NHRA Top Fuel Dragsters - Northwest Nationals

What do you do when you lack the ability to describe something? Top Fuel racing is like this for me. Whenever I am in a discussion about Top Fuel dragsters I find myself telling the person to go to an event, then I barrage them with a plethora of inconceivable factoids.

So first and foremost - GO TO A NHRA TOP FUEL DRAGSTER EVENT. 

     Now let us start with the basics, something any motorhead can relate to - horsepower! Today's Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars are calculated (not measured) at around 10,000 horsepower. Yes that's 7,450,000 watts of power from an 8.2 liter V8. That's more than the first four rows at the Daytona 500 just for reference. I say "calculated" because there isn't a dyno that can measure that amount of power. They also weigh in at only 2,300 lbs. That 1,200 horsepower per liter engine tied in with a 4.16:1 power to weight ratio makes a standing 1,000 foot pass in 3.7 seconds while reaching speeds of well over 300 miles per hour and subjecting the driver to an average of 4 g's of force. They accelerate from a standstill to 100 miles per hour in less than one second and reach 280 miles per hour in 660 feet. That means if you were in a Lingenfelter twin turbo Z06 Corvette doing 200 mph and the dragster was staged and took off at the same time you crossed the starting line, you would lose the 1/4 mile race at around the 1,000 ft. mark as the dragster blows your doors off. Let's just allow that to soak in for 3.7 seconds.

     So a little bit about the engines. The engine gets it's air from a massive overdriven 14-71 roots style blower that forces air into the engine at well over 3,000 cubic feet per minute and creates over 60 psi of boost.  To provide a little more perspective on the blower, your basic v8 production engine couldn't even spin it. Fuel is devoured at a rate of 1.2 gallons per second, which is more than a Boeing 747 at cruise. Between the warm up, burnout, and 4 second run they burn around 17 gallons of nitromethane fuel. Now the perfect air to fuel ratio for gas is 14.7:1 while nitromethane is 1.7:1.  That ratio coupled with 60 psi boost and a 6.5:1 compression ratio makes for a nearly solid air fuel mixture - yes, they operate on the edge of hydrostatic lock. The spark needed to burn this concoction is provided by twin 44 amp magnetos - that's equivalent to an arc welder. If spark momentarily fails, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block and/or split the block in half. The supercharger is also strapped down with kevlar safety straps to prevent it from flying into the grandstands in case of a backfire. The flame front temperature is north of 7,000 degrees fahrenheit. By the end of the run the spark plugs have melted and the engine is dieseling; so the only way to shut it off is by cutting off the fuel.  The exhaust looks simple and it really is with the exception of the pressure they experience. The headers are pointed up because the pressure coming out of them (900-1,100ft/lbs) actually helps keep the dragster on the ground. Each dragster makes about 150 decibels of noise that can be heard for miles and will quite literally make your ears bleed if you don't have hearing protection on. That's your basic run through of the ridiculousness of these engines.

      I've only gotten started and am ready to fully geek out about the fuel make-up, composition, and latent heat of vaporization but I'm sure I've already lost a bunch of my readers! Once again, my photos and geeked out article full of factoids does not even come close to explaining what Top Fuel is...

GO TO AN EVENT! 

Steve Gasparelli had his new livery out and damn did it look good!  His car was certainly one of the prettiest there!

Steve's team working hard to finish getting the car ready. NHRA teams are allowed 75 minutes to completely rebuild the engine and make any chassis changes needed. A typical crew is 7-9 people who do this orchestrated "dance", if you will.  It is amazing to watch them work as everyone has very specific jobs with very specific timing. Teamwork is absolute! 

Did I mention they REBUILD the entire engine after every pass down the track?  In 75 MINUTES!

 Drivers are normally responsible for their own parachutes care and packing. Troy Buff is packing his own here. He also does a lot of work on the car.

These are not your typical daily drivers...  Comfort is about dead last on the importance list.  You do have a 10,000 horsepower bomb directly behind you afterall.

It is at this exact moment, when that green light flashes that all hell breaks loose.  If you are close enough to the starting line you will literally feel your heart skip a beat, your feet leave the ground, and your eyeballs jiggle in their sockets.  I'm not exaggerating this one bit. Watch this short video for a better example.

Top fuel only runs to 1,000 feet instead of the traditional 1/4 mile (1,320 feet).  That extra 320 feet made it much more dangerous. The rule was changed in 2008 following Scott Kalitta's death and is still a hot topic today with some fans.

Yes the huge wing on the rear is actually functional. It creates up to 12,000 pounds of downforce at 300 miles per hour.

Oops!  That's a minor meltdown!

The race actually comes down to clutch and tire slippage more than anything else.  There is no transmission but use a five disk clutch that is "timed" to control pressure and therefore slippage and therefore tire slippage.  The clutches are timed to the track and conditions.  If they engage too fast, the tires will spin, but if it's too slow the car won't accelerate as quickly as it can.  The disks get so hot that at least two of the plates are fused together by the end of the run.

The Top Fuel Funny Cars are just as exciting to watch. The carbon fiber body hardly weighs anything. They have a shorter wheelbase and are a little bit slower but we are talking about .1-.2 seconds. 

At the end of the day there is still no way to explain the experience of 20,000 horsepower ripping down the track at over 300 miles per hour to a finish as close as .001 of a second is like; So we take home dead tires.