Thread: Effect of weight on 1/4 mile times

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The B/Modified roadster that my partners, John and Shirley Ryan, and I raced in the late fifties and early sixties was heavy for its class.

You can tell that by lookin'.

The frame was water pipe (heavy) and the engine a 354" Chrysler (read that heavy, too).

That (along with a degree of driver ineptitude) didn't exactly give us an advantage over our competition, most of which consisted of light tube chassis running 265 and 283 Chevys.

We all had the same cubic inches to weight ratio but when the flag dropped, we had a lot more inertia to overcome than they did. By the time the Chrysler figured out what it was there for, it was usually too late.

We had some very good top speed numbers. That's okay, but the object is to win the race.

We just had more to get moving.

Say you got two cars on the line, identical in every way, and both set up and tuned by the same person. One has a driver that weighs three hundred pounds and the other has a driver that weighs one hundred pounds. I'll put my money on the skinny guy.

Anything wrong with that thinking?

Jim