The Blue Max name predates Beadle's involvement. Harry Schmidt ran the car in the early 1970s, and it was in Schmidt's car that Jake Johnson turned in a landmark 6.72-second run at 218 mph at Orange County International Raceway in November 1970. In 1975, Schmidt's team built a Ford Mustang II-bodied car to contest the NHRA season; Tony Casarez Race Cars constructed the chassis, and the combination proved immediately quick. Beadle joined the team, and by the end of his first season he had won the NHRA U.S. Nationals Funny Car class.
By 1976 the car was branded Beadle and Schmidt, and by 1977 Beadle had taken full ownership. He brought a businessman's instinct to match his driving talent — copyrighting the Blue Max name, securing sponsors such as English Leather and Napa Regal Ride, and demanding appearance fees four times what Schmidt had previously commanded. The 1977 entry, a second Ford Mustang II, ran under Beadle's banner alone. He reorganised the enterprise around himself, managing promotions, race scheduling, and marketing while competing at the front of the Funny Car field.
The Blue Max reached its peak between 1979 and 1981, producing three straight NHRA Funny Car World Championships — a feat matched by only a handful of teams in the class's history.
In 1979, Beadle won the title with two race wins across five final-round appearances, defeating rivals including Tom Hoover, Gary Burgin, Billy Meyer, a young John Force, and Jim Dunn. The 1980 campaign added wins at Columbus, Denver, and Seattle, with runner-up finishes at Gainesville and Ontario. His 1981 title came with the car rebodied as a Plymouth Horizon; it reached the final round four times and again claimed the U.S. Nationals, NHRA's most prestigious event. Beadle also added IHRA Funny Car championships in 1975–76 and 1981, establishing the Blue Max as a dominant force across both sanctioning bodies.
In 1982, driving a Ford EXP-bodied car, Beadle pursued a fourth consecutive NHRA title but finished fifth in the standings. He won the Springnationals in 1983 and scored back-to-back victories at Englishtown and Denver in 1984 with another Mustang. In 1985, Beadle placed veteran driver Lil' John Lombardo in the Schlitz-sponsored Blue Max — red, white, and blue in Schlitz livery — and Lombardo delivered a win at the U.S. Nationals, the last major victory for the Blue Max program. Beadle returned to the seat in 1987 and made two final-round appearances, while Richard Tharp — one of the original drivers under Schmidt's ownership — drove the car in 1988.
The Blue Max Funny Car established Raymond Beadle as a central figure in NHRA Funny Car history. His three consecutive NHRA titles from 1979 to 1981 placed him alongside the sport's greatest champions, and NHRA ranked him 20th on its list of the top 50 drivers from 1951 to 2000. The car also set a standard for Funny Car marketing: Beadle's copyrighting of the Blue Max name and his aggressive approach to fan apparel and appearance-fee negotiations influenced how teams packaged and sold themselves to sponsors and promoters. Beadle was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2014, the same year he died following cardiac surgery. The Blue Max name endures as a landmark in the history of nitro Funny Car racing.