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.