little unkind to Jack Muldowney who was a wonderful guy. We stayed friendly after we divorced until the day he passed away. Jack was wonderful. He taught me how to drive a car right from day one. It cost me two marriages and I lost my son too. John, I will miss him everyday of my life. Of course and he was very much a huge part of my championship. The guy, in Hollywood, he does all the batman movies.?It was his first movie. When people found out he was responsible for that movie, it opened the doors for him, all over the place. So that’s pretty nice. it was a nice reward. I wanted Jamie Lee (to play her in the movie). I had breakfast with her. What a lovely young woman. She was top-notch. And she didn’t get it.”

Regarding time with Connie Kalitta:

“Oh well, Kalitta--he was a billionaire with a B, a big B. I used to fly with him when he had a twin engine Cesna and then he had a taildragger. He used to fly a freighter for Ford Motor and I was in the right seat a long time. He used to put me in the left seat and sleep on the night trips on top of 4000 mufflers. Then he came up from the back and said, ‘If you need me, you just rock the ship.’ And flash the lights. If?there was a plane at 30,000 feet that would look like it was close, I’d just go and wake him up. And so he would come up all starry-eyed. ‘Wait a minute’, he says, ‘Just wait there. I’m going to shut an engine down. We’ll shut the fuel off on the left engine and see if you can hold it.’ He wanted to know if there was enough time for him to get up to the controls if he had to. So I spent a lot of years in those airplanes helping him. We haven’t spoken in 15 years, and he goes around and says, ‘They made a movie about me’ and I can’t live it down; it’s the Connie Kalitta story. But it made him a billionaire and he’s got 30 747’s that he’s scaled down and destroyed the interior and made them freight carriers.”

On other women she encountered in drag racing and their involvement in the sport:

“Well, most of them didn’t like me. Either I was racing against their boyfriend or I was racing against their husband, and I was not the most popular gal. When I took the step and went into Nitro, that was when the attitude changed. The wives of the Nitro drivers were a whole lot more receptive to me. And I don’t know what the change was or why, but that’s when I started to make friends. They’ve always been wonderful to me. I wanted to stay close to home when I was at the track, at least when I was driving, and I was busy with the fans. There just was not a lot of time to communicate, get what was going on, the latest rumor or whatever. But I have some favorites out there. I can see that the sport, the doors are wide open for the ladies. And, of course, NHRA wants to want to fill the field. I used to do staging at Indy and you’d look downwind and there’d be 50 top fuel cars. Today there’s basically 16 if they’re lucky. It’s just the cost of it. Well, they have themselves to blame. Because the rich kids, they turned it into a money thing. So that’s why you didn’t see too many ladies through the years. I think it took 35 years for a woman to win Indy, any class at Indy, after I did in ’82. I won in ’82. 30 some odd years.”

About her interaction with fans at NHRA events:

“They were wonderful to me and that wasn’t always the case. NHRA got smart and realized there’s women in those stands. ‘Let’s see; let’s give this a try.’ All of a sudden the doors were wide open again and here come the ladies. I don’t think there should be people out there that don’t have any seat time or don’t have any experience in the big cars because it’s not a toy. But now we have the cars with so much speed and it’s a whole nother world. The real stars make these cars run in a couple of a seconds. So it’s really been great to see the sport accelerate the way it has, for lack of a better word.”

Dick Berggren:

Dick Berggren, legendary announcer and motorsports reporter, began his career in 1967 racing Super Modifieds, Modifieds, stock and Sprint cars while serving as the public address announcer at Arundel Speedway in Maine. This led him to writing about the sport for various newspapers and Stock Car Racing Magazine, where he also was the editor. He won 26 races before leaving driving behind in 1981. He was a fixture on NASCAR telecasts and also appeared on ESPN, CBS, TBS and TNN. He closed out his career as the lead pit reporter for Fox Sports’ NASCAR telecasts for 12 years. Berggren also founded the magazine Speedway Illustrated.

He spoke about his career and a regret:

“Yeah, I wanted to win one more race. Honestly, that’s about it. The rest of it is just—I look back at where I’ve been and the stuff that’s happened for me, to me. And it’s been a great life. For a kid that just fell in love with stock car racing at age eight, to be able to go to races and somebody would pay me to go to races and would give me a free lunch menu and I would be so proud I’m thankful for what happened. I really am.”

He related a story about the time and reason he decided to stop racing:

“Back in the day, when I was doing the magazine, I would get some offers to go race a car here and go race a car there. I would take those offers ‘cause I just loved to race. I really did. And I got the opportunity to drive in what they call the IMCA Nationals in Boone, Iowa. That’s the thing that brings in hundreds of cars, literally 3-400 cars there, and making the A-Main is a monumentally difficult task. So here I am in my heat and I’m running pretty decent. I’m not going as good as I need to go to make it, but all of a sudden somebody tagged me in the back end of the car and got me absolutely swirly sideways. And I’m not going to lift at this point; I want to make the feature and I’m going to try to hang on to it. There were so many people there that the pits had spilled out. They were everywhere, way beyond where they were supposed to be. There was nothing separating that crowd from the racetrack other than a rope and a little bit of a dirt bank. I hit that dirt bank wide open and as the car started to fly through the air, I looked at people scattering. And the thing I was always most scared of in racing was injuring somebody else and all of the safety stories of how to stay safe as a driver. As I was flying through the air—I’m not a religious person; I don’t go to church—but I said, ‘God, get me out of this without hurting anybody and I won’t do this again.’ And the car landed and one of the officials stuck his head in the car and I said, ‘How many people did I hit?’ and he said, ‘You didn’t hit anybody.’ I got out and that was it.”

Frank Kimmel:

Frank Kimmel is the only 10-time ARCA Menards Series champion in history. He won eight consecutive titles from 2000-2007. He got his first win at Toledo Speedway in 1994 and amassed a record 80 career victories and 44 poles. He was the first ARCA driver selected to compete in the International Race of Champions in 2006.

“First of all, I’m not the same guy. I can’t get down like I used to and my knees are killing me every day. I am 60. You know, we came from nothing and we’re going to end up with nothing. I mean we were grateful we were able to set some records or things like that. I gotta be careful because a long time ago I gave my dad--I passed out a bumper sticker that says, ‘The older I get, the faster I was.’?I don’t want to be that guy. So just as soon as you think you’re the baddest in the garage, somebody will come in and show you you’re not. So it’s easier to go out there and try to silently beat them instead of tell them what you’re going to do.”

Scott Pruett:

Scott Pruett started his racing career at age eight, competing in karts and winning 10 professional karting titles, including the Professional Karting Association World Championship in 1981. In his first full season in IMSA GTO (1986), he won the series championship and won it again in 1988. He earned SCCA Trans-Am titles in 1987, 1994 and 2003. He competed in 145 CART races between 1988 and 1999, recording tow victories. He ran several NASCAR races and returned to sports car racing earning 60 wins and 11 championships. They include five 24 Hours of Daytona wins, a class win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and an overall victory in the 12 Hours of Sebring of Champions in 2006.

He spoke about one main racing rival and stories that are part of racing:

“Of course--Willy T. Ribbs. Our first race he took me out, fenced me in ‘86. We had the rivalry on the track. We had fights off the track. This is the great thing now about where all of us are in our careers, is you’re going to get the real deal. There is no covering it up for sponsors anymore and telling what’s pc. So I encourage all you guys and girls--you all have great stories--you are going to get the truth of the stories now that you might of not gotten in the days gone by. Quite frankly, if you go to the track now, you’re not going to get the truth to all those stories. You’re going to get what the best spin is. For Willie and I--I mean we were both passionate and we were both going after the same piece of real estate. We were both laying it on the line and we had no problem taking each other out. It would escalate from time to time on the track to off the track. And it was crazy, because no matter where we were, it ended up being like magnets; we wound up coming together. And the press loved it, the T.V. guys. Anytime we were even close. I talked to the cameraman and he said, ‘Oh yeah, we were right on you.’ And then some fights off the track and the thing with Bruce Jenner. It was quite interesting times.”

On seeing Willy T. Ribbs recently and the commonalities of many in racing.

“Yeah, saw him at Indy this year. Because he’s kind of showed back up again. Now we laugh about it.?Because now, and again, we’re at the point in our lives, telling stories. It was great passion. And that’s one thing that’s great about racing and I think any of us can attest to it. When you’re all in, your nerves are raw and the intensity and what you have and it only takes a little bit of something going the wrong way. Sometimes it can be difficult to control, especially when you’re younger, because you don’t care as much, and you don’t realize how much trouble you can get into. So you look back and you talk about it. More than anything else all of us have one thing in common—we love this sport. I mean, we love it. We’re still passionate about it. And as Dick (Berggren) says about the last race, after 50 years of racing it was difficult. And still having success--at what point am I going to retire??I look back and I’m going to miss it. I miss being behind the wheel; I miss the intensity of it. I miss that adrenaline and that team. That was fun about going back to work with Jimmie (Johnson) this year. It was being part of a team again, with a singular focus. What can we do better than everybody else out there to get to victory lane? And even though I was playing a different part--so I’m not sure everybody else feels that way--but that focus and singular drive that is bringing lots of great minds and great talents together. You can have those winning seasons and those championship years, making it to a level you wouldn’t have been able to do but because of everybody around you.”

Isabella Robusto Attends NMPA Luncheon, Ready for 2023 Season

On Sunday, January 22, 2023, Isabella Robusto attended the National Motorsports Press Association Annual Luncheon in Concord, N.C. for the first time along with some of her fellow Toyota development drivers. She was on hand to talk to the press about her recent announcement for 2023 which includes racing a handful of ARCA races for Venturini Motorsports.

“Yeah, I’m super excited just to kind of let everybody know—I’ve known for a little while my plans for this year. But to be able to tell everyone what I’m doing, I’m super excited and I’m looking forward to all of those races,” said Robusto.

The 18-year-old from Fort Mill, S.C. had a successful 2022 season and narrowly missed out on a points championship at Hickory Motor Speedway.

“I mean we were really close to the championship last year. It kind of sucks to miss out on it but I think last year was a great first year at Toyota and we checked all the boxes that we said in the beginning of the year. So hopefully we can do the same this year and just keep growing.”

She’ll be driving races on the CARS Tour and managing her schedule to run GT and ARCA races. She said she’ll be working with some people to help her with one race that is on dirt as well.

“Right now it’s kind of just open. I’ve asked a bunch of different people that run dirt who’ve done it before to get as much information as I can before I get out there.”

Robusto also attended the Women With Drive II Conference that was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October of 2022. It was organized by Lyn St. James and Cindy Sisson and offered opportunities for women and men in the industry to network and learn from one another.

“Yeah, it was really cool to be invited and to see everything that females do in motorsports. Actually how many of us there are and all of the key parts and roles that they play was really cool and special to see.”