The first Miss Hurst Golden Shifter -- Perky Patty Flannery

Hi folks -- The Dayton, OH area has plenty of local auto history, and there are times I manage to miss big moments in reliving it. On Saturday night at Kil-Kare Dragway there was time to meet and listen to the first Miss Hurst Golden Shifter, "Perky Patty."  Tom Archdeacon of the Dayton Daily News, who does a great job of writing human interest stories and who is a real local treasure in his own right, put it all together in a n article published this morning in the DDN.

Patty, a farm girl who would drive around tracks like Indy, Bristol, Riverside, and up Pikes Peak and across the Bonneville Salt flats, had her moments of glory before being replaced by two other young ladies, the most prominent of whom was Linda Vaughn, written up in another blog post.

Pat, one of two women named in the 1965 Car and Driver list of the top 25 racing personalities, has hit some tough times with broken relationships and health issues, is now 73 and owns a quarter horse business in South Vienna, OH. A 1957 graduate of Northeastern High School and then an employee at Mefford Ford in Springfield, she began her promotional career as Miss ARCA and then with Hurst.

Archdeacon's article is an excellent introduction to Patty's life, but as a historian I sure would like to take a look at her Scrapbook! And after all the trials, Archdeacon has concluded that "she still has it."