CHARTING THE CAREER of world champion race car driver Shirley Muldowney from Schenectady housewife to champ, Heart Like a Wheel evokes expectations of an automotive Breaking Away. No such luck, Director Jonathan Kaplan gets us in the car, but the ride is always too short. We feel a bit like the little kid who puts his only shiny quarter in the plastic horsey, expecting an exhilarating ride but only receiving a few quick, neck-snapping bobs.

The film, which spans almost three decades, traces Shirley's life from a teenage drag racer to a world champion car driver Shirley (Bonnie Bedelia) grows up in Schenectady, N.Y. developing a passion for racing cars early in her life. The film opens beautifully, in black and white as Shirley climbs into the lap of her father (Hoyt Axton) and steers the family car through the windy roads of upstate New York Shirley marries her high school beau Jack (Leo Rossi) and starts racing cars to earn extra money. Soon the family is spending weekends driving to races with her car, built by Jack, hooked on the family truck.

In 1966 at Raceway Park, Shirley tries to collect signatures from fellow drivers to qualify for the race, while many drivers respond to Shirley with remarks like, "make me some bacon and eggs," Connie Kalitta (Beau Bridges) "the bounty hunter," not only signs her petition but helps her to enter the race, in which she is the first woman ever. Of course, she sets a track record. The race initiates Shirley's close relationship with Kalitta, who becomes her friend, lover, mechanic and eventual competitor. She eventually leaves her husband, takes her son and goes West with Connie to make it big.

Kaplan does his best directing in portraying Shirley's early years in Schenectady. He recreates the excitement of the Saturday night drag race and the Smokey, small town club, where Shirley's father sings, in a way that gives dimension and color to the unfolding scenes. In one scene Shirley, just married, stands in her wedding dress in front of a dilapidated service station while Jack exuberantly describes his future plans, and we believe his naive faith in the future. This youthful energy evaporates, however, when Kaplan transports us to the world of the racetrack. Instead of pulsating action, the film sequences assume a monotonous pace, almost as flat as the track itself.

Kaplan briefly shows the greasy, macho, tree living lifestyle of the race car driver who is treated like a star. But the audience, like Shirley, is not completely let into this fraternizing crowd. Instead, we are only allowed brief glimpses and therefore never feel their full impact.

While Bedelia, as Shirley, gives an admirable performance, the lines do not give her a chance to express the complete range of her character. She is stifled by Friedman's stiff unemotional dialogue. Unlike Rocky, with whom the audience seemed to sweat and also cheer. Shirley is a cold, almost superhuman character who seems to know exactly what she wants and how to get there. We watch her plow her way through personal conflicts, the male dominated world of the race track, with a hard-nosed determination that asks for no compassion. Shirley always wins her races, and we always know she will.

THROUGHOUT THE FILM, Shirley seems as mechanical as the car she drives. It is only when she is leaving her husband that we see her break down on a payphone to her young son Bedelia's grief at this moment is so convincing that it almost makes up for her emotional rigidity throughout the rest of the film.

Kaplan implies that Shirley must maintain this tough armor in order to compete as a drag racer. Indeed, Shirley is seldom discouraged by patronizing or chauvinistic comments and behavior. When a fellow racer blows her a kiss before they start a race she confidently gives him the finger. Shirley must concede slightly, however, to help herself get ahead. When she moves to California she puts on shorts and calls herself Cha-Cha Muldowney. Soon, however, she resumes her real name, adamantly claiming her womanhood. When she goes on a cooking show on Canadian T.V. as a special guest and the cook keeps referring to her as Cha-Cha, Shirley," she tells him in front of thousands of viewers. "My name is Shirley."

Leo Rossi gives one of the film's best performances as Shirley's mechanic husband, who willingly supports her career until his own personal failures create an almost unbearable tension between them. Shirley's lover, the compulsive playboy played by Bridges, is for some obscure reason attractive to Shirley, who along with his wife puts up with his compulsive womanizing.

Despite some occasionally effective scenes and characterizations, Heart Like a Wheel rarely lets us see beneath Shirley's facade of sheer determination to win. As Shirley spins toward success, her emotional world seems as inert as the metal of the wheel itself.