Tom Mcewen driver of the funny car Mongoose passed away at age 81. He raced the hot wheels backed funny car against the snake Don Prudomme. He did a lot to promote racing.
Posts: 1227 | Location: Pa | Registered: December 16, 2006
Saw that yesterday, so sad. Truly a great guy he will be missed by many. I remember buying and building the Mongoose Funny car model when I was a kid. Like many kids back than also had the Snake/Mongoose hot wheels cars. In august 1975 my dad took us to 64 Funny cars at seattle international raceway. It was a late afternoon into the night type race. I had on a Jungle Jim funny car t shirt going through the pits with my dad. We stopped by Tom Mongoose Mcewen car when they were working on it. He went to the trailer and came back with a Tom Mongoose Mcewen T shirt handed it to me a told me to try that on. I put it on over my Jungle Jim funny car t shirt. Than he ask if I wanted to sit in his funny car. So I got to sit in Tom Mongoose Mcewen funny car that day. What a cool guy. I'm sure I was grinning from ear to ear. Well the races lasted till just before 11:00 PM. By the time we got out of the parking lot at SIR it was after midnight. Just down the road was a 24 hour truck stop place to eat. When we pulled in most of the funny car racers were in there. It was like a who's who of the funny car stars of the mid 1970s. When were eating none other than Tom Mongoose Mcewen stop by on the way out. Ask if we enjoyed the races stuff like that. I will never forget that night.
Mongoose vs. Snake races are what hooked me on drag racing as a kid. I had both cars, but no idea where they went. At one point I had built a model of one of the late funny cars of the Mongoose.
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Posts: 38706 | Location: Above the snow line in Michigan | Registered: May 21, 2004