https://wondercloud.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/mama-was-a-drag-strip-daddy-was-a-hot-rod/

“As a young child I was fascinated by cars, aircraft, and vehicles of almost every kind. In fact, I hoped one day to design them. For some reason motorcycles were not particularly interesting to me, but almost every other kind of vehicle could drive me into a frenzy of enthusiasm. I do not recall my first exposures, but like many male children, I played with cars, planes, military toys, and the much rarer and profoundly more valued vehicle: toys of spacecraft.

Born in the early 60’s, I was soon exposed to an epic struggle between two drag-racers: Don ‘The Snake’ Prudhomme (‘proud man’) and Tom ‘The Mongoose’ McEwen (‘son of youth, born of the yew tree, effectively ‘yew/you – th’). Don was nearly impossible to beat. Tom was one of the few who could manage it. Their battle became an Epic symbol of something far beyond mere racing: the struggle between the fast, hooded, blinding and poisonous power that proudly rules the Earth, and the youthful, humble, flexible power that is the champion of children, the favorite of mothers, and the rightful sovereign of the heavens.”