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Linda Vaughn. Miss Hurst Golden Shifter. The First Lady of
Drag Racing. Trophy queen at just about every type of
automotive competition including NASCAR, Indy, Formula One,
etc. Linda was the sweetheart of many a race fan, including
yours truly, from the mid-60's to the early 1980's when she
relinquished her titled as Miss Hurst Golden Shifter.
Linda began her career, strangely enough, as a dental
technician, a part-time job she obtained while in high
school. After graduating high school she began working full
time as a dental technician. She soon got tired of looking
into other people's mouths and decided to enter a beauty
contest and to her surprise, won. Soon afterwards, in 1961,
she entered another contest, this one put on by Atlanta
Raceway and won that title too.
Along
with her new title of Miss Atlanta Raceway (which lasted one
year), Linda's job was to visit various race tracks in the
south such as Charlotte, Darlington and Daytona in the pace
car representing Atlanta Raceway, displaying her anatomical
charms amongst her other duties as race queen.
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After her reign as Miss Atlanta Raceway was
up, Linda entered another beauty contest, this time
sponsored by Pure Oil Company. She won that title as well,
and assumed the role of Miss Pure Firebird a position she
retained for 3 1/2 years 'til Pure Oil merged with Union Oil
Company.
That merger signaled the end of her career as Miss Firebird
and Linda was suddenly out of a job. She thought her career
as race queen was over. All was not lost, though. Linda
being the automotive oriented gal that she is, opened up an
issue of Hot Rod Magazine and noticed an ad from Hurst who
were looking for a new Miss Hurst Golden Shifter.
Linda
decided to enter and won the preliminary at Atlanta, then
the title overall amongst 200 other entries. Thus began
Linda's long career as Miss Hurst and her association with
Hurst Industries.
Linda quickly became a prominent figure [pun intended] in
the drag racing world and to a lesser extent in other forms
of automotive competition.
In the
mid-60's, she along with Don Garlits and Richard Petty,
toured military bases in Vietnam, giving our boys moral
support and briefly taking their minds off the hell of war.
Towards
the late 1960's, Linda's services became in such demand that
Hurst had to hire addi- tional blonde beauties - dubbed the
Hurstettes, to fill in for Linda at various racing events
across the USA. |
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At more prestigious events, Linda alongside
the other two or three Hurstettes, made their appearance.
Yes, a sight for sore eyes indeed!
In
addition to her duties as Miss Hurst, in the mid-1970's
Linda also was the spokesmodel for Gratiot Auto Supply
appearing in their ads featured in the many car magazines of
the day. She also starred in Gratiot's television
commercials, which aired in the Detroit area.
Linda's
other TV appearances include a couple of Hollywood films
namely, Gumball Rally[1976] and Stroker Ace[1983], starring
Burt Reynolds. Later, she was the host of The Exciting World
of Speed and Beauty, which aired on ESPN in the 1990's.
Not all
of Linda's time at the races was spent as a trophy queen but
as a competitor, as she got behind
the wheel and competed (albeit briefly) in sports car
competition after receiving her competition drivers license
from the SCCA after successfully completing the driving
course offered at the Bob Bondurant School of High
Performance Driving. |
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After
semi-retiring from the automotive scene during the years of
1983-87, Linda returned to her first love. She teamed up
with
Mr. Gasket
Performance Group,
a conglomerate of automotive companies, who now owned Hurst
Industries, and was promoted to Vice President, Public
Relations.
Today, Linda still makes appearances at many car shows and
automotive races, no longer as race queen but as a guest of
honor, signing autographs and greeting legions of her fans,
many dating back to the 1960's.
In recent history, Linda was elected to the Drag Racing Hall
of Fame and was chosen the
Specialty
Equipment Manufacturer's (SEMA)
Person of the Year.
Presently, Linda is associated with
Prolong
Super Lubricants
in the capacity as consultant and spokesperson.
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In
1965, Hurst Performance Records recorded the Motor Trend 500
at Riverside. The next weekend was Daytona. We drove around
the clock to be there and arrived Thursday morning.
Very
RARE and hard to find original 1970 magazine titled
Here's Linda, Auto Racing's Golden Girl,
with great cover color bikini photo of Miss Hurst Golden Shifter Linda
Vaughn. If you were a racing fan of any type in the 1960s - 1970s, you
no doubt know who Linda Vaughn is, and you probably were in love with
her like everyone else!
and 24 color and B&W photos.
