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The 1976 IHRA Funny Car season was pretty much a two-man
battle between Burgin and the 1975 NHRA Nationals winner Raymond
Beadle and "the Blue Max" Mustang II. Up to the
Indy race, Burgin was the IHRA's winningest driver, having
won three of the six national events; the Winter Classic,
the IHRA Summer and Springnationals. And as with Prudhomme,
he had put together an outstanding mid-summer match race win
streak, posting 27 individual wins in 28 heats between the
(what else?) NHRA Springnationals and the Aug.13-15 Popular
Hot Rodding Meet in Martin, Michigan. In betwixt those numbers
were three 6.11s in winning the Capitol Raceway "King
of Kings" Funny Car Invitational, and an association
best 6.14 while snagging the IHRA Springnationals at Bristol,
Tenn.
Interestingly enough, Burgin and Prudhomme had only met three
times prior to the U.S. Nationals with "the Snake"
prevailing 2-1. And every bit as interestingly enough, going
into the U.S. Nationals a Prudhomme-Burgin showdown was not
nearly as anticipated as was a rematch of the '75 Nationals
final where the up and coming Beadle nailed "the Snake"
in the final. Burgin had a slightly better win slate than
Beadle going into Labor Day weekend, but anyone who had been
around the sport knew that Beadle was just as sharp off the
field as on. He was quickly turning "the Blue Max"
name and logo into auto racing household words, what with
the flashy sportswear, the colorful crew, and a sledful of
racing hotties that motored down the tow road to the applause
of the fans.
The first few days of the 1976 Nationals seemed to reinforce
those feelings. Prudhomme ran just the sport's second five-second
Funny Car time, a 5.97/235.60, just two days after Beadle
ran the first non-Prudhomme 6.0-second run with a 6.07. Burgin
wasn't embarrassing himself, but his 6.14 looked to be at
least a tenth off the pace, what with the antics of the other
two.
Suffice to say that this trio made up 75 percent of the Indy
semi-finals. Prudhomme had run as low a 6.05, with Burgin
the next best at 6.12, and Beadle a tick or two behind. Burgin
drew Beadle for what realistically was a battle for the non-existent
"No. 2 Best Funny Car in the World," and in a mild
surprise, won a 6.21 verdict when Beadle's tires failed to
hold at the halfway point on the Indy surface. Prudhomme?
A 6.15 crusher landed on the jaw of Ron "Snag" O'Donnell
in the late Steve Ostrowsky's "Damn Yankee" Vega
out of South Chicago, setting up a final that, based on recent
experience, favored the defending World Champ. Prudhomme just
didn't lose final rounds where he had six hundredths on the
competition, especially a "competition" that had
only recently begun to win bigger races.
Indy had until just recently, a certain ambiance to it when
the finals rolled around. The usually hot Monday sun blazed
down on the track and made the second and third pro rounds
traction tricky, but usually backed off by the time of the
finals. It usually sunk behind the main Sportsman side bleachers,
shading almost half of the track and this obviously improved
the chances for better times than the earlier rounds.
It didn't turn out that way in 1976.
In a very brief aside, it's my opinion that an awful lot of
fans are fair weather friends and I don't mean that nastily.
When a racer rolls off as many wins as Prudhomme had in this
era, they go two ways. "The Snake" runs low ET in
the final and buries some poor schlub and the crowd goes nuts.
Wow, low ET, a new track record. Happy Days!! But by the same
token, if the "little guy" suddenly stands up and
takes the play to the champ and starts to get the upper hand,
they go even crazier and that's kinda what happened in the
Prudhomme-Burgin final. The two were close for roughly 100
feet, but the mighty Army Monza's tires started to haze a
tad, allowing Burgin to take the lead at the eighth mile.
At every rotation of the tire (or so it seemed), the crowd
noise built and built, culminating in one of the biggest roars
I've ever heard personally. Burgin had done the seeming impossible,
taking a 6.25/237.46 to 6.46/226.70 win and the crowd ate
it up.
History shows that the Indy loss was a momentary inconvenience
as Prudhomme won the remainder of the '76 NHRA events. In
Burgin's case, he kinda got screwed. He and Beadle continued
their battle for the IHRA Funny Car championship. On October
16-18 at the IHRA Southern Nationals at Darlington, South
Carolina, (I think) Burgin trailed Beadle by a round win.
Burgin qualified No. 1 with a 6.38 and the fields were set
for Sunday, which got washed out by a south Atlantic squall.
However, that squall became a political tsunami when IHRA
decided not to re-run the race. It rained on Monday, and this
caused then-president Larry Carrier to say "F*ck it"
and Beadle was the season champ. Burgin almost said the same
thing, maybe replacing the "it" with a "you."
But the die was cast, the season ended, and Burgin had to
settle for winning the best Funny Car race of the year.
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