Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Drag Racing’s Snake to Miss Winternationals

Drag racing’s Snake has gone into hibernation.

Don Prudhomme, who was dubbed The Snake when he left Granada Hills in the early ‘60s and became one of the sport’s legendary figures, will miss the Winternationals for the first time in 22 years when the National Hot Rod Assn. opens its $12-million, 14-race series this weekend at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona.

It certainly isn’t because he has lost his ability to go fast. Only last October, in the World Finals at Pomona, Prudhomme set the national funny car record with a run at 264.86 m.p.h. In the final, against Winston World champion Kenny Bernstein of Newport Beach, he got off the line squirrelly and was disqualified for crossing the center line.

The reason he is not racing is because he doesn’t have a sponsor.

“It’s strictly a business decision,” Prudhomme said. “My five-year contract with Pepsi and Wendy’s ran out, and they didn’t renew. I’ve been beating the bushes, trying to find a sponsor, but so far, no deal. The car’s sitting in the garage, ready to run. All I need is some bucks. It’s kind of sad, having the fastest car in the sport and not running in the next race, especially in front of all my hometown friends.”

For years, Prudhomme had the richest sponsors in drag racing. He was the first to bring in a sponsor not affiliated with racing when he and Tom (Mongoose) McEwen made up the Hot Wheels racing team for Mattel toys. Later he had big-bucks backing from the U.S. Army, and then Pepsi and Wendy’s.

He estimates that it would take $500,000 to run the NHRA season.

“One big problem in finding a sponsor today is that the racers have to compete with the NHRA,” he said. “They have a staff out, lining up sponsors for their TV shows and their events, and the people they contact, like Chief Auto Parts this week, are the same ones we could use. They have 86 sponsors, and we don’t have any.”

Prudhomme, 44, won his first Winternationals in 1965 in a top-fuel dragster, then won four more in funny cars between 1975 and 1978. During his long career, Prudhomme has won 34 national events, more than any other top-fuel or funny car driver in the NHRA record book.

When pro qualifying begins today at 2 p.m., drag racing’s first 270-m.p.h. run could be a possibility. The fairgrounds strip can lay claim to being the fastest in the country, since national records were set in all three professional classes during the World Finals. In addition to Prudhomme’s funny car standard, Big Daddy Don Garlits set a top-fuel record of 268.01 m.p.h., and Bob Glidden ran a record 186.87 in pro stock.

Garlits, who came so close in October, said that the 270 barrier will be broken early this season and that Pomona is the most likely track for it. If Garlits does it, it will follow a pattern the 53-year-old veteran established when he was the first to break 170, 180, 200, 250 and 265. He is returning with the same Swamp Rat, No. 29 in a series, that he drove to the world championship last year.

The Winternationals also mark the return to official competition of three-time world champion and two-time Winternationals winner Shirley Muldowney, who now lives in Northridge, and Doug Kerhulas, of Bakersfield, in top-fuelers. Both were seriously injured in mid-1984, and neither had been expected to resume racing. Muldowney had her legs badly mangled, and Kerhulas had a brain concussion.

More than 600 cars in nine NHRA categories are entered in the 26th annual event, which has a purse of $754,000. Qualifying will continue Friday and Saturday, with final eliminations starting at 11 a.m. Sunday.

OFF-ROAD--Many of the drivers who competed last Saturday on the concrete floor of an indoor stadium in Indianapolis will be back on more familiar ground this weekend when the SCORE Parker 400 opens the eight-race SCORE International-High Desert Racing Assn. series. Roger Mears, whose Nissan stadium truck broke down early at Indianapolis, will be in his desert truck for the 400. The Toyota pickup truck tandem of Ivan Stewart and Frank Arciero Jr., who finished 1-2 in the SCORE world championships last year, will be racing against single-seat buggies in Parker, a race which runs on both sides of the Colorado river near Parker, Ariz. Steve Millen, who won the Indy truck race in a Toyota, does not drive in desert races.

WILLOW SPRINGS--Track owner Bill Huth has purchased 143 additional acres on the north side of the existing track with plans to build a skid pad, another mile road racing course to simulate street racing and perhaps a dirt track for off-road testing.

ROAD RACING--The 24th running of the 24 Hours of Daytona will open the International Motor Sports Assn. season Saturday at Daytona International Speedway. A record $213,000 has been posted. Porsches, which have won every Daytona 24-hour race since 1977, are favored again. Camel GT champion Al Holbert, with codrivers Derek Bell and Al Unser Jr., are the top choice in Holbert’s 962. Defending champion A.J. Foyt will have Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan and Arie Luyendyk as codrivers in Preston Henn’s 1985 winning car. The winning car is expected to cover 2,500 miles around the 3.56-mile road course. It is the first of 18 IMSA Camel GT events, which includes the Times-Ford Grand Prix 6-Hour race at Riverside International Raceway on April 27.

PHOENIX--Jim Thirkettle, winner of the last three Cooper World stock car races, will try for No. 4 when the ninth Skoal Bandits race is held Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway. Also on the program are races for sprint cars, midgets and super modifieds.

STOCK CARS--Willy T. Ribbs, who was going to make his NASCAR debut in the Daytona 500 in two weeks, has postponed his stock car opener until March 16 at Atlanta. Last year, at Indianapolis, when Ribbs sought to become the first black driver in 500 history, he found 200-m.p.h. speeds too fast and withdrew.