“I can fix cars a little bit,’’ said Kulick, 32, who put her name in the PBA record book when she rubbed out the sport’s kingpin, Chris Barnes, in the Tournament of Champions at the Red Rock Casino. “I don’t do a lot of the car stuff now, but I’ve worked at my dad’s body shop for years. I’m just sort of a glorified secretary there these days. I like the work, taking bumpers off, putting them back on, and doing all the taping before they’re painted. It’s that kind of detail work I like the best.’’

Really, does it get any better than that? A woman who can boldly say she’s gone where no other female has gone before in her chosen sport and also take the wrinkles out of an expressway fender-bender? For all Bo Jackson knew, or knows, even he couldn’t convert a junkyard Chevy into a showroom piece de resistance.

Kulick, for those who stopped watching the sport on television when Chris Schenkel left the bowladrome, is not some overnight sensation in navigating the slick (they’re actually oiled) lanes of big-time bowling. She’s been taking aim at the 1-3 pocket for more than 25 years, dating to when she first picked up a ball at Linden Lanes near her hometown of Union Township, N.J., and she has been among the country’s best female bowlers since the days she rolled as a two-time All-American at Morehead State.

The only woman in the Red Rock tournament’s field of 63, Kulick bowled with precision in the days leading up to the televised final on ESPN. Late in the week, she wavered slightly in the matches leading up to the televised playoff - what the pros call “making it to the show.’’ But she got lined up down the stretch, finished a heady second overall to Barnes during the week’s 48 games, and came in smokin’ when she matched up against the mighty Barnes in the one-game championship. (Note to aging New England candlepinners: Don’t embarrass yourself by referring to games as “strings.’’)

“He’s the top guy out there,’’ noted the modest Kulick, talking on her cell phone from a Manhattan cafe as she made her way through myriad media appearances, including a hit on “The CBS Early Show.’’ “I mean, just to be on the same TV show with him was an honor in itself.’’

Some 48 hours removed from her convincing 265-195 victory, in fact, Kulick still sounded somewhat in awe. Her voice wasn’t weak or anxious, but it contained just a hint of hesitation, or perhaps exhaustion.

“Maybe that’s from answering so many questions, or trying to give different answers to a lot of questions that sound the same,’’ she said.

To that point in the week, her tour had included CBS, ESPN, and ABC.

“Yeah, all the networks,’’ she said, “and as I’ve jokingly said, maybe Oprah or Ellen DeGeneres.’’

Barnes, perennially one of the PBA’s top money-winners and the tour’s 2007-08 Player of the Year, has known Kulick for years. His wife, Lynda (Norry), has bowled on a US team with Kulick in international tournaments. Lynda Barnes was among the hundreds who e-mailed Kulick a note of congratulations after the win, which had her former teammate pocketing the top prize of $40,000 that her husband was hoping to add to his $1.6 million in lifetime earnings.

For his part, Barnes figured he didn’t have much of a shot against Kulick. Not that day, with his pedestrian 195. Having watched how Kulick went about her business and deciphered the lane, he said, he would have opted perhaps for a different ball and certainly a slower release. But all in all, he said, the woman who dragged him along and into the record books put a hurtin’ on the pins that was of true championship-caliber.

“There’s not much defense in bowling - it’s not a personal battle,’’ reminded the 39-year-old Barnes, echoing the sentiments that make bowlers and golfers kindred spirits. “She figured them out better than I did, that’s for sure. She threw two bad balls the whole game and her 10 others were just top-notch.

“When you consider all the circumstances that were on the line for her - being the first woman, all that - that’s pretty impressive. She was nearly perfect. Not sure I had much of a chance, really. I ended up being kind of a prop out there. It was a lot more about her than about me.’’

No telling what Kulick’s impressive win will do for women in bowling or the sport itself.

“Probably too early to know how much it has moved the needle,’’ noted Tom Clark, the PBA’s deputy commissioner. “But I think it’s a seminal moment in the history of bowling, for sure, and possibly for women’s sports. Throughout time, when a barrier has been broken, it has opened minds and created dreams for people. I’ll bet Kelly’s done some of that.’’

At the very least, noted Clark, it turned last Sunday’s tour stop into an instant classic on ESPN. He’s obviously excited for Kulick, impressed not only by the win but by the fact that it came against such a formidable foe.

“She beat Chris Barnes,’’ he said. “If we had a Ted Williams, it would be him.’’

The win earned Kulick a two-year exemption on the tour, beginning next fall. She hopes to qualify to roll against the men one or two more times this season, between now and April, then really begin grinding on the tour in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. She held a one-year tour exemption once before but didn’t bowl well enough to keep it. Now, she figures, the win in Vegas will permanently rid her of those rookie nerves.

“I was astonished, it was surreal,’’ said Kulick, asked how she felt the moment she won. “I mean, I feel that I could do no wrong that day.’’

Barnes, reached in California last week at the tour’s next stop, said he received what people might expect in terms of razzing. Along with his many achievements, he’ll also be remembered as the first PBA guy to lose a tour event to a woman.

Not surprisingly, said Barnes, his fellow bowlers haven’t been the ones to apply the needle. But two of his baseball buddies, including current Giants outfielder Aaron Rowand and ex-major leaguer Tom Candiotti, really gave him a case of the gender blues.

“That’s because they don’t know her, how good she is, and they don’t know bowling,’’ said Barnes. “Yeah, Candiotti, after the first two or three texts we exchanged . . . you couldn’t print those in a paper.’’

Next stop for Kulick: a mixed doubles tournament in Colorado. One woman and one man per team. It’s a good bet the woman who breaks barriers and makes a car’s dents disappear will top every guy’s dance card.

“Not sure,’’ mused Kulick, asked if she expected the guys to come running. “There might be a line next time, I don’t know.’’

Kevin Paul Dupont’s “On Second Thought’’ appears on Page 2 of the Sunday Globe Sports section. He can be reached at dupont@globe.com.