In the Top Fuel final round during the 1970 Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals Don “The Snake” Prudhomme lined up against Jim “Superman” Nicoll for a much-anticipated battle in the world’s most prestigious drag race.
As the two slingshot dragsters powered down the racetrack and crossed the finish line at more than 225 mph, Nicoll’s machine suddenly suffered a clutch explosion and the parts failure broke his dragster into two pieces, scattering parts and debris into many different directions on the track.
In the Top Fuel final round during the 1970 Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals Don “The Snake” Prudhomme lined up against Jim “Superman” Nicoll for a much-anticipated battle in the world’s most prestigious drag race.
As the two slingshot dragsters powered down the racetrack and crossed the finish line at more than 225 mph, Nicoll’s machine suddenly suffered a clutch explosion and the parts failure broke his dragster into two pieces, scattering parts and debris into many different directions on the track.
Prudhomme won the race, however the celebration was short lived. Fearing the worst for Nicoll, Prudhomme was so shaken at the sight of the crash and resulting wreckage that he said he was through with the sport of drag racing.
“I think I’m quitting,” an emotional Prudhomme said in the shutdown area following the race. “Oh my God. I saw that car go by me and I couldn’t believe it. There was no back section on it or nothing. How bad is he?”
The Nicoll-Prudhomme 1970 Top Fuel final is one of the most memorable moments in the history of the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, and will resonate again this year as part of a series of special tributes that will highlight the 60th edition of the “Big Go,” Aug. 27-Sept. 1.
During the weeks leading up to the running of the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, NHRA is unveiling six of the most iconic moments in the history of the event that will remember the very heroes who made them. NHRA will conduct official presentations to honor each of the moments – including the 1970 Top Fuel final – in the Hot Rod Junction on Friday-Sunday of the Indy race weekend.
This is the third iconic moment that NHRA has announced it will celebrate during the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. Earlier NHRA announced that on Sunday of race weekend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits will reenact his famous beard shaving scene that followed his triumphant 1967 victory and on Saturday Kenny Bernstein will be honored for becoming the first double-up winner at Indy.
The Nicoll-Prudhomme presentation will take place on Friday of race weekend.
Despite the harrowing look of the crash, Nicoll received only minor injuries in the incident, thanks to the car’s blossoming parachute that lifted Nicoll and the cockpit over the guardwall and into the trackside grass.
“I remember everything but the actual crash,” Nicoll has said. “I remember doing the burnout, and it seemed like the clutch wasn’t acting right. When I left the starting line, everything was cool, and we were side by side, and about 1,000 foot, I felt the clutch start to slip. The last thing I remember was reaching over and putting my hand on the parachute handle just in case, but that probably saved my bacon.
“I remember waking up in the ambulance and then went out again and woke up in the hospital. I had a concussion, and my right foot was swelled up. I went to the hotel and then to the banquet that night. When I saw the footage, I was surprised how bad it had been; I had no clue.”
Nicoll was named drag racer of the year in 1970 by several of the sport’s top magazines and tabloids. He continued his career, racing a rear-engine Top Fuel dragster and then later moving on to the Funny Car category.
As for Prudhomme, once he realized Nicoll was OK, he also continued with his racing career, winning four NHRA Funny Car world championships and 49 national event victories as a driver and earned several more championship titles and race victories as a team owner.
“It probably looked scarier from where I was than it did for him,” Prudhomme has said about the incident. “I figured he was killed, so it shook me up pretty good. But Jim’s a rough and tough Texan guy. I wasn’t too surprised to find out he walked away from the crash.”
ENCORE FEATURE – JIM NICOLL, A MAN WHO RACED ON HIS TERMS
To most people, Jim Nicoll will always be the guy who survived perhaps the most famous accident in drag racing history, his over-the-guardrail tumble opposite Don Prudhomme in the final round of the 1970 NHRA Nationals.
But he’s also the guy Kenny Bernstein was having breakfast with when Bernstein got the call that son Brandon was born. He’s probably the only guy who’s ever driven a slingshot dragster, a rear-engined dragster, a Funny Car, and a motorcycle powered by a Chevy engine. (That one ended ingloriously when he plowed through an outhouse.)
And he’s got to be the only one who ever turned a fire hose on late NHRA founder Wally Parks while Parks was dining with corporate types at a hotel restaurant. (“I just aimed it at him,” Nicoll says. “How was I supposed to know [Ed] McCulloch was at the other end of the hose, turning it on?”)
