Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Betty Skelton: First Lady of Firsts!

Betty Skelton: First Lady of Firsts!

Burton, Jerry
Wagstaff, Patty

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralAthletesMotor Sports

Publisher Price: $29.99

PREORDER - Expected ship date March 16, 2027

ISBN13: 9798317902636
Publisher: Motorbooks International
Published: Mar 16 2027
Pages: 272
Height: 1.01 Width: 6.25 Depth: 9.25
Language: English
Explore the riveting story of a woman who defied limits, rewrote the rules, and lived life at full throttle--on the ground and in the air.

Betty Skelton was fast! She was also smart, fearless, and attractive--all of which she leveraged in her pursuit of speed, both as an auto racer and a pilot. Beginning in the late 1940s, a time when motorsports and aviation were the province of men, Skelton blew through all obstacles.

But there is a deeper, more personal story here, about how a woman from the deep south with modest family resources and no college education managed to accomplish all of the following and more:

  • Soloing (illegally) an airplane at age 12 and earning her pilot's license at 16 (the youngest person, at that time, to do so)
  • Winning three straight Women's Aerobatic World championships from 1948 to 1950
  • Exceeding 421 mph in a modified World War II P51 Mustang fighter plane at a 1949 air show
  • Setting altitude records in tiny Piper Cubs, the highest exceeding 29,050 feet, where she ran out of gas and had to glide down in sub-zero temperatures while flying barefoot (as was her custom)
  • Driving Corvettes alongside Zora Arkus-Duntov and racer John Fitch to set nine records for speed and acceleration at the 1956 Daytona Speed Week
  • Becoming the subject of national speculation as to whether she should be the first woman in space after training with the seven Mercury astronauts and appearing on the cover of Look magazine in 1960
  • Shattering four land speed records for women on the Bonneville Salt Flats, the fastest at 315 mph in a jet-powered dragster
  • Becoming the first woman vice president of a major automotive ad agency (Campbell-Ewald)

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