Drag racing anyone?
- Thread starter richie500
- Start date
Derek Nicol
Well-known user
If i was only interested in speed then just about the last thing i would be driving is a standard 1981 Corvette.
Chuffer
CCCUK Member
You know all about electric cars , your C3 arrived at Gaydon on Sunday running on its battery only !
Chuffer
CCCUK Member
No noise , no smell , no fun !
Derek Nicol
Well-known user
You know all about electric cars , your C3 arrived at Gaydon on Sunday running on its battery only !
Its just as well i havent still got the battery that came with the car, that may not have coped so well.
Chuffer
CCCUK Member
I wouldn`t count on your new one lasting too long either after what it went through !
kentvette
CCCUK Member
Witness the Funny Car warm up in the pits at the NHRA Pomona World Finals and you'd never even think of watching an electric car!No noise , no smell , no fun !
Pedro Rodrigues in the 917 on "full chat" at Brands in 1970 and the GT1 C5R are glorious sounds, but pale into almost nothing compared to a Funny Car.
Chuffer
CCCUK Member
I would never have thought of watching an electric car in the first place ! Watching cricket or paint drying would be more interesting !Witness the Funny Car warm up in the pits at the NHRA Pomona World Finals and you'd never even think of watching an electric car!
Pedro Rodrigues in the 917 on "full chat" at Brands in 1970 and the GT1 C5R are glorious sounds, but pale into almost nothing compared to a Funny Car.
Derek Nicol
Well-known user
In motorsport i would rather watch something making a great noise and fast than something 'silent' and fast.. but.. having said that...
I would rather watch something fast & quiet than something noisy & slow, which goes back to my reluctance to put my Vette down the strip.
Ive seen a lot of noisy and slow cars at Santa Pod over the years and theyre just not that entertaining tbh.
Thats why i think the future of motorsport is high performance Hybrid powertrains.. noisy & fast.
I would rather watch something fast & quiet than something noisy & slow, which goes back to my reluctance to put my Vette down the strip.
Ive seen a lot of noisy and slow cars at Santa Pod over the years and theyre just not that entertaining tbh.
Thats why i think the future of motorsport is high performance Hybrid powertrains.. noisy & fast.
Derek Nicol
Well-known user
Agreed but i was talking modern motorsport.
Ive seen the beast of Turin run at Goodwood and that was very entertaining.
Derek Nicol
Well-known user
If you want noisy but don`t mind a bit of slow , try this as a spectator sport .
'merica!
Redlevel
Well-known user
Few American car owners, Corvettes or otherwise are interested in drag racing.
I wrongly assumed they were on a Scottish Fb group a while back and got flamed to death!
If I lived closer to SP, I'd definately be up for this but its a 6 hour trip on a good day for us, so we tend to visit Melbourne even though its still a 4 hour jaunt (not in the Corvette as the approach road is bad so we take the Forester and spectate.)
We love drags and classic hotrod racing and that's where we go when we can.
Don't do shows as we don't know how to spend the time standing around stationary cars and get really bored after about an hour and a coffee/bacon roll and just want to leave..
Redlevel
Well-known user
My kind of event!If you want noisy but don`t mind a bit of slow , try this as a spectator sport .
Adtheman
Well-known user
God I love it when people talk dirty about accelerationNot my piece but a little insight into a top fuel dragster which you may find interesting. A little out of date as they only run 1000ft now instead of 1/4 mile. There is a reference to a corvette too
TOP FUEL ACCELERATION PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE
* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower (10,000 HP) than the first 5 rows at the Daytona 500.
* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1.2-1.5 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 merely 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 nitro methane 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.
* Dragsters reach over 300 MPH before you have completed reading this sentence.
* In order to exceed 300 MPH in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4 G's. In order to reach 200 MPH well before half-track, the launch acce leration approaches 8 G's.
* 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 9500 RPM.
* THE BOTTOM LINE: Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, & for once, NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000 per second.
0 to 100 MPH in .8 seconds (the first 60 feet of the run)
0 to 200 MPH in 2.2 seconds (the first 350 feet of the run)
6 g-forces at the starting line (nothing accelerates faster on land)
6 negative g-forces upon deployment of twin ‘chutes at 300 MPH An NHRA Top Fuel Dragster accelerates quicker than any other land vehicle on earth . . quicker than a jet fighter plane . . . quicker than the space shuttle.
The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.420 seconds for the quarter-mile (2004, Doug Kalitta). The top speed record is 337.58 MPH as measured over the last 66' of the run (2005, Tony Schumacher).
Putting this all into perspective:
You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged & 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 & pass the dragster at an honest 200 MPH. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.
The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums & within 3 seconds the dragster catches & 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 & not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race!
That's acceleration.
plastic orange
CCCUK Member
Our local strip is at Crail Airfield, an ex fleet air arm base. Surface is pretty poor, but it's all we've got. I've been down it hundreds of times on my bikes and my 2 V8 Morris Minors. I've not tried my 53 Bel Air yet, and don't think the Corvette would do very well against the 4wd brigade who get huge power out of 2 litres. Best time in my LS Minor is 12.2 @117mph, but should be high 11's at the likes of santa pod. It's good fun for an occasional outing though, but going faster costs if you get the bug.
Roscobbc
Moderator
Track surface sounds similar to North Weald (i.e concrete) - any time recorded there is generally worth a second less at the 'Pod
teamzr1
Supporting vendor
Few American car owners, Corvettes or otherwise are interested in drag racing.
I wrongly assumed they were on a Scottish Fb group a while back and got flamed to death!
If I lived closer to SP, I'd definately be up for this but its a 6 hour trip on a good day for us, so we tend to visit Melbourne even though its still a 4 hour jaunt (not in the Corvette as the approach road is bad so we take the Forester and spectate.)
We love drags and classic hotrod racing and that's where we go when we can.
Don't do shows as we don't know how to spend the time standing around stationary cars and get really bored after about an hour and a coffee/bacon roll and just want to leave..
Not sure why people think there is no interest in drag racing here in the USA as
there are hundreds of drag strips here
Place to find where they all are
Drag Strips USA
Plus lots of other places doing standing half and 1 mile top speed events
And of course when we catch a non-American car at a stop light
James Vette
CCCUK Member
Someone brought the new e-mustang to brooklands american day it was a total eye sore in my opinion.