From: DragZine.com

By: Andrew Wolf

As any drag racer the world over can attest, legends are made at the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, and although it didn’t take a singular event to make Don “The Snake” Prudhomme a legend, he certainly had his share of celebratory and historic moments at the facility we still refer to as the Indianapolis Raceway Park during his career.

One of those moments, which Prudhomme stretched out over the course of a dominant and record-making Labor Day weekend, came back in 1989, when he made his final Indy start in a Funny Car a most memorable one. Now, nearly a quarter-century later, that very car, The Snake’s Skoal Bandit Pontiac Firebird, is headed for auction — and befittingly, it will cross the auction block right back in Indianapolis, at Mecum’s 26th Original Spring Classic Auction at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on May 14-19.

Prudhomme drove this very Pontiac, the last Funny Car he piloted before transitioning to Top Fuel in 1990, to the Big Bud Shootout crown — a special race-within-a-race showdown for Funny Car competitors — at the 1989 U.S. Nationals with runs of 5.17 in the first round and 5.19 in the final during the three-round contest that earned him a cool $50,000.

Earlier that year, Prudhomme had become the first racer in the category to break the 5.1-second barrier, running a 5.193 at 265.80 mph in Houston on March 2nd. The 5.17 he recorded on that Sunday afternoon on his way to the Big Bud title was the quickest run in history at the time. Because the 5.19 came during a non-qualifying eligible run, the 5.19 could not back up the 5.17 as a record (Bruce Larson’s 5.25 was the national record at the time), but everyone wondered just how quick The Snake could go on race day.

As was expected, Prudhomme drove the dominant machine to the Funny Car eliminator title at the U.S. Nationals the next day, with runs of 5.26, 5.25, 5.27, and another winning 5.27 in the final over Larson.

The Snake described the car as “unbelievably quick”, thanks in large part to sponsorship from Pontiac that allowed he and his team to spend time in the division’s wind tunnel refining the shape of the body on the iconic Skoal Bandit machine to direct air into the injector and produce ample downforce on the rear end. But all of that work drew the ire of the NHRA technical staff, who promptly outlawed the body at the conclusion of the U.S. Nationals. All told, The Snake qualified No. 1 at seven of the 21 races during the 1989 season and won at Rockingham, Sonoma, Dallas, and Indy, showing just how strong this race car truly was.

Digging beneath the trick Skoal Bandit body, Prudhomme’s mount featured a supercharged, nitro-burning, Hemi powerplant based upon an aluminum engine block, with Mallory twin-magneto ignition and an overdrive transmission, with a 12-gallon fuel cell, and Goodyear rubber wrapped in timeless Cragar racing wheels.

Still in its original form inside and out, complete with the Skoal Bandit livery as it was at Indy in 1989, Prudhomme is offering this legendary flopper from his personal collection of race cars for the first time ever at the Mecum Spring Classic Auction. The question now is: how much will it fetch?

Thanks to: http://www.dragzine.com/news/prudhommes-89-indy-winning-skoal-bandit-flopper-headed-to-auction/

Images courtesy of Mecum Auctions