The Snake

Yesterday we took a trip to the Peterson Automotive Museum. They have a new exhibit / sponsorship tie-in that I found most interesting. They are displaying famous Hot Wheels cars and their full-size counterparts. When I stepped off the escalator and into the exhibit space, I was hit square in the face with the two-by-four of nostalgia.

By Don “The Snake” Prudhomme.

If you are anywhere close to my age and have a pulse you will remember the Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and his funny car. Hot Wheels pimped this guy like nobody’s business. I can still hear some announcer extolling the virtues of a drag race set featuring him and some other colorfully-nicknamed racing character.

The museum was full of Cub Scouts yesterday. They were running some local pack’s Pinewood Derby races in the parking structure, and Don Murphy, aka “the Founder of the Pinewood Derby” was reputed to be in attendance. He wasn’t sitting on a dais or anything though, so I didn’t get a chance to say hello. Too bad, I would have liked to thank him for some fond memories.

I remember my first Pinewood Derby quite distinctly. My car kept winning. I don’t know that it was anything other than blind luck – we didn't have any special tactics beyond the standard “melt down some fishing weights for ballast” and “put graphite on the axles” but I kept advancing.

Even as it was happening I couldn’t believe it. The number of cars on the scorer’s table kept shrinking and shrinking, until my car was sitting there with three other finalists. I don’t know how they do it these days, but back in the day Pack 355 gave trophies for the first three finishers, so anything other than a dead-last finish meant I was Taking Home Some Hardware.

I finished fourth.

Maybe it was because I didn’t expect to do so well, but I didn’t get too upset about missing my grab for the brass ring that night. I never caught lightning in a bottle like that again, but oh, that first time, baby…