THE SNAKE'S PITS
“I don’t smoke these often,” Prudhomme said to the members of the media as he fielded questions surrounding victories by Larry Dixon (Top Fuel) and Tommy Johnson, Jr. (Funny Car).
Prudhomme had two homes as a driver -- Gainesville and Englishtown. He won five times in Gainesville and six at Englishtown.
As a team owner, he’s won five times in Englishtown and thrice in Gainesville. Englishtown now has favored status as the site of his second career “double-up.”
Make no bones about it. The Snake loves Englishtown. You could tell because Don “The Snake” Prudhomme fired up a cigar for the press conference following his double win as a team owner during the NHRA Pro Care Rx SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.
“I don’t smoke these often,” Prudhomme said to the members of the media as he fielded questions surrounding victories by Larry Dixon (Top Fuel) and Tommy Johnson, Jr. (Funny Car).
Prudhomme had two homes as a driver -- Gainesville and Englishtown. He won five times in Gainesville and six at Englishtown.
As a team owner, he’s won five times in Englishtown and thrice in Gainesville. Englishtown now has favored status as the site of his second career “double-up.”
“Englishtown and Gainesville have always been special tracks on the circuit,” Prudhomme said. “I can remember coming here when the track was first built in the '60s. So we've been coming back and forth match racing all up and down the East Coast and Englishtown was always a special track. The Napps had it, I knew the grandfather that started it, that's how far I go back. The air’s good, it's a good track to run on and it’s kind of a favorite track of mine on the circuit.”
Prudhomme got his first two-win event back in 2002 in Columbus, Ohio with Dixon and Ron Capps.
“When you do that it's always a special time when you have both cars,” Prudhomme said. “Last week Larry won and Tommy didn't. Like I've told people in the past I'm only 50-percent happy. It's good but it’s not like it is now. When one of your cars win and the other doesn't it's like having a couple of kids; one knocks the ball over the fence and the other strikes out. That's the problem with being a team owner. You always feel bad for the guys that didn't win.”
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
 |
Click to visit our sponsor's website
The Snake's magic is rubbing off on Dixon, who has reached the final round at Etown for the last five times. He has memories of the race and watching Prudhomme's dominance.
"When I was a little kid, my dad raced here in the 1970s," Dixon said. "You couldn't even get in the pit area if you were under 14. I was 12 tears old and had to lie about my age just to get in the pit area. I was like, what are they going to do, check my ID? I wasn't old enough to have one.
"There was a lot of times when I would have to video Snake's runs from the grandstands because you couldn't stand on the line. Being a little kid, you saw the legend of Etown in reading Hot Rod and Car Craft. There weren't many events back then and this was a major one for me. To reach the finals is something else. No offense to Atlanta, but I'd trade three Atlantas for one Etown any day of the week."
Johnson's Englishtown triumph was something that legends are built on. He burned the car to the ground and blazed the competition from that point on.
"To rank wins, is awful hard to do," Johnson said. "My guys worked hard for this one. I told Sanke that after watching those guys work so hard that I couldn't let them down. Every time I pulled to the line I was relaxed and wanted to dig a little deeper for those guys. I knew we had a good car, I just didn't want to be the weak link."
In that day, Johnson looked like a Snake clone from the old days.
Winning Englishtown catapulted Prudhomme’s teams into the top eight in their respective divisions. Dixon climbed into second with his second-consecutive victory and Johnson vaulted from twelfth to eighth. Still, the jury is out is Prudhomme buys into the “Countdown to the Championship” format.
“For us the new points deal has been great because we started out so bad,’ Prudhomme said. “We all want to be a part of that and we're all fighting to be in the top eight. I was shocked we were into it just goes to show how close it is. Here we are way out of it, now winning one race we're in it. I feel good about the future fighting for the championship.
“I'm not sure if I'm sold on the whole concept about the points thing, I want to see how it ends up at the end of the year. I think we all are. I think it’s interesting ... we'll have to see. In our case it helps us.”
For now, Prudhomme isn’t concerned with the details. He’ll just keep puffing on his cigar – as long as it doesn’t bother the media.
