Tales of Snake, Mongoose Live On
By Susan Wade, Photos from the archives of Ron Lewis
Originally published July 14, 2018
Thoughts today are with Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, because it might be one of the toughest days of his life.
At a special Celebration of Life for Tom McEwen this afternoon, Prudhomme will bid one final good-bye to his former business and racing partner and close friend.
Racers and industry friends will gather at Pomona, Calif., to swap stories and pay respects at 2 p.m. at the Sheraton Conference Center, 601 W. McKinley Ave. on the Fairplex property.
McEwen, who passed away June 10 at his Southern California home, was 81.
The sport is mourning this Funny Car pioneer most famous for negotiating a classic marketing deal with Mattel in the 1960s that launched the Hot Wheels phenomenon and his epic battles against Prudhomme. Although his marketing success overshadowed his safety innovations, McEwen was the first to use a breathable face mask sewn into his helmet, fire extinguishers, parachutes, and rear spoiler. He also redesigned the wheel area of the body.
But his rivalry and relationship with Prudhomme will be his legacy. They were peanut butter and jelly. Legendary promoter Bill Doner would call them drag racing’s odd couple, for their trademark squabbles.
McEwen said, “It’s like two brothers competing with one another. At the track it was very, very hardcore, don’t-give-an-inch. But away from the track, we’re fine. We’ve been racing each other forever. I think it’s one of the greatest rivalries ever in the sport.”
Prudhomme said they were “like two brothers who love each other but don’t get along too good. I [didn’t] want anybody screwing with him, and he [didn’t] let anybody screw with me. I truly love the guy. I learned a lot from him. We were like an old rock band – we played well together.
“Both of us always wanted top billing, I say ‘Snake and Mongoose.’ He said ‘Mongoose and Snake,’” Prudhomme said. “We were big-time in competition with each other. We fought over who had the best spot in the pits to who had the best-looking race car. We were at each other’s throats so much that sometimes we didn’t talk to one another for weeks on end.”
Sometimes that was preferable for McEwen, for Prudhomme knew how to aggravate him. He needled McEwen about his fondness for food, coaxing him to come and visit him by saying, “What if I told you they just put in a brand-new Marie Callender’s by my house?” And he regaled people with stories of McEwen’s generosity, particularly to pretty ladies: “He probably paid for more boob jobs and gave away more gold necklaces than any guy on the planet!”
Said Prudhomme, “He’s good material to pick on. He knows I’m messin’ with him. He knows me like a book. I love the guy. I think he knows I love him.”
They respected each other’s strengths, as the 2013 feature film “Snake and Mongoose” showed.
“I was the B.S.-er, and Prudhomme was the racer,” McEwen said. “I’d set up the deals, then we’d go out to the track and he’d usually beat me. There were times when he was beating me so regularly that the only way I could have beaten him was if he got lost on the way to the track.”
However, McEwen’s monumentally dramatic Funny Car victory over Prudhomme at the 1978 U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis provided perhaps the sport’s most memorable moment. It came just a few days after McEwen’s teenage son Jamie died from leukemia. McEwen defeated Prudhomme on the sport’s biggest stage – the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis. Prudhomme climbed under McEwen’s car body right away at the top end of the track and shared a tearful hug with his nemesis-pal.
PLEASE SEE THIS FEATURE ABOUT DON PRUDHOMME AND TOM McEWEN:
Prudhomme remained in the sport as a team owner until 2009, while McEwen owned quarter-horses and loved reminiscing with his band of quarter-mile brothers over lunches. Still, The Snake and The Mongoose – or Mongoose and Snake – toured the country and fascinated more than one generation of fans.
A panel of judges voted McEwen No. 16 on the NHRA Top 50 all-time drivers list. “The Mongoose” was a member of the Drag Racing Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Prudhomme said the entire Snake & Mongoose scheme “was Tom’s idea. He had kids. He was married — ahem . . . believe it or not. And he came to the shop one day and said, ‘Hey — My mom knows someone at Mattel. I’m going to go to Mattel and see about sponsorship with the Hot Wheels cars. I thought he was crazy.”
McEwen said, “I had an idea because of the animals, the Mongoose and the Snake. Hot Wheels started in 1965, and they were generic cars. I always thought with the kids that it’d be fun if they had cars with little animals on ’em. I thought they’d like that.”
This February at the season-opening Winternationals, a reporter asked Prudhomme, “If you had a team again right now, who would you want to have driving for you?”
McEwen piped up and answered for him: “Probably me.”
For a split second, Prudhomme imagined a modern-day version of their act. “I still think I could kick [John] Force’s ass. I do. Sometimes I have dreams about it,” The Snake said.
That only egged on The Mongoose, who deadpanned, “It was never hard before beating him.”
“Exactly!” Prudhomme declared with a bawdy laugh. “It shouldn’t be any different.”
It was one of their last appearances together. Today, Prudhomme goes solo.