Jungle Pam Hardy is considered to be an icon in drag racing, despite her short time in it. Even though Pam stayed for four years in the racing, she left her name as a legend.
In the 70s, Jungle Pam was a name everybody in drag racing knew for sure. She was more than pure beauty, she had also a charisma. She brought the beauty into the world where only monstrous engines were roaring.
Jim Liberman was the drag racer partner of Jungle Pam. He was quite a showman, who started to drive when he was only 12.
Pam’s story started in 1972, few weeks before she graduated from school. Liberman saw her while she was hitch-hiking, and he took her in his yellow Corvette. Pam was thinking of attending West Chester University of Pennsylvania during that time.
I ditched the college that had accepted me, and it drove my mother nuts,” she said later.
She started to tour with Jim Liberman and became a duo in the drag racing community. Together, they were the perfect duo, as Liberman was the greatest showman, and Pam was the beauty queen.
“Well, sex sells,” Pam shared in one of the interviews. “You see it on the TV all the time, but back in the ’70s, Jungle and I decided together that this would be worth a shot, so that’s what we did, and it didn’t seem to hurt his reputation at all. And he had more pictures taken of his car as long as I was standing next to it than anybody else.”
“I’m kind of amazed by all the notoriety,” she said back in 1974.
But she was not just a hot body. Pam was taking care of the car, look for fluid leaks and stage it before the race. She would fill the water and oil of the engine, and would help Jim with repositioning the car.
’”We put on a good show,” Pam shared. ”And that’s what it was all about. It was not about me. When you were out there doing what we were doing, it wasn’t about me. It was about us.”
”Our relationship was a flash in the pan, a bolt of lightning. I just worked,” Pam continued.
Sadly, Jim passed away in an accident in 1972, where he collided with a bus while he was driving his yellow Corvette. It took 45 minutes to recover his body from the wreck of his car.
”It was my mother called me and told me because she didn’t want me to hear it on the news,” Pam shared the way she learned of Jim’s passing.
After losing Jim, Pam decided to leave the racing tracks behind, as she couldn’t be with anyone else than Jim.
”All that showmanship was his true personality. He just didn’t turn that on at the track and then became normal like everyone else at home. He had that sort of flair even when we were just at the house or went out some place. You could always feel his presence wherever he was,” Pam said of Jim.
Later, she married Fred Frey, who was the owner of Funny Car. As time went on, they got divorced and Pam married Bill Hogson.
When she was asked that if she had ever raced, “Hell no, and hell no. Those things could blow up and catch fire,” Pam said.
Today, at the age of 67, Pam is living her life quietly.
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