Prudhomme, Bernstein Wind Up 1-2 : Drag Racing: The two stars, who are leaving funny car ranks to race top fuelers next year, are leaders in time trials.

Ed (Ace) McCulloch has been racing funny cars since 1969, longer than any other nationally ranked drag racer, and he sees no decrease in the popularity of the fiberglass-bodied, short-wheelbase cars with the defection of Kenny Bernstein and Don (Snake) Prudhomme to top-fuel dragsters next season.

“Let ‘em go, it’s all right with me,” McCulloch said Thursday as qualifying began for the 25th annual Winston World Finals at the Pomona Fairplex.

“They’re two good cars, but there are still plenty of good ones around and I expectthere’ll be some new blood next year.

“It wasn’t more than five or six years ago that top fuel was the dying class and funny car was No. 1. Right now, the four-second runs and 300-m.p.h. barriers have stimulated interest intop fuel, but funny cars will continue to go faster and quicker, too.

“And I don’t think they’ll jump into any cakewalk over there, either.”

McCulloch, whose 5.13-second run last month at Dallas was the fastest in National Hot Rod Assn. funny-car history, was an interested spectator when Bernstein and Prudhomme ran a nostalgic match during the first round of time trials.

It turned out to be the quickest of the funny car round, Prud- homme running 278.20 m.p.h. in 5.351 seconds in his Pontiac Trans Am and nipping Bernstein, who hit 272.47 in 5.439 seconds in his Buick Reatta.

Between them, they have won eight world championships in the last 14 years. In direct competition, Bernstein has 21 wins to eight for Prudhomme.

Bernstein, 45, the consummate businessman, is making the switch because, from a corporate standpoint, top fuelers attract more publicity and media attention than funny cars.

“The spotlight is on top fuel now,” the Newport Beach racer said. “When I came back intothe sport in 1980, you couldn’t sell top fuel to a corporate sponsor. Funny cars were the hot item then.

“What happened to make the change was that as the top fuelers stretched out from 240 to 300 inches in length, which was done solely for the purpose of performance, it opened up a lot of signage space. Today, you can spread ‘Budweiser’ out over a larger area than you can on a funny car.

“That, plus the challenge of doing battle with the kings of the sport after going about as far as we can where we are, was reason enough to make the change.”

Bernstein expects to receive his Mike Kase-built dragster in time to test in early December and run it in the annual preseason race at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Ariz., in January.

Prudhomme, 48, winner of 40 NHRA national events in a career that started in 1965 in the back yard of his Granada Hills home, is making the switch primarily for safety.

“I want to go 300 m.p.h., and the only way to do that is in a top fueler, but more than that, I think they are safer with the engine behind the driver,” he said. “I just don’t want to find myself trapped inside a closed cockpit with it on fire.

“I’ve always had a fear of fire, and I’ve been in some myself, but it really hit me last July when I was going side-by-side with Don Gay Jr., a young fellow just starting out, and he crashed and was trapped in a burning car.

Myself and the Safety Safari (the NHRA emergency safety crew) pulled him out of the car and I’ll never forget the sight of his charred uniform. He just looked all black.”

Gay, who suffered second- and third-degree burns, underwent extensive skin grafting and has recovered sufficiently to return to racing next year.

Prudhomme got his new chassis from Dave Uyehara on Monday and expects to test at Bakersfield within four weeks.

“I sat in it like a kid sits in his dad’s car before he has his license,” Prudhomme said. “I know it’s going to be different, but I’m really looking forward to the challenge. I’ve never driven a rear-engine dragster. When I drove top fuel in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, they were all front-engine.

“Another big reason is that I’d like to win a top-fuel world championship to go with the four I won in funny cars. I won some national events in top fuel, but they didn’t have a world championship series back then.”

Drag Racing Notes

Darrell Gwynn of Miami set a track and Winston Finals top-fuel record with a run of 4.957 seconds in elapsed time for the quarter-mile in the opening round of time trials leading to Sunday’s eliminations. Earlier in the afternoon, Frank Bradley of Santa Rosa had posted the first sub-five-second run since they started drag racing at the Fairplex in 1961, when Jack Chrisman set the record at 8.99 seconds and 170.13 m.p.h.

Bob Glidden, 10-time pro stock champion from Whiteland, Ind., drove his Ford Probe to an event record elapsed time of 7.342 seconds at 188.63 m.p.h. He has qualified No. 1 in 40 of his last 59 races. . . . Time trials will continue today at 2 p.m.