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A few weeks ago in this space, I mused about which four racers would occupy the places of honor on a Top Fuel Mount Rushmore monument. I asked for and received input from the Insider Nation, and there was a general consensus that it include Don Garlits, Shirley Muldowney, and Tony Schumacher, with the votes for the fourth and final spot split among numerous racers, including Kenny Bernstein and Eddie Hill, but there was no clear-cut “winner.”

So, naturally, being a glutton for punishment, and at the suggestion of a handful of my readers, I thought we should try to hack my way through the fiberglass forest of suggestions for a Funny Car Mount Rushmore.

My first thought was, “This will be easier than Top Fuel,” but like a poorly tuned nitro Hemi, that thought blew up in my face at halftrack. I have the scars to prove it.

Naturally, as it was with Garlits in Top Fuel, we can already start chiseling John Force’s mug on the mountain. With 16 championships and 157 wins, no one in any class is likely to ever top those numbers. Although 25 years ago Garlits was voted the top racer of NHRA’s first 50 years, I could make a strong argument that Force might now hold that mantle.

After that, it gets a little tougher, especially if you’re trying to quantify this on numbers alone.

After Force, there are three drivers — Don Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, and Matt Hagan — who have won four world championships and three more — Raymond Beadle, Robert Hight, and Ron Capps — who have won three.

Of those six, Capps has the most Funny Car wins with 75, followed by Hight (65) and Hagan (52). Prudhomme won 35, Bernstein 30, and Beadle just 13. So, two of your three-time champions (Capps and Hight) not only have more wins than all three of the four-time champs, but Capps has more than Prudhomme and Bernstein’s totals combined, while Hight’s numbers exactly match that dynamic duo. (Of course, most of Prudhomme’s wins and some of Bernstein’s came in eras where the national event schedule was not as large as it has been the last two decades.)

But, in much the same way that Muldowney was an almost certain lock on the Top Fuel monument despite her 18 career NHRA national event wins ranking just 12th on the category’s all-time wins list, it was the intangibles that put her there, most notably her groundbreaking career as a female champion and her epic duels with Garlits that made them the face of Top Fuel for two decades.

So, with that in mind, I think that Prudhomme belongs on our Funny Car Mount Rushmore. His four straight championships (1975-78) were among the most dominant campaigns of the class’ first 20 years, and the Hot Wheels sponsorship and unforgettable partnership rivalry with Tom McEwen cement him as a true icon of the class. It’s safe to say that until John Force, Prudhomme was the face of Funny Car racing.

So, as mentioned previously, here I am at halftrack, where it’s all gonna blow up in my face. I should lift and dump the laundry, but what fun is that?

OK, two spots left, with Hagan, Hight, Capps, Bernstein, and Beadle on the list of three-plus-time champs, and I’d be remiss if I also didn’t throw the Pedregon brothers — Tony and Cruz — into the conversations. Both are two-time world champs, and Tony’s total of 42 wins and Cruz’s collection of 39 Wallys rank them fifth and sixth in class history, both with more wins than Prudhomme and Beadle. And, because he’s as hardcore associated with Funny Car as Prudhomme, let’s toss in “the Ace,” Ed McCulloch, to further shuffle the deck.

And, just as I added Connie Kalitta to the Top Fuel conversation, not so much for his time behind the wheel but for his decades of ownership and dedication to the class’ future, where does Don Schumacher fit in the Funny Car equation? His fleet of Funny Cars in the 1970s and for the last two decades brought health and new stars to the class. Or Jim Dunn, whose longevity in the class is as long? Or Roland Leong, probably the best-known Funny Car owner of the 1960s-90s? And even though we're not doing crew chiefs, what about Austin Coil, architect of, what, 17 Funny Car championships?

Now, if this were two Funny Car Mount Rushmores — early and late — it would be easier for me: probably “Snake,” Beadle, “Ace,” and Bernstein on the former, and Force, Capps, Hagan, and Hight on the latter. But, unfortunately, we only have this one chisel of a column.

So, let’s start chiseling away at the field.

As big of a 1970s Funny Car fan as I still am, and as much as I loved the “Max” for duels for late-1970s class supremacy with Prudhomme and the Blue Max halter tops, I don’t think that Beadle makes it. Don't hate me, Fred Miller. McCulloch remains one of the great personalities in Funny Car history but, outside of an amazing five Indy Funny Car wins, the overall numbers (starting with no championships) just aren’t there, and I know there is gonna be someone out there that nominates Jim Liberman, and as vital a part as “Jungle” was of the match-race scene and as highly revered as he remains to this day, I just can’t swing on the vine far enough to get him there.

And although I strongly believe that what Bernstein and crew chief Dale Armstrong did to revolutionize the Funny Car class in the 1980s – including big sponsorships, wind-tunneled bodies, and lockup clutches – and his four championships, because I assume Bernstein makes it onto the Top Fuel Mount Rushmore, I’ll take him off the Funny Car list. 

OK, so it’s Capps, Hight, and Hagan for the two remaining spots? I’m not touching this one with a 10-foot body pole.

Then it hit me. First, I couldn’t possibly select two of the three and leave the other outside. Sure, Capps has the most wins and Hagan the most championships of the three, but Hight has been the face of Funny Car high performance the last decade. They’re all equals in my book.

Then I went back and looked at the real Mount Rushmore. The monument’s construction began in 1927 and reflects the four presidents who most greatly affected the country up to that point in time: George Washington, the nation's first president and the leader of the American Revolutionary War, symbolizing the birth of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, who represents the ideals of liberty and democracy and oversaw the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the U.S. Teddy Roosevelt, who stood for progress and development and efforts to regulate corporate power; and Abraham Lincoln, who led the nation through one of its most divisive times.

That tribute is literally carved in stone at a place and time that locked those achievements as immortal, and there’s no room or maybe even desire to add a newer president whose contributions also have shaped the modern face of our country.

Should our Mount Rushmore of Funny Car consider this and focus on those who built the class?

Does it become “Snake” and “Mongoose” and “Jungle” and “Ace”? How can we think about leaving Force out? Force, Prudhomme, Leong, and Schumacher? 

Oh my gosh, what have I done? What unholy can of worms did I open here?

Dear readers, help?

Phil Burgess can be reached at pburgess@nhra.com

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