A fearless pioneer and a versatile and gifted driver, Paula Murphy was the first woman to pilot a jet car to a Bonneville Salt Flats speed record, the first woman to secure an NHRA Funny Car license, and much more. The following is an excerpt from The Fastest Woman on Wheels: The Life of Paula Murphy.

Paula Murphy scored another first on November 11, 1963.

Positioned as a tire test season for Granatelli’s new dual-overhead cam supercharged V8-powered, STP-badged Studebaker Novi, Murphy was cleared to make three medium-paced laps around the iconic speedway, becoming the first woman to ever pilot a race car around the facility at speed.

“Andy showed a lot of faith in my abilities,” Murphy said. “And I had all the trust in the world in him. He told me where to show up and what time to be there, and I went to work.”

Granatelli had many nicknames throughout his storied career including “Mr. 500” and Sports Illustrated writer Bob Ottum’s moniker, “the roundest known automotive pixie.” Donald Davidson said Granatelli was “without a doubt, one of the most dominant and iconic personalities in the history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.” Granatelli and the STP brand were known for having the juice to get things done. And get it done they did.

In an article for STP-sponsored Auto Racing Magazine titled, “Paula Murphy—As I See Her,” Granatelli wrote:

[In] less than an hour, I had persuaded the tire test crew, who had the privilege of the track, and Al Bloemker and Tony Hulman and Clarence Cagle, who really run the place, plus about a half dozen other people, that Paula should get a shot at immortality by driving an STP Novi, of all the impossible things, around the Indianapolis brickyard.

It wasn’t easy. The only other gal, within memory of man, to even tour the track at the wheel of a car was the late, great Amelia Earhart. Women, you know, aren’t allowed in the pits, in Gasoline Alley or within a country mile of running a race car—let alone in the cockpit, out there hot lapping.

“They knew I would be the first . . . it almost took special dispensation from the Pope to allow me to do that,” Murphy recalled. “What, a woman drive at Indy?”

The experience did not come without the prerequisite public relations preening and some performance restrictions on Granatelli’s Novi-powered Studebaker, a car described by writer Deke Houlgate as, “that terrible, snarly, wall-banging Novi, the car that made the STP logo something special.”

“They had me putting on lipstick and patting my hair and giving everyone goo-goo eyes for all the cameras,” Murphy recalled. “[STP] told me to do it because they thought it would be cute, and I was like ‘Oh, boy.’ But I did what I was asked to do.”

In a 1970 article for Hot Rod Magazine, Murphy noted: “The throttle was locked, and I was restricted to 100 mph and only three laps.”

“One of [Granatelli’s] brothers said, ‘Oh, she’ll never be able to shift that car,’’’ Murphy recalled.

Murphy took it as a challenge.

“The shifter was between my legs, and I thought, ‘I can do that,’” Murphy said. “They pushed me out and off I went. I got around Turns One and Two, and I was heading down the back straight and thought, ‘Now, it’s time to shift,’ so I took both hands off the steering wheel and took both hands and pulled the shifter down and off I went . . . it was simple and I could have gone around that track a few more times than they allowed me because it was so fun.”

Despite the thrill of making a few laps, Murphy was definitive in her responses to media questions about eventually racing in the Indianapolis 500: a resounding no. And she remained resolute in her decision years later when she returned to the speedway to drive the pace car. When New York Times reporter Phil Pash asked her about possibly being the first woman to race in the 500, Paula confessed, “It won’t be me. Because I’m not that crazy about driving open wheel cars. I don’t mind if I am the only one on the track, but if there are going to be other cars out there with me, I want fenders and roofs and things like that. Maybe that’s the stock car racer in me talking.”

The hesitancy was reinforced in the years following her solo runs around the famed track.

“I did do the laps at Indy, but there is no way you could have gotten me in one to race,” Murphy said. “I didn’t want anything to do with open wheel cars. The first year I went to Indy was in 1955 when [Bill] Vukovich was killed. I went back in 1964, and that’s when [Eddie] Sachs and Dave McDonald were killed.”

Part of the equation that wasn’t talked about much was where she felt more welcome. Murphy noted in Speed and Supercar magazine that, “there’s a little more resentment against a girl driving open cockpit cars around the ovals than there is in drag racing.” For Murphy, it would be a future of reaction times and straight-line speed.