NHRA and Drag Racing 2012

Gotta speak up for the F-1 of Drag Racing.
Hey, I'm a SoCal. It started here.
My bros buds kicked off their season here today and did great. Swept the alcohol ranks.
Here's a good one.
John Forces's daughter, Courtney smoked a 300+ mph pass.
First time out.
Watch out Danica...

'Courtney Force made her first run under NHRA Funny Car competition in her Traxxas Ford Mustang with a 4.210 second pass at 303.16 mph, which was good enough for the provisional sixth spot. Courtney will line up next to her father and Funny Car legend 15-time world champ, John Force, for the second round of qualifying of the NHRA season opener.'

The Winternationals

Edited by D.M.N., 27 April 2012 - 09:47.
change title per PM request by 'Red17'

Nice to see John Force has still got it with his win in the Funny Car final, especially after a very difficult 2011 Funny Car season.

Ok... so I guess that's 3 people who follow up NHRA on this board. But I was under the impression that the Formula 1 of dragsters was the Top Fuelers since Garlitts and Co...

Gator's is this weekend. 3rd race for the car classes but 1st race of the season for the motorcycles (NHRA IMO is loosing big time for not putting the top fuel bikes as regulars).
Shedule (local time)
Entry Lists

Dunno why I didn't see this thread earlier - now there's 4 of us

Interested to see how Cory Mac goes driving the Australian-owned entry - love for them to go a few rounds.

the top fuelers are more like f1 cars, in looks and speed (being a smidge quicker)

but the funny cars are more like nascars, being more difficult to handle.

Updating this thread for my other 3 fellow nitro heads. As a side info, Lex Joon a former Top Fuel European Champion (a tittle that is handed by the FIA at the Champions Gala) is trying to setup a full time programm for 2013.
And for those who say only Formula 1 is filled with politics there was a bit of political gaming in the bike class (which was actually a follow up to another similar episode). This doesnt happen that often now but I remember a driver or two who would deliberately get late to the three.
(btw, the red one lost on the rematch)

Anyway, this weekend NHRA goes to Vegas:
13th Annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals March 30-April 1
Entry List (only car classes this weekend)
Run Shedules

Off Topic:Can anyone from the US explain the whole ESPN3/ESPN Player thing? It seems to me that it's very specific to country/region and only shows the contents that ESPN America shows in the user's country. It's a really a shame they greyed out coverage even for places where NHRA is not covered by anyone. Last race they seemed to have aired most of the race and qualifying.

Edited by Red17, 28 March 2012 - 09:59.

NHRA is always entertaining.

But if you want to get some eyes on this thread you need to put the name Hamilton or Ferrari in the title. People are starving for threads about those two topics.

NHRA is always entertaining.

But if you want to get some eyes on this thread you need to put the name Hamilton or Ferrari in the title. People are starving for threads about those two topics.

Oh well, I know it's a lost battle. But at least there is thread this year
Im actually considering asking the mods to expand this for the european scene that is about to start. Teams in europe deserve all the recognition for still running despite all the shortage of money and tracks.
Funny you mention eyes on the thread. Back at Gators the NHRA shot an add with no less than 7 women racers (and there were more that weekend). Sure Stoffer and Will are good enough to be there, but Hansen failed to qualify and Leduc is racing in class that is not sure to continue.

Edited by Red17, 29 March 2012 - 08:06.

Nitro rules!

This post could belong the most weird/odd things that have happened in motorsport thread.
Next weekend (starting friday for Q1) begins the 3rd running of a race that has 4 cars instead of 2 going head to head.
Zmax so I have read, seems to have been built to run in this configuration but the NHRA shot the idea of more 4 wide events elsewhere. Anyway, this one remains.

4 Wide Nationals at Zmax (Charlotte)
Entry Lists
Event Shedule Flyer (will post class run shedule if it goes online)

Prostock Bikes are back this weekend for the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals.
Qualifying starts on Friday with Eliminations on Sunday. Sportsman as usual get their race done on Saturday.
Shedule
Entries.

Race will be aired on Espn 2 in the US. ESPN also carries delayed coverage to other countries such as the UK but it depends a lot on your location.

NHRA also carries a living timming on their own site pending registration for Friday and Saturday (Eliminations day is usually free) http://www.nhra.com/...livetiming.aspx

In other «sanctions» (as the people in america like to put it) Santa Pod is hosting the Big Bang also this weekend.
This event is dedicated to VW in general but lots of other marquees in 4 and 2 wheels will be racing as well

Excellent fan site Eurodragster will have their people reporting from the Pod with the always present webcam as well as live audio. Photos and other tidbits can be found here

The online timming site 1320go will also be following the Big Bang event at http://www.1320go.com/santapod/. This is a very interesting site as it archives previous races and covers many tracks. Racer information is not always complete but they get all the run numbers.

In other news, ADRL rookie Lizzy Musi wrote another episode of «Women spreading havoc behind a wheel» as she collected a camera last week in spectacular fashion. The accident video went viral on Youtube and earned Musi a news guest appearance. I should add that this is the 2nd incident Lizzy Musi has experienced in 2 races. On the previous event she somehow managed to spin the car during the burnout but blamed it on a component.

Edit: Thanks mods for expanding thread tittle.

Edited by Red17, 27 April 2012 - 10:04.

In other news, ADRL rookie Lizzy Musi wrote another episode of «Women spreading havoc behind a wheel» as she collected a camera last week in spectacular fashion.

How did she manage that? The car seemed to launch OK (ie, straight), then at about 1/4 track has done a hard left into the concrete barrier! Did she lose traction?

There's no more spectacular a sight than a pair of fuellers running side by side 4 second passes. Period.

How did she manage that? The car seemed to launch OK (ie, straight), then at about 1/4 track has done a hard left into the concrete barrier! Did she lose traction?

Looks like the car made a move to the right and got out of the groove a bit. She tried to correct it, but these cars don't have a lot of downforce on the rear (despite the reasonable looking wing on the back) and it came round on her...

Looks like the car made a move to the right and got out of the groove a bit. She tried to correct it, but these cars don't have a lot of downforce on the rear (despite the reasonable looking wing on the back) and it came round on her...

From the driver's perspective:

From day one we been trying to work with this car to keep it away from the right, that run we gave it a little more to keep me away from the bump spot, car kept on drifting and as soon as I decided to lift it was too late..

It was a full weekend of crash news. Matt Hagan's even made it to the AS video page.

is there a category called funny car ?

is there a category called funny car ?

Yep and it's one of the 2 most popular classes. You also have other interesting class names such as Top Alcohol and Competition Eliminator.
And the much coveted trophy is a Wally.

Just in case you all didn't know www.eurodragster.com is the best place to find out whats happening here in the UK and the rest of Europe.

FIA Championship starts in a little over a month at Santa Pod, England.
I think its going to be another big year for pro mod, we got down in to the 5.90s last year.

Fuel Funny car died here a couple of years ago, shame because they were always good to watch. There is still a methanol FC class though.

i was into drag racing a bit about 10 to 15 years ago but was turned off by the crap shoot of watching live where a car would drop it's guts and it'd take an hour to clean up the oil or what not. Way too long between runs, so i gave up on it.

Ain't heard NOTHING like a top fuel dragster though, jesus effing christ.

Just in case you all didn't know www.eurodragster.com is the best only place to find out whats happening here in the UK and the rest of Europe.

Corrected for you.

Yep and it's one of the 2 most popular classes. You also have other interesting class names such as Top Alcohol and Competition Eliminator.
And the much coveted trophy is a Wally.

2 of my favorite classes. TA usually full of high revving launches and close races - here in Australia we run all the dragsters, funny cars and altereds together (like the old Pro Comp class in the NHRA). Comp is great for the sheer variety of classes and cars/engine combos - a real breeding ground for innovation.

I also love Pro Modified - supercharged cars vs nitrous vs turbos and usually variety of body styles, can be real handful's too. We don't have Pro Mod as such here in Australia, but something similar called Top Doorslammer which is limited to supercharged engines but run 5.70's at over 250mph, again thoug with a real variety of (often older) body styles.

Just in case you all didn't know www.eurodragster.com is the best place to find out whats happening here in the UK and the rest of Europe.

FIA Championship starts in a little over a month at Santa Pod, England.
I think its going to be another big year for pro mod, we got down in to the 5.90s last year.

Fuel Funny car died here a couple of years ago, shame because they were always good to watch. There is still a methanol FC class though.

FC's died off here for a few years but recently had a bit of a revival - nostalgia FC's seem to becoming very popular too...

i was into drag racing a bit about 10 to 15 years ago but was turned off by the crap shoot of watching live where a car would drop it's guts and it'd take an hour to clean up the oil or what not. Way too long between runs, so i gave up on it.

Ain't heard NOTHING like a top fuel dragster though, jesus effing christ.

I assume that was back in Australia Alfisti? Agree that is the biggest single turnoff for fans wrt drag racing. FWIW the racers and tracks here these days are better IMO in reducing the amount of oil downs and cleanup times. The NHRA have a target time I believe of 15mins for the cleanup of oildowns, not sure if they meet it all the time but afaik they are pretty good at it...

Nostalgia stuff is quite popular here too,

NFAA - Fuel Altereds http://www.nfaa.co.uk/ Kinda like the Outlaw Altereds in the US.

Wild Bunch - http://www.the-wild-...uk/default.aspx - slignshots/FEDs/Altereds

There is a show called Dragstalgia, I went to the first one in (I think) 2010), lots of stuff running on methanol. It was at the Haynes museum in Dorset (now at Santa Pod). We stood on a bank above the cars as they did a cacklefest at dusk, probably 8-10 cars.. I swear I could still smell the methanol for the next week
Show is now at Santa Pod, don't know if its still any good, looks like they've broadened the scope a bit.

Not a nostalgia series but there is also Street Eliminator - http://www.streeteli....com/index.html This was really popular a few years ago, still going ok. Its almost like a mini pro mod. Cars are road legal (treaded tyres, pump gas). Competitors must complete a 30 mile cruise during a race meeting - if they fail to return under their own power they are excluded from the round.

Agree that is the biggest single turnoff for fans wrt drag racing.

That and the always unwelcome guest.

Eurodragster:
As with yesterday it would be more accurate to say "What would have been our coverage" as the event has already been called off. The weather here at Santa Pod is very hairy and the organisers are clearing the facility as soon as they can.

Hoping the weather is better next weekend and I'll be down at the York Raceway. Not been down to that track before but looks like a good selection of runs on the Bank Holiday Monday.

The clean-up times must be annoying on TV, but when you are there it makes a good chance to get some food as usually they are running non-stop for the entire day.

10+ years ago, a friend of mine who is pals with Max Papis brought him out to Pomona for the Winternationals. We were walking around the pits area (very fan friendly NHRA is) and they fired up one of the Funny Cars. We were standing there holding our ears and getting nitro'd out - Max yelled, "Ju know, I've driven quite a few tings so far and I love dem all, but no fooking way vud I get in one of deez!! Itz too crazy man!!"

Standing next to 8,000 hp will do that...

I love being stood on the bank and the pod whilst fuel cars are being fired up, you know the blip is coming, just not when.. then when it does you see about 50 people all jump simultaneously

I love all the people who think it looks uncool to wear ear defenders, then spend half of the day with their hands clamped to their ears.

10+ years ago, a friend of mine who is pals with Max Papis brought him out to Pomona for the Winternationals.

I love taking people to the drags that have other race experiences for the first time, the wide eyed, deer in the headlights look on their faces when they get a dose of drag engines in action is priceless.
I flipped the process though once and it was equally entertaining. I took one of the biggest forces in the NHRA, Brad Andersen probably the best Blown Alcohol engine builder on the planet, to the Long Beach Grand Prix one year. He ended up in the pits for the whole day and saw the cars on the track for about a half an hour. By the end of the weekend he was best buds and in the haulers of all the majors crunching data right alongside the Cosworth engineers. To me it sounded they were all speaking Greek, but for some reason or another
whether it was running 500 cubic inch blown monsters or 2.65 turbos, these engine geeks were on the same page almost immediately.

i was into drag racing a bit about 10 to 15 years ago but was turned off by the crap shoot of watching live where a car would drop it's guts and it'd take an hour to clean up the oil or what not. Way too long between runs, so i gave up on it.

They have since instituted a 'diaper' for the bottom end that has significantly reduced interminable oil downs.
It's a kevlar jacket that is also stuffed with absorbent blankets so that when a block gets a whole punched in it from an errant rod or crank, pretty much the whole mess stays contained. It's helped a bunch, and TBH was mostly driven by the TV people having the same complaint as you have.

Since NHRA coverage is non existant down here im stuck at following it via audiocast and live timming but I wished the people on the audiocast would avoid saying things like «watch the replay». But it's a good warmup for the Indy 500 practice that I usually follow via audiocast.
Anyway, doesn't seem the extra weight on the Harleys has leveled the field as the non Harleys wished. Only 2 Force cars in the semis.

SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT NHRA SOUTHERN NATIONALS
nhra.com quick preview
Entries
Event Shedule
Team Reports

As reported earlier by a fellow forum user Shakey will be hosting the Springspeed Nationals this weekend that will stretch out to Monday. Hopefully british weather will cut some slack.
You can follow the race via Eurodragsters coverage here

A bit late, but still enough time for final qualifying (with Sportsman Eliminations Today)
24th annual Dollar General NHRA Summernationals
Entries
Run Shedules
NHRA.com Recap of Friday
Team Reports

Eurodragster reports that interested people can follow the Cramo Nationals in Sweden this weekend at a webcam at http://www.smarttv.se/live/
Further info in swedish can be found at http://www.srif.se/

Edited by Red17, 19 May 2012 - 18:20.

Again 2 main events running in the US and europe this weekend, ADRL is also running in St. Louis.
43rd annual Toyota NHRA SuperNationals
NHRA.COM Preview
Entry Lists
Run Shedule
Team Reports
Coverage on ESPN 2 and ESPN 3 for those lucky enough to acess it. ESPN America will also air this race, but you need to check your local listings.

As mentioned, ADRL is running in St. Louis. The site seems to be inspired by Indycar.com, but using a shovel I was able to discover an event page:
http://www.adrl.us/a...teway-drags-iv/
This year ADRL setup a webcam with comentary at the starting area. You can follow the live action for free here: http://www.livestream.com/adrllive
Saddly they don't archive previous events, so it's strickly live only.

FIA Main Event at Santa Pod
You can follow the event at the Pod by going there yourself (duh) or following Eurodragster's online coverage:
http://www.eurodrags...12fiamainevent/
This year Santa Pod is also offering a pay per view online coverage here:
http://www.santapod.co.uk/webtv.php
This means the free Eurodragster webcam will run only until Saturday, the rest will be handled by Santa Pod's web coverage.

Edited by Red17, 03 June 2012 - 11:39.

Quick update: NHRA coverage just poped up on my ESPN America shedule (with qualifying as well,THANK YOU!!!!). My listing shows both air times for Monday (Qualifying) and Tuesday (race), but I hear ESPN America is very localized. So interested parties should check their local listings.
This is the first time in decades I can follow both the us and european season on TV. No more complaining about having no acess to ESPN Player's live coverage.

Edited by Red17, 03 June 2012 - 11:36.

Some quick passes at E-Town here

At Santa Pod for the weekend - unfortunately it was a week too late for the British summer and is being badly hit by the weather - racing did not start until late on Saturday (although did manage to get two full Pro sessions in before 9pm curfew). No racing at all today (Sunday) but weather looks to be more promising for Monday.

At Santa Pod for the weekend - unfortunately it was a week too late for the British summer and is being badly hit by the weather - racing did not start until late on Saturday (although did manage to get two full Pro sessions in before 9pm curfew). No racing at all today (Sunday) but weather looks to be more promising for Monday.

Sucks, hope you have better luck on Monday.
Lewis should stop making british weather miserable. Then again, being a Caterham fan I could say it's Boulier's rain dance coming to effect.

Monday seemed to be cursed. After the morning spent drying the track (the warm weather was drawing up water from the high water table through the track), there were then two showers, two oil slicks and three crashes (a biker coming off at the top end, an alcohol funny car going into the field at the very top after its chute failed and a nasty looking impact with the wall in one of the Nationals races past the quarter mile) that meant very little racing actually got done, despite their best efforts. As it was they managed to race through the pro categories but there were almost no national class races and the brisk turnarounds in the Pros meant that most of the final races were just solo runs as other teams were unable to fix their cars in time and I was disappointed that they didn't get the head-to-head top fuel Funny Car final run. Still in all but one of the solo runs the drivers really went for it and did not just idle or green-light shut-down as they could have done and the races we did see were very impressive affairs.

Some new records set (from eurodragster.com) :

FIA Pro Stock speed: 207.95 mph, Thomas Lindström
UEM Super Street Bike Cup ET: 7.261 seconds, Graham Balchin
UEM Super Street Bike Cup speed: 201.50 mph, Dave Holland

Plus what was probably the first side-by-side 200mph+ pass in Super Street Bike. I will put up some photos when I get them sorted (several hundred to get through, keep an eye on my sig. below).

Edited by TimRTC, 05 June 2012 - 15:39.

We will be waiting for those pictures Tim. Weather really can be a pest sometimes. I wonder if this is a sign of a wet British GP.

Schumacher fans should switch to NHRA because the Don had a very sucessfull weekend with his team.

Also read on competition plus that an australian champion will be retiring because of financial issues, you can tell how tough it is even for those who are winning.

For our thread contributor Krameister:
2012 FUCHS Winternationals (Why yes! It IS winter down under)
Event Information on Willowbank webpage
Event Information at ANDRA webpage

For our thread contributor Krameister:
2012 FUCHS Winternationals (Why yes! It IS winter down under)
Event Information on Willowbank webpage
Event Information at ANDRA webpage

Ha! You have drilled me on the tree there Red17 - I was going to post about this tonight

Anyways, the DragNews team will be there provide some live coverage - see here - however don't think there will be any live trackcam action as the internet facilities are pretty limited at the track.

For those who don't know, the Winternationals is the biggest and longest running drag racing event outside of the States and has a long tradition of being an event where records times are set and barriers broken - a combination of great track prep and cool winter air. Expectations are that Top Doorslammer (Australia's version of Pro Mod) will see the bump spot for the field well into the 5's and after the 6 sec barrier being officially broken recently in Pro Stock (only 400ci motors in Australia) we will see more racers in the 6's and a record bump. Interest is also high in Top Bike for Chris Matheson (on Kerry Hogan's old bike) to finally run a 5 sec pass to be the first in Australia to do so. Should be a great event, well over 500 racers again this year.

i was into drag racing a bit about 10 to 15 years ago but was turned off by the crap shoot of watching live where a car would drop it's guts and it'd take an hour to clean up the oil or what not. Way too long between runs, so i gave up on it.

Ain't heard NOTHING like a top fuel dragster though, jesus effing christ.

I gave up on Drag Racing for that reason 30 years ago. I have been once since, a Wild Bunch show that was actually quite good and not many major oildowns.
Still prefer to watch it on TV however. As roadracer it really is not me but mechanically it can be interesting. Though some things make no sense the way they do it.

Could not update the thread last weekend, but you can read a quick recap on the NHRA event here.
There is now a 2 week gap till the next event on July 5th. But that does not mean lack of action.

Still in the US, ADRL will be running their usual Friday-Saturday shedule this week:
U.S. Drags V at Virginia Motorsports Park in Richmond, Va
You can find some information at the ADRL Webpage http://www.adrl.us/adrl-u-s-drags-v/
The live webcam will be broadcasting all racing action at http://www.livestream.com/adrllive

Now for the european scene...

The SPRC Summernationals are on this weekend.
Eurodragster.com will be on the scene covering the 2 days of action (bar any tricks from the english weather):
http://www.eurodrags...als/default.asp
The Santa Pod website also has detailed information on ticket prices, entry lists and run shedules
http://www.santapod...._summer_nat.php

The Drachten Nationals are on despite the low number of entries.
You can find further info the dutch website http://www.explosiondragracing.com
Eurodragster reports that the Drachten event will have a webcam available at http://www.doyousee.me/explosion/

www.speedgroup.eu a site dedicated to the european championships has posted the TV show for Round 1, you can check it at: http://www.speedgrou...shows_2012.html
Additionally www.speedgroup.eu also carries information on previous years events including web-show archives. Worth to check as well.

Down Under. (once again stepping into Krapmeister's territory)

The Fuchs Winternationals have been completed despite Mother Nature's atempts at disrupting the race.
You can find a quick recap of the final day at http://dragnews.com....o...sn&Itemid=9
dragnews.com.au also has many more articles related to the event that would take all day to link here.

That is all for today, have a good weekend of racing.

Okay, very overdue, but some photos from this years rain besotted Santa Pod FIA Main Event in June:

See the full sets for Friday, Saturday and Monday (no racing on Sunday at all)


Terry Robins racing a Chevvy S10 pick-up in Pro ET by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


The Pink Lady and Canon Reloaded scorch down the Pod by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Laugher's Arrow slews across the track at Santa Pod by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Danny Bellio's Funny Car body waiting for the rain to pass by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Jari Halinen and Anita Mäkelä blast off the line in FIA Top Fu by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Jason Phelps in the Fuel Funny Car qualifying by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Side-by-side qualifying in Super Comp by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Michael Callin makes a dramatic burnout by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Thomas Lindström takes the Pro Stock victory by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Bruno Bader races through to the Pro Mod final by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


Pure Nitro Action by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr


FIA Top Fuel Dragster champion Risto Poutiainen by Tim R-T-C, on Flickr