Thread: Sign of the Times ..........

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Somebody sent this to me a few years back, before the Nitro cars switched to 1,000 feet (R.I.P., Mr. Kalitta)....


One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 6 rows at the Daytona 500.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 gallon of nitromethane
per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 2
5% less energy being produced.

A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the
dragster supercharger.

With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive,
the fuel mixture is compressed into a near- solid form before ignition.
Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/ fuel mixture for nitromethane the flame
front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.

Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the
stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric wa
ter vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of
an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After _ way,
the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at
1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up
in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow
cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at
an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track,
the launch acceleration approaches 8Gs.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed
reading this sentence.

Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light!

Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under
load.

The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.

It takes 1500+hp just to turn a top fuel blower.

The pressure coming out of the headers can provide 1000lbs of downforce.
When a cylinder goes out, it can actually steer the car due to loss of
downforce on one side.

There is so much torsional twist in the crankshaft (up to 20 degrees at
the big end of the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from
front to rear to try and re-phase the valve timing closer to synchronization
with the pistons.

The car will be going over 60mph before the rear wheels cross the start
line, 300 inches.

The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked
for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated US
$1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record
is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The top
speed record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the
run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).

Putting all of this into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin-turbo" powered
Corvette Z06 (or blown Viper). Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel drags
ter is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass.
You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through
the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest
200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.
The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but
you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3
seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish
line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him.

Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph
and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed
you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.

now this is what i was trying to say a while back , i knew this was coming from talking with cruz and NHRA.

http://www.nhra.com/story/2009/11/4/...dregon-racing/

"The combination tested with Cruz Pedregon’s team included a single magneto, one less clutch disc, and a smaller fuel pump"

"NHRA will work with Cruz Pedregon Racing to schedule more testing during the off-season. In addition, NHRA will continue to work with Tim Wilkerson and his team on the combination tested earlier in the season, which included decreasing displacement, use of a smaller-capacity fuel pump, decrease in percentage overdrive in the blower, a change on the rear-end gear ratios, and the use of 90 percent nitromethane"

yuppers, but why the heck are they stuck on the 90% figure???? Maybe if you get some of the timing and supercharger pressure out of the engine the nitro isn't as letal with the parts???? Where the heck is Jerry to straighten me out on this anyway????? Hope he isn't AWOL or anything!!!!

Limiting teams and sponsors is going to do nothing to attract anyone to the Pro Classes.... until the amount of $$$$$ it takes to run a competitive car is reduced, better be happy having the multi car teams show up, not many others can afford to field a car...

Don Garlits knows nothing????? Hmmmmmm. Seems to have done fairly well as a racer......

Inside joke??? Just who the heck is it you raced with that would possibly lead to a statement saying things like that about Garlits???? His accomplishments and innovations are legendary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Inside joke??? Just who the heck is it you raced with that would possibly lead to a statement saying things like that about Garlits???? His accomplishments and innovations are legendary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Dave You said it better than I could.

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Inside joke??? Just who the heck is it you raced with that would possibly lead to a statement saying things like that about Garlits???? His accomplishments and innovations are legendary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok.

that's what I figured

Originally Posted by dave severson

that's what i figured

ok

the nick name don garbage goes back along ways thats all i know. but i have this reasoning about me,

unless someone has ripped me off or pissed me off, what the hell do i care what he does!?

Cutting the sponsor's would be very counterproductive!!!!! Got to have sponsors to make a racing program even possible!!! I'm really anxious to hear the results of the tests they did with the small blowers, single mags, and the other things to lower the power... If you lower the power you lessen the parts breakage...If you lessen the parts breakage then racing becomes more affordable.... Then how many cars a team has could concievably become secondary to the main issue of making the best 3 or 4 qualifying passes you can put together to even make the field!!!! And, like Jerry said in a previous post---go back to a 32 car field!!!! Just say for instance that through whatever means they cut the horsepower of a top fuel car in half!!!! They'd still be in the 4's, and think how much more affordable a 4 second car is vs. a 3 second car!!!!! When's the last time some no name local type team snuck into a Pro Class on their home track and actually went a couple rounds?????

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Cutting the sponsor's would be very counterproductive!!!!! Got to have sponsors to make a racing program even possible!!! I'm really anxious to hear the results of the tests they did with the small blowers, single mags, and the other things to lower the power... If you lower the power you lessen the parts breakage...If you lessen the parts breakage then racing becomes more affordable.... Then how many cars a team has could concievably become secondary to the main issue of making the best 3 or 4 qualifying passes you can put together to even make the field!!!! And, like Jerry said in a previous post---go back to a 32 car field!!!! Just say for instance that through whatever means they cut the horsepower of a top fuel car in half!!!! They'd still be in the 4's, and think how much more affordable a 4 second car is vs. a 3 second car!!!!! When's the last time some no name local type team snuck into a Pro Class on their home track and actually went a couple rounds?????

Hey, that sounds good.

how can NHRA hope to attract sponsership when a supposed professional raceing searies gets bumped on tv by a bunch of discusting children playing a one ball sport whos bigest attraction is catching them spitting on the ground
I no longer even try to watch NHRA

I find this thread really interesting, guys. Are we just missing the good old days? I'll go out on a limb here, but it would be safe to say that "American Graffiti" has got to be in the top 5 movie list of most if not #1 favorite here. And most of us are living the "life" in some way, still.
As for pro racing... never gave it a thought. Like when I learned to ski after age 50... never gave the Olympics a thought. And an afternoon of softball never got me thinking about being in the big October Show.
Drag racing has been the one thing still available to the ordinary guy. We watch "All Out", right? Not seeing big bucks there. I've been participating in ANRA events here in SoCal. Nostalgia racing... brackets, gas classes, open wheel and eliminator classes 1,2,and 3. Lots of fun, and still affordable. Expensive yes, but still within reach. It seems to me that the thrill is still there and any of us can jump in. Who cares what those pro guys are doing on TV anyway?

Well, I for one do care what happens in the Pro Classes!!!! They're the best of the best and have brought about many innovations that trickle down to us class and bracket racers!!!!

My point is that the price is killing the size of the field, and IMO what's bad for a National Event is eventually going to be bad at our local tracks!!!! I'd like to see a few more butts in the seats at our local track so maybe we can be racing for more then what us racers put in the pot at the back gate!!!!

Better racing and larger fields in the Pro ranks is going to make for better TV, and better TV is going to get more people interested in drag racing and maybe, just maybe they might choose to get involved locally as a racer, crewman, or weekly spectator!!!!

I would also venture to say that there is any number of folks on here besides just me who would love to take a shot at a Pro Class---and making it more affordable makes it a bit more possible....

Another consideration--and for me some first hand experience--when an oil company (or whatever) puts their name on a Pro car, in some instance their local distributors are encouraged to put their distributorship name on a local drag car....and a bit of that sponsorship $$$$$ comes down our way!!!!!