MOTOR SPORTS : Dragster Snakebitten This Year

When Don (The Snake) Prudhomme, the second-winningest drag racer of all time and one of the legends of the sport, was told that he was in 12th place in the current NHRA Top Fuel standings, he was taken aback.

“Am I that high? I’m doing better than I thought,” Prudhomme said by telephone from Seattle, where he is getting ready to compete in the National Hot Rod Assn. Northwestnationals.

After a record-breaking, 16-year career as a Funny Car driver, Prudhomme decided to move up to the Top Fuel class this season, the level at which he competed from 1965-73. So far this year, not much has gone right for him in the rear-engine machines.

He has crashed three times--in Montreal he demolished his car--and has advanced to the semifinals just once, in the Springnationals in Columbus, Ohio.

“This year has been nothing to be proud of so far,” said Prudhomme, 49, who lives in Granada Hills. “I just got to keep lugging away. . . . All you can do is keep going straight ahead. There’s no other solution. If there was, I’d be doing it.”

With 40 NHRA wins--35 in Funny Cars--Prudhomme, a four-time Funny Car champion from 1975-78, is second to only Bob Glidden (76) on the all-time win list. His last Top Fuel win, however, came in 1970 against Jim Nicoll in the U. S. Nationals in Indianapolis.

The lone bright note in Prudhomme’s season so far is that he has the fastest speed in the world (289.23 m.p.h.), set at the Springnationals.

Considering the three crashes this season it is ironic that Prudhomme returned to Top Fuel this year because of safety reasons. In addition to the Montreal crash June 23, Prudhomme crashed in Dallas in March and Bakersfield in December in the car in which he is now forced to compete.

“You might laugh at that, but I wanted to get the engine behind me. So far it’s been like jumping out of the pit into the fire,” Prudhomme said. “Top Fuel is also the quickest car in the sport and I wanted to be part of it for that reason. When we went 289, that’s the fastest I’ve ever gone. . . . You can just let it all hang and go for the records.”

Prudhomme describes the Montreal crash as “the accident that caught my attention more than any other in my career.” About 300 feet off the line, the front end of his car became airborne and a 20-mile head wind caused the Swindahl racing car to do a back flip. The car rolled over the guard rail into a dirt area. Prudhomme, amazingly, walked out under his own power, with the engine still running. The car was broken into pieces and beyond repair.

“It took a few weeks to get that out of my mind. It’s not something you can forget right away. I was waking up in the middle of the night for a while,” Prudhomme said.

Prudhomme attributes the trouble to the clutch mechanism on his car, which he describes as the “brains of the car.”

“I thought we’d just be able to take the engine and the clutch out of our Funny Car and put it in a Top Fuel car and win. It’s not that easy,” he said.

Despite this year’s woes, Prudhomme has no regrets about the switch to Top Fuel and feels confident about the rest of the year. Last month, Prudhomme visited Saugus Speedway and was mobbed by fans and friends in the press box.

“The only thing I miss is the winning,” he said. “In my Funny Car career, I’ve been in situations like this before, where all of a sudden things turn around and I win an event or two. I can still go out to Saugus Speedway and the fans aren’t booing. They’re coming up and wanting to talk racing or get your autograph. That’s one of the things that still makes you feel good.”

Closing the gap: Although he has yet to win an event this season, M. K. Kanke of Granada Hills is in a tight race with Doug George for the points lead on the NASCAR Southwest Tour.

With his third-place finish in the Olympia 100 in Eureka last week, Kanke cut George’s lead to 40 points after 10 of the 18 scheduled races on the tour.

Driving a Pontiac, Kanke started in the fifth position and finished behind winner Troy Beebe of Modesto and Randy Olson of Eureka. George, who entered the race leading by 55 points, finished sixth and now leads Kanke, 1,493 to 1,453.

Kanke, picked before the season by fellow drivers and officials as a co-favorite to win the tour championship, now has five top-five finishes, including one second-place finish. Kanke, who finished third in the standings last year, is second in earnings with $10,505, trailing George ($18,826).

Ron Hornaday Jr. of Palmdale, who finished fourth in Eureka after starting ninth, is third with 1,420 points, and Ray Hooper Jr. of Palmdale is fifth with 1,355 after an 11th-place finish.

Other Valley-area drivers in the points standings include Bob Lyon of Newhall (eighth with 1,185), Dennis Dyer of Palmdale (ninth with 1,166), Mark Perry of Saugus (10th with 1,055) and rookie-of-the-year candidate Wally Pettengill Jr. of Sepulveda (15th with 732).

The Southwest Tour continues Aug. 11 with the Spears Manufacturing 100 at Stockton Speedway.