{"id":52464,"date":"2018-06-11T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T22:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=52464"},"modified":"2018-06-11T15:23:55","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T22:23:55","slug":"rip-tom-mcewen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/rip-tom-mcewen\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"TomMcEwen,
Photo Credit: NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tom \u201cMongoose\u201d McEwen may not have been one of NHRA\u2019s more prolific winners (he had five national event wins including one at the prestigious U.S. Nationals), but the colorful character\u2019s gifts included a proclivity for enticing sponsors into the sport and the ability to stir up his perennial \u201cfrenemy\u201d Don \u201cSnake\u201d Prudhomme, creating a rivalry that still transcends the sport.<\/p>\n

McEwen, 81, passed on June 10, 2018, leaving behind a legendary history. both on and off the dragstrip. Voted the 16th top driver in NHRA\u2019s Top 50 list in 2001, McEwen made his mark in both Top Fuel and Funny Car classes over a 35-year career. The Californian began his racing career on some of Southern California\u2019s most celebrated racetracks beginning in 1953.<\/p>\n

\"TomMcEwen,
Snake and Mongoose at premiere with cars – Photo credit: Tim Hailey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He progressed through gas coupes, altered and eventually raced gas and fuel dragsters. In 1962 he drove Gene Adams\u2019 Shark dragster, one of the first to use a streamlined body with an enclosed parachute pack. It became one of McEwen\u2019s more famous racecars.<\/p>\n

The battles with Prudhomme began at Lions Dragstrip, Long Beach, Calif. in September of 1964, in a heavily promoted match race. McEwen, piloting Ed Donovan\u2019s Donovan Engineering Special dragster, won that race against the famed Greer-Black-Prudhomme dragster. That one match race created a great deal of interest and spawned the \u201cSnake vs Mongoose\u201d battles on the West Coast as McEwen kept his racing activities in the Pacific region.<\/p>\n

Although McEwen had good success on the many West Coast tracks, it was his battles with Prudhomme in their Hot Wheels Funny Cars struck a chord with both adults and young racing fans. McEwen\u2019s promotional ability and Prudhomme\u2019s trackside success eventually led to the formation of a national touring team sponsored by Mattel; in mid-1969 the duo incorporated as Wildlife Racing, racing with Mattel sponsorship from 1970 through 1973.<\/p>\n

\"TomMcEwen,
Hot Wheels Mongoose car and trailer Photo credit: Tim Hailey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McEwen knew his place: \u201cI was the [BSer] and Prudhomme was the racer,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d set up the deals, then we\u2019d go out to the track and he\u2019d 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 and I got to single,\u201d McEwen told NHRA.<\/p>\n

They made a good team for those few years and complemented one another well. \u201cDon was the serious guy, spent a lot of time with his car, and I was more like the wrestlers today, saying how bad I was going to beat him to build interest in the deal.\u201d McEwen\u2019s most dramatic victory, at the U.S. Nationals against Prudhomme in 1978, came just days after the death of his son, Jaime.<\/p>\n

A member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America – just to name two – Tom McEwen remained popular in his retirement. He was a welcome visitor to NHRA events and at car shows. He had a big hand, NHRA said, in helping put together this year\u2019s NHRA Legends Tour, making 2018 appearances in Las Vegas and Houston as part of the program.<\/p>\n

\"TomMcEwen
McEwen at Snake and Mongoose movie premiere Photo Credit: Tim Hailey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A 2013 film, Snake and Mongoose, told the story of McEwen\u2019s and Prudhomme\u2019s battles on the track in their Hot Wheels cars and the great friendship that transcended their racing activities. McEwen, who suffered from colon cancer, would likely remind one and all to get screening for this devastating disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McEwen, 81, passed on June 10, 2018, leaving behind a legendary history. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":52469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470],"tags":[433,2,41,7,594,6010],"class_list":["post-52464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","tag-don-prudhomme","tag-drag-racing","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-snake-and-mongoose-movie","tag-tim-mcewen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TomMcEwen-credit-NHRA-min-e1528755604966.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-dEc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52472,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52464\/revisions\/52472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}