Shirley Muldowney climbed to the top of the drag racing world in 1977, claiming her first NHRA Top Fuel world title.

In this great little video retrospective, Shirley Muldowney’s march to the 1977 world title actually opens the year before—at Columbus, Ohio for the 1976 NHRA Springnationals (above). There, she was number one qualifier and crushed the field, scoring her first NHRA national event win in Top Fuel, which also happened to be the first national win for a woman in a pro category. Shirley had already more than proven her mettle over several seasons of piloting Funny Cars and Top Fuelers, and once she broke through with her first major victory, everyone knew there would be much more to come.

Sure enough, she backed up the Springnats victory with a second Top Fuel win at Columbus the following year, and took the Summernationals in Englishtown, New Jersey and Le Grandnational at St. Pie, Québec, as well. The consistent and dominating season-long performance won her the 1977 NHRA Top Fuel championship, which proved to be the first of three world titles in her groundbreaking career. By the way, Shirley was the first driver to win two NHRA Top Fuel championships, and the first to win three, too. This video features two more drag racing legends, Steve Evans and Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, calling the action. Lead photo courtesy of NHRA.