26 replies to this topic

[Red17]

With the NHRA finally kick starting tomorrow it's time for another edition of the forum's most single user bumped thread!

Well, Full Throttle is no more! Fear not, The Coca Cola Company is still on-board. They have now gone back to a more familiar name in racing (at least for those who have seen Nascar or a similar movie starring Tom Cruise). The 2013 NHRA Mellow Yellow Drag Racing Series will start as usually with the Winternationals:

Hold on! That ain't Pomona! That's the Pod!
Ah well, at least it's officially Winter, who cares about snow anyway!
Event Info
Event Shedule
Entry List
ESPN Coverage Shedule
Yes, there are two women trying their luck in Top Fuel this year, not really a surprise if you sort of followed the sport. I am curious to see how the Force team will handle themselves outside Funny Car.
On the TV front Paul Page will move to other pastures.

It's tree cuutting time again!

Note, this is NOT a photoshop

Edited by Red17, 13 February 2013 - 21:23.

[Andrew Hope]

But wait! I thought drag racing was just a bunch of fat old men who don't care about anything that doesn't need a burnout before you can use it? Well, that's mostly true.













Not pictured: Alexis Dejoria. Sorry Alexis..

[Andrew Hope]

But wait, I thought drag racing was boring?

It can be, sometimes. It's sort of like everything else in life.

Bet they don't go faster than Lewis Hamilton! NOTHING GOES FASTER THAN LEWIS

336.15mph is faster than Lewis, and your Honda.

Well fine, but how much horsepower do they have?

Well, just 1 of the 8 cylinders in a Top Fuel engine produces more horsepower than an F1 car. Two cars driving down the track side-by-side are producing roughly 15,000 horsepower. In other words, if you started at the start/finish line at Monaco and put one horse in front of another in front of another, you would do 14 laps of the circuit before running out of horses. YES I ACTUALLY DID THE MATH.

What else is fun about drag racing?

Well, there is a lot of **** you get with other racing that you don't have to deal with in drag racing.

• No 90-year old midgets wandering around the paddock
• No fuel mileage races!
• No invisibris cautions!
• The media doesn't focus on boring drivers because they're from your country
• The media doesn't pretend it's a big deal when a woman wins
• Women actually do win!
• There isn't a case of ADD in the world that could cause you to get bored halfway through a drag race
• Red Bull doesn't always win

The list doesn't end there, or it wouldn't, if I could be bothered to think of more ****.

Want to watch a whole race day to see how it goes? BAM!

Edited by Andrew Hope, 14 February 2013 - 01:03.

[JacnGille]

On the TV front Paul Page will move to other pastures.

There is a God who answers our prayers!

[Victor_RO]

Shamelessly ripped off from somewhere, but I absolutely LOVE these stats:

One top fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 4 rows of stock cars at the Daytona 500.

It takes just 15/100ths (0.15) of a second for all 6,000+ horsepower
(some believe 8,000 HP is more realistic - there are no dynamometers
capable of measuring) of an NHRA Top Fuel dragster engine to reach the rear wheels.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane per second;
a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

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

With 3,000 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 (stoichiometry: methodology and technology
by which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are determined)
1.7:1 air/fuel mixture of nitro methane, the flame front temperature measures
7,050 deg F. (Oxy-acetylene on "cut" is 6,300)

Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above
the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric
water 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 one pass.
After halfway, the engine is dieseling from compression,
plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 deg 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
an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track,
the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

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 9,500 rpm.

Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once
NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimate $1,000.00 per second.

The current top fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.428 seconds
for the quarter mile (11/12/06, Tony Schumacher, at Pomona , CA ).
The top speed record is 336.15 mph as measured over the last 66'
of the run (05/25/05 Tony Schumacher, at Hebron , OH ).

Dragsters are the ultimate definition of lunacy in motorsport.

[krapmeister]

That french dude on the rocket bike is the biggest nutter of them all. Bonkers...

[Red17]

But wait! I thought drag racing was just a bunch of fat old men who don't care about anything that doesn't need a burnout before you can use it? Well, that's mostly true.

Ironically this lady is on the path to fatness, again. I don't think she is crazy enough to come back with 2 small kids. Hannelore Werner did try, but those were diferent times.

Not pictured: Alexis Dejoria. Sorry Alexis..

She is a paydriver anyway

[Andrew Hope]

That's the trouble with female drivers, you don't often see them return after a baby or two. Of course, that's another amazing fact about drag racing to go along with the ones Victor_RO posted: it provides you with the possibility, for once, to have a slightly-more noble reason than jealousy to hope a girl doesn't get knocked up.

[Red17]

Oh dear... I just opened the results page for yesterday and they dared to pair the 2 rookies. Pruett actually got a decent time, Force according to the reports didn't even move, so much for the early woman showdown.

[JacnGille]

Antron Brown had a big one Sunday.

[whitewaterMkII]

That's the trouble with female drivers, you don't often see them return after a baby or two. Of course, that's another amazing fact about drag racing to go along with the ones Victor_RO posted: it provides you with the possibility, for once, to have a slightly-more noble reason than jealousy to hope a girl doesn't get knocked up.

Shelly Anderson raced last year in pro mods w/ two little ones.
I didn't see her pic in the above post, but she's no slouch in the looks department, and as a bonus I know for a fact she can out drink me and pretty much anyone I know and I can pound 'em and so can all my buds. And when it comes to wrenching she tears down and puts up a motor better than just about any mech on the circuit
I'd like to say more, a lot more, about what goes down in the NHRA, but I got a bunch of friends and family on the circuit and I can't spill the beans or they might soak me in nitro and throw matches at me.
I'll leave it with this, reality TV is missing out big time on the behind the scenes soap opera that is day to day on the drag circuit, billionaires and millionaires, fist fights, love affairs, pranks and all out psychological warfare are de riguer. Too much fun, and bad ass cars to boot.

Edited by whitewaterMkII, 19 February 2013 - 07:54.

[krapmeister]

Antron Brown had a big one Sunday.

Yep - that was a doozy!

Edited by krapmeister, 19 February 2013 - 10:14.

[Red17]

Shelly Anderson raced last year in pro mods w/ two little ones.

Odd on how I missed the now Mrs Payne last year. I did saw her racing a white promod around 2008. But I was under the assumption she was just crewing now.

[krapmeister]

There was another huge accident on the weekend over at the Kwinana Motorplex in Perth, Western Australia.

Jet dragster driver Pieter De Wit lost his chute at the end of his run and went off the end of the track - video here: http://www.youtube.c...p;v=mrLyC3WT8yw

Scary accident indeed as he was carrying ENORMOUS speed when he went of the end of the track. Thankfully he somehow escaped with just a fractured knee cap, burns to his back and concussion...

[krapmeister]

Larry Dixon - currently driving for the Australian Rapisarda Racing team in the NHRA - will be racing a Top Fueller in Australia over the Easter weekend.

Dixon/Rapisarda Racing is currently 11th in the points - Lee Beard is also tuning for them this season. I'd like to see them do well - I was at Willowbank when Santo (Rapisarda - the owner) lost his son Louie in a tragic crash in 1990. I can remember that run like it was yesterday Since then all his cars have 'In memory of Louie' on the wing...

Edited by krapmeister, 20 March 2013 - 10:35.

[krapmeister]

Larry Dixon's first run at Willowbank saw him shear an axle off around the 330ft mark, do a 360degree spin without touching the barriers and only taking out a few foam timing blocks and pull up in his lane in the braking area.

Video

Luckily the car driven by Damien Harris in the other lane had already smoked the tyres and grenaded the engine so wasn't alongside him when it happened. Dixon came back out later and ran an early shutoff 4.68sec pass . There's another days racing today so will be interesting to see if they can get anywhere near the Australian record of 4.51sec 331mph pass Scott Kalitta did when he was out here...

[krapmeister]

And in the first run today Dixon goes 4.503 @ 332mph!

Incrementals are:

.144 RT,
.842 60',
2.160 330',
3.076@278.35mph 660',
3.839 1000'
4.503 @ 332.02

Couple of videos of the run here and here.

Quickest pass ever in Australia but not quite the fastest - Phil Lamattina has run 333mph in Perth (that's about 536kph!)

And Chris Matheson on his Top Fuel bike has come within a whisker of a 5sec pass - 6.04 @ 241mph - quickest and fastest pass in Australia and according to DragList.com 7th fastest speed ever in the World.

Edited by krapmeister, 30 March 2013 - 21:56.

[gm914]

Larry Dixon's first run at Willowbank saw him shear an axle off around the 330ft mark, do a 360degree spin without touching the barriers and only taking out a few foam timing blocks and pull up in his lane in the braking area.

Video

Wow. Try doing that twice in a row

[krapmeister]

Dixon's last run of the day goes 4.54 @ 326 with the engine starting to tear itself up around the 1000' mark - be interesting to see how the incrementals compare to the earlier 4.503...

[TimRTC]

End of the season coming approaching both in the NHRA and FIA European Drag Racing series, the Santa Pod Euro Finals just a week away now.

 

The NHRA calendar has just been announced for 2014, frustratingly no event on the weekend of the 4/5th May when I am in the US.

 

http://www.autoweek..../NHRA/130829753

[krapmeister]

One of the biggest accidents I've seen - and Tim Tindle was able to walk away from what was left of his Pro Mod at the US Nationals...

 

 

Amazing photo sequence of the crash by Mark Rebilas can be found here...

Edited by krapmeister, 05 September 2013 - 12:53.

[TimRTC]

Wow. Bet he is thanking every cent he spent on safety equipment.

Back home looks like the Euro Finals are going to be rain affected, after the last two FIA events at Pod played out in perfect sun. Might have to go up to BSB at Donington instead on Friday.

[TimRTC]

Racing here at Pod after long morning track drying. Very cold so potential for FIA records to fall.

[Andrew Hope]

So I expect we've all seen Courtney Force's naked butt by now?

[johnwilliamdavies]

Streaming on Twitch live from a Texas drag strip - https://www.twitch.tv/murda

[Risil]

So I expect we've all seen Courtney Force's naked butt by now?

Graham Rahal has, but you weren't to know that at the time.

[PayasYouRace]

So I expect we've all seen Courtney Force's naked butt by now?

 

I know I'm 7 years late on this, but no, I haven't.