Drag racing icons were Hot Wheels pioneers

It seemed there were only four drag racers when I was a kid, and they all had nicknames: "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, "TV" Tommy Ivo, Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen. And I could watch them just by showing up, because "FIFTEEN AND UNDER, FREE WITH AGE I.D.!"

But my dad wasn’t a racing fan, mostly because other than the Indy 500, they didn’t have a betting pool on it at the steel mill. I had no way to get to Smokin’ U.S. 30 Dragstrip, or Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wis.

So I had to settle for re-creating those classic Snake vs. Mongoose duels with my Hot Wheels set on the dining room floor.

I was partial to slot cars, but Hot Wheels were easier to set up — all you had to do was attach this screw/clamp thing to a chair and slide a few pieces of orange plastic track onto the screw/clamp thing, and you had a drag strip.

The drawback was that most early Hot Wheels were based on custom or concept cars; there were few "real" racecars. So when the dog would run off with the Beatnik Bandit between his teeth, one really didn’t mind. Besides, the Beatnik Bandit was one of my brother’s Hot Wheels.

This changed when Mattel and its Hot Wheels brand became a sponsor of Prudhomme’s and McEwen’s Funny Cars. It was the first time a nonautomotive sponsor had joined forces with the NHRA, and this one pretty much revolutionized drag racing.

Next to the Indy Eagle and Lotus Turbine, the Snake and Mongoose cars were my favorite Hot Wheels. I did not race them with the dog nearby.

A lot of people standing in line to get The Snake’s and The Mongoose’s autographs Friday — Prudhomme and McEwen are grand marshals of today’s NHRA Big O Tires Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — apparently did not race their Hot Wheels in proximity of the dog, either. Many had brought their Snake and Mongoose cars to the track, to be signed and then placed on a shelf in the den. Or on eBay.

"It was Tom’s idea," said Prudhomme, 70, who won four Funny Car titles as a driver and two as owner of Larry Dixon’s Top Fuel dragster before retiring from the sport after the 2009 season. "Tom had kids and was married — believe it or not — and his mom knew someone at Mattel … it was the easiest sell in the world."

Said the 74-year-old McEwen, who now raises racehorses: "Hot Wheels started in (1968) … and I thought with the kids, they would like cars with little animals on them. So I went to (Prudhomme), and I said ‘What do you think?’ and he said they’ll probably feel us out.

"We went, they thought it was a great idea; we went back, they had drawings (of the cars), and we’ve been with ’em ever since."

In real life, theirs was a rivalry that helped defined their sport. But on the dining room floor, neither The Snake nor The Mongoose could hold a candle to my 1968 Hot Wheels Silhouette with the radical lime green paint job.

THREE UP

■ Had he scored "just" two more goals against Colorado on Friday night, the Wranglers’ Eric Lampe would have tied Red Berenson of the St. Louis Blues and Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs as the only professional hockey players to score six goals in a game since World War II. Still, four goals and two assists is pretty good.

■ UNLV should offer Bushwacker, the bucking bull that has bucked off 28 consecutive riders, a football scholarship. While bucking bulls aren’t that intelligent, neither are defensive ends.

■ Frank Nails, the guy for whom the Las Vegas High School football stadium is named, has been honored as the 68th greatest all-time graduate of his alma mater, Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., where he played running back and linebacker. Dave Kirvin, a former spokesman for Siegfried & Roy, is No. 53 on the list, though he never scored a touchdown against Colorado School of Mines.

THREE DOWN

■ When Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson was supposed to be meeting with the Big East folks about forming an alliance, the Big East folks were meeting with Boise State and Air Force, trying to steal Thompson’s two best teams. This seems funnier than a Will Ferrell movie, if you think Will Ferrell movies are funny.

■ Dick Trickle still is one of the worst all-time names in sports. Or in anything, really. But Ryan Dirteater (of Hulbert, Okla.) is probably not the ideal name for one who makes his living riding bulls.

■ A billboard on the way to Las Vegas Motor Speedway hoping to attract undergraduates from Southern Nevada shows a Southern Utah University coed and says "My professors know my name," or something to that effect. "Your football team knows the name of my football team" might have been slightly more effective.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.