"The Snake" was Famous for Lightning Reflexes and Biting Remarks
Las Vegas Review-Journal by Otto Stein
Apr. 17, 2009
"The Snake" hated being second best and wasn't shy about letting people know
They called him "The Snake" because of his cobra-quick reflexes, but it was his will to win that proved to be the biggest factor in Don Prudhomme's remarkable career in drag racing. He simply hated to be second. "I raced for the sheer thrill of driving and winning," he once told a reporter. "I certainly didn't get into drag racing for money because it just wasn't there at the time ... just trophies. That didn't do much for me, but the winning certainly did." When the National Hot Rod Association named him the sport's third greatest driver as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, he was only half joking when he asked for a recount. "A drag racer is never happy if he's not No. 1," Prudhomme said at the time. "I'm not happy with it; you always want to be No. 1."
Happy or not, The Snake has had a remarkable 40-year run in drag racing, ending in 1994, and everyone has recognized his success and longevity as a driver and team owner. It normally takes a lifetime for someone to gain legendary status in his or her chosen field. The Snake, now 68, had already achieved fame and notoriety while barely out of his teens. He had grown up in the San Fernando Valley of California, just north of Los Angeles, where it was cool to have the hottest set of wheels in town. On Saturday night, a bunch of the boys would gather on some straight stretch of blacktop, somewhere off the beaten path, to see who was king of the streets. Then they would spend the next six days working on their cars after school and try again the following weekend.
"The image of drag racing was grease and leather jackets and a package of Pall Malls rolled up in the sleeve of your T-shirt," Prudhomme once told the Indianapolis Star newspaper after leaving the driver's seat for a role as team owner. After testing his fangs racing between orange groves, The Snake was ready to strike. In 1960, he quit his job at a paint shop to work for "TV" Tommy Ivo, who was then already an established drag racer and the sport's first touring professional. Although not keen on his role as a helper with Ivo, Prudhomme stuck it out, determined to learn the finer points of drag racing. By 1962, he served notice that there was a new kid in town. Prudhomme had bought his first dragster from Ivo, replaced the original Buick engine with a supercharged 392-cubic-inch Chrysler V-8 and took on a field of 90 entries in the prestigious Smokers March Meet in Bakersfield, Calif. He won. He was just 20 years old, three years younger than legendary drag-racing great Don Garlits was when he won his first March shootout.
Prudhomme would best Garlits again a few years later, becoming the first drag racer to sweep the NHRA Winternationals and U.S. Nationals, the only two national events at the time. Following the Bakersfield meet, Prudhomme was asked to drive what would become the famed Greer, Black and Prudhomme top-fuel dragster in the highest class in drag racing. The car was so dominant, recording a 230-7 win-loss record between 1963 and 1964, that it usually only made headlines on the rare occasion when it was actually defeated. The dragster consistently ran the quarter mile, the yardstick in drag racing, in the high-seven-second range, and at more than 190 mph. It became the stepping-stone to his renowned ride with Roland Leong and his Hawaiian Punch top-fuel dragster, which The Snake drove to sweep the NHRA's national events in 1965.
By the time he retired from driving at the end of the 1994 season, The Snake had racked up 49 NHRA victories in the Top Fuel dragster (14) and Funny Car closed-body divisions (35). He also became the first driver to record four straight NHRA Winston Funny Car championships (1975-'78) and the first to record a five-second quarter-mile funny car run when he turned a 5.98 at the NHRA World Finals in 1975. He was also the first under 5.20, and piloted the first funny car past the 250-mph mark. While no drag racer has gone undefeated during an NHRA season, Prudhomme came closest in the mid-1970s when he won six of eight national events in 1975 and seven of eight in 1976, driving his nearly unstoppable Army Monza funny cars. Overall, The Snake won 389 of 589 races for a winning percentage of .660.
When he ended his remarkable driving career with his "Final Snake Tour," Prudhomme did so in a cloud of vaporized rubber, winning three NHRA races and finishing second in the points.
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