[1] "Women had been competing at local tracks for years -– often in a “Powder Puff" class", but never in a national event.
In time, his skill at tuning them reached the point he opened his own shop, which helped finance Carol's racing.
[1] Her racing at Lions Dragstrip, which Mickey Thompson ran at the time, earned Lloyd a job working for him.
Cox disagreed, as did a number of other women racers, notably Shirley Shahan, Roberta Leighton, Barbara Hamilton, and Paula Murphy (driver of the Miss STP Mustang FC.[2]).
[1] Cox won the title in S/SA (Super Stock, automatic transmission), making her the first woman ever to take a win at an NHRA national event; the 9 March 1962 issue of National Dragster recorded her as a "crowd favorite", with a winning pass of 13.06 seconds at 107.65 mph (173.25 km/h), but says nothing about it being a first for a woman, dismissively calling her a "'powder puff' handler".
[1] Several months later, the family loaded the Ventura, and a Hayden Proffitt-built A/FX Pontiac Tempest (owned by Thompson), on their hauler and drove again to Indianapolis.