Diana Murphy Wins Most Improved

By day she is a grandmother and homemaker, by Saturday night she is behind the wheel of a 69 Camaro, speeding the Norwalk Raceway Park quarter mile at 140 miles an hour.

Diana Murphy is also Norwalk’s Most Improved of 2005, an honor bestowed on the driver who makes the greatest impact on their point standings in just one year’s time.

In 2002, Murphy placed ninety-second.  In 2003, she did not compete.  In 2004, she placed seventy-fourth.  In 2005, Murphy advanced in the standings winning one feature event and scoring fifteen round wins to place eleventh.

Murphy also placed second at the year end Engine Race, taking the top sixteen drivers in Norwalk’s Bar’s Leaks Top points chase and pitting them in a field for the chance to run for a $10,000 engine. 

During Norwalk’s Awards Banquet, Murphy was called on stage many times, even to present the Bar’s Leaks Top second place finisher, Kirby McLennan, with his runner up trophy.  McLennan, a multiple champion in Top, came up short this year due to the two times he ran Murphy.  She defeated McLennan once in a final, and once in the first round of competition.