Favorite auto race?

[William from NOLA]

Drag racing is for people with short attention spans.

oooh! That's me!

[GlassWolf]

well, the attraction for drag racing is twofold for me. Pure speed and lateral acceleration, and the fact that there are drag racing classes that you can buy your own car, build it, and race it without big money corporate sponsorship, and actually win titles and trophies. Many classes to drag racing. Trophy classes, stock modified, super stock, pro street, bracket racing, etc. A lot of drag racers are just weekend warriors who have day jobs, a lot like SCCA. NASCAR has become a big money spectacle that rednecks seem to enjoy purely for the wrecks. I myself cannot stand NASCAR at all and that's all there seems to be here in Michigan.. NASCAR fans in trailer parks. Not all NHRA cars have to be torn down to the block every run. Just the really high powered funny cars usually, running top fuel. In my case I can race on weekends with a few simple safety mods to my car, and as long as I don't break out of my bracket in quarter mile ET, I can race all day long and drive my car home at the end of the day. The only changes I make to the car are the rear tires, disconnect the front sway bar and dial in the CalTracs, and the fuel I run is 100 octane race fuel instead of the 93 grade I use for street. Otherwise, it's pretty much the way I drive it on the street.

I can understand how people would find short bursts in a straight line boring though. It changes perspective when you drive a car at the strip though. You gain a lot of understanding for what really goes into designing a competant drag car, and how to drive one to be successful. You'd be amazed at the engineering that goes into things as seemingly simple as the suspension settings and tire pressures for a drag car.

a lot like the camber, caster, and toe adjustments they do on CART and F1 cars, and the tremendous difference it can make with the smallest of changes.

[ridr4lif]

Oh i know what it takes to build a drag car. We built (are building) one here at my college. Of course my class was the first to start on it and we did the entire tear down of the car, welded in the roll cage, put in the suspension, fitted the wheel tubs etc.

And yea, the smallest of changes can make the biggest difference on how a car handles.

I kno not all cars need to be torn down after a 1/4 drag, and sure its fun to see how fast you can go in 1/4 mile...but why not see how fast you can go around a track that makes left AND right turns? I dont kno...thats just what appeals to me a little more.

TO EACH HIS/HER OWN

TEDD

[GlassWolf]

namely because most races on the street happen at a stop light. :)

[sinister audio]

i like street cars at legal drag races because just about anything can happen and most of the time they dont lose by .01 of a sec. also street racing is pretty cool

[Renegadesrun]

I like NHRA. Because.........well this will sum it up.

A lesson in acceleration:
------------------------------------
First, some useful info:

* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

* Under full throttle, a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 1½ gallons of
nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same
rate with 25% less energy being produced.

* A stock Dodge 426 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough
power to drive the

dragster's 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 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 a pass. After 1/2 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 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 red-line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.

* 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
$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 riding the average $250,000 Honda MotoGP bike. Over a mile up the
road, a Top Fuel dragster 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
RC211V hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past
the dragster at an honest 200 mph (293 ft/sec). The 'tree' goes green for
both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You
keep your wrist cranked 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.

Thats what im talking about.

I stopped watching Nascar when then only driver i ever liked died. Didnt care about the sport, but the man could DRIVE. Loved his gtf out of my way style.

[GlassWolf]

large images I know, but if I shrink them any more the text gets too fuzzy to read.

[nist7]

thanks for an entertaining and educating read, Renegadesrun. I'll definitely be tuning in to ESPN tomorrow to watch nhra drags...

KiKi, where does your charger peak in terms of its torque and at what rpm? i think we all know by now that HP is not the most accurate measurement of power.

anyways, that's the dyno simulation software, right? i'm assuming that you can use basically any engine specs and it'll spit out a graph?

edit: also, KiKi, are you running any nitrous?

[JeremyC]

Yeah I am a Nascar guy myself. I like the drags if I am in person, but I grew up at the local dirt track, outlaws, micro sprints, and so on. Heck I grew up watching a few of the curent world of outlaw drivers, when they were still driving micros. So I am kinda partial.

[GlassWolf]

yes it's dyno sim s/w but that drag motor was an actual engine from a top fuel drag car, so the specs are pretty accurate. The amount of data put into that software is astounding, from runner volumes to seated spring rates for valve springs. You can fine tune that software to nearly perfect.

my engine peaks at 4000rpm for torque, and 5500rpm for horsepower, with around 650+lb-ft of TQ on the motor and about 600HP. I have an additional 200HP single-stage N2o pro-fogger system on top of that which puts the motor around 800HP in second and third gears @ WOT. Having the N2o work via the pedal instead of a button allows me to keep my right hand for the ratchet shifter and line locks, and my left for the wheel and trans-brake release on the wheel. The less I have to move my hands, the happier I am when I'm going in a straight line. I like things to be as thought-free as possible so I'm not distracted by things like moving between different buttons and switches while trying to drive and shift.