NHRA Top Fuel Nitro Methane Organasms

[Rusty Heap]

My Wife had never been to an eye watering Top Fuel NHRA race before.

Her virgin Nitro Methane cherry has been popped as of last Saturday.


John Force funny car, 3.85 seconds, 320 mph.


pure body shaking kidney stone melting 10,000 horsepower bliss, I think I captured it fairly well in my short 1 minute video.

[John Rogers]

Today you can go through the pits and stand behind the funny cars and top fuel cars as they warm them up after the engine freshen up. For a while the NHRA stopped that but now you can. Back in the 60's we raced a 1955 Chevy D-Gas small block in the mid Atlantic states and during qualifying times all the cars would be mixed together in the starting lanes. The 1964 super stock and the first "funny cars" were totally wild to be standing behind as they did burn outs and then went for timed runs. Probably the wildest was Phil Bonner's Georgia Frog bright green Ford Falcon with one of the 427 side oiler big blocks leaving the line at 8000 RPMs! Yep, that weekend will be something she'll remember forever!

[Rusty Heap]

Thank you Jeff Higgins for popping my cherry 3 events ago, he didn't use lube or anything. you brute.







Tony S driving for Team Army car, wow, 75 race wins in the finals, this last weekend was his 400th race.


Most NHRA Top Fuel wins


Driver/Wins

Tony Schumacher 74
Larry Dixon 62
Joe Amato 52
Kenny Bernstein 39
Don Garlits 35
Cory McClenathan 34
Doug Kalitta 32
Gary Scelzi 25
Antron Brown 23
Gary Beck 19




a lot of teams have shifted crew members, Team Qatar of Saudi land has lured away many crewchiefs and they had 2-3 top fuel dragster entered.

Antron Brown, changed camp and sorry but he sucked this last weekend.


it was nice to see the privateers out, no decals or sponsorship, just running 3-4 races a year out of their own pocket...


All of the Force Family, Buck Tooth John and Smokin hot daughters were all out signing autographs and it's awesome you can stand literally shake their hands or touch their cars. They made it look so easy to be hounded by the crowds to sign something......

no other pro-level performance sport I can recall has the fan interaction, not F1, Indy, Nascar, football baseball, maybe basketball if you're sitting next to Jack Nicolson in the front row......


it's VERY cool in that regard, People get free car parts, I could of brought home a clutch disk if I'd wanted, all signed, tires or blower belts and such.

good karma.

[GH85Carrera]

I remember going to see the top fuel racers and the noise is just not something you can describe. Sorta like a few thousand utility poles smashing into the ground from a few thousand feet up. I would have loved to have seen and heard a Saturn 5 launch in person.

[Rusty Heap]

an honest 150 db I believe.


lots of insane specs out there:


this is an old fact sheet from 2009ish, they're now up to 1200 horsepower per cylinder. damnnn.


Fun facts

[sammyg2]

A good friend of mine's son runs top fuel dragster and is very sucessful at it
In fact, my friend has been mentioned four times this season on ESPN2 that I'm aware of for his own drag racing exploits.

If all goes as planned, there's a pretty good chance I could be standing directly behind and between two top fuel dragsters at launch at the finals in pomona later this year.
Only done that once and that was at OCIR in my teens and they were running in the low sixes then.

I hope the old ticker holds out!!!

[HardDrive]

"… that an NHRA Top Fuel dragster accelerates from 0 to 100 mph in less than .8-second, almost 11 seconds quicker than it takes a production Porsche 911 Turbo to reach the same speed?"

[Rusty Heap]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

"… that an NHRA Top Fuel dragster accelerates from 0 to 100 mph in less than .8-second, almost 11 seconds quicker than it takes a production Porsche 911 Turbo to reach the same speed?"

yeah those 4 g launches must be hard on the sphincter muscle........


in 4 seconds or less........


........and then you have those silly mid-track corrections as the rear end of the car is breaking loose slideways at the yawn slow 1.5 - 2.5 second mark......oh yeah you have to remember to turn into the slide.............at 250 mph mark mid course.

[KNS]

Last year I spent a day at Firebird raceway with the Al Anabi team and had complete access to the pit, catered lunch, etc. It was through my company so I was simply given a pit pass. I think as far as $$$ spent, they are one of the top teams.

I was blown away and had a new admiration for top fuel racing. The engine gets completely torn down after every run, it was amazing watching those guys work. I think they went through a case of brake cleaner just in the disassembly.

And, as mentioned the sound during each run will disintegrate kidney stones.

[strupgolf]

Its weird to stand even 20 feet away when they start. It goes right through your body. They blip it once and I jump. Its the best ticket in racing. I'm going this year to the friday night shoot out at the US Nationals in Indy, can't wait.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by strupgolf

Its weird to stand even 20 feet away when they start. It goes right through your body. They blip it once and I jump. Its the best ticket in racing.

+1
I've experienced being near a top fueler when it was burning out. It didn't sound anything like rock and roll. Did I click on the wrong video?

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Thank you Jeff Higgins for popping my cherry 3 events ago, he didn't use lube or anything. you brute.

Yeah, and I went and missed it this year. I'm glad Barb had a good time - I would have loved to have seen her reaction.

[Daves911L]

By strange coincidence, did sort of the same with my wife Saturday night. She'd never been to the drags before, and it had been ages for me. She was pretty skeptical about the idea, being more the wine-sipping yoga sort (my telling her it would be OK to wear shorts, heels, and a halter top probably didn't help to encourage her). But I talked her into going anyway.

It wasn't a big ticket NHRA event, just the local dragstrip on a summer Saturday night. $15 a head to get in. And it was total and complete fun. Altereds making crazy scary sideways passes at 160 mph. Alcohol funny cars flirting with the 200 mark. A huge pack of run-what-ya-brung characters serving up everything from comedy (when was the last time you saw a Gremlin?) to intense rivalry. Tons of kids smiling, laughing, and (gasp!) working hard. Noise, smoke, fumes. Haven't had that much good clean fun at a car event in years!

[VINMAN]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

All of the Force Family, Buck Tooth John and Smokin hot daughters were all out signing autographs and it's awesome you can stand literally shake their hands or touch their cars. They made it look so easy to be hounded by the crowds to sign something......
.

If all motorsport drivers were as friendly as John Force it would be great. Probably the coolest "celebrity" I've ever met. Couple years ago at the Summernationals here in Englishtown, was in the pits during the week, during qualifying days. Pretty thin crowd. Was at his area, he came over and talked with me and a buddy of mine for about 45 mins, like he knew us all our lives. Just a totally cool approachable, down to earth dude.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I'd think 7g deceleration would be very, very hard on the body. Humans can take a lot of gs - iirc about 8g transverse (which is why astronauts lie in their backs) but not too many negative gs. This is why pilots of high-performance military jets roll inverted and then pull down and roll right-side-up to level off from a quick climb - to keep the gs positive and acting more or less transverse. It's a limit of the human pilots, not the aircraft.

Anyway above about 2.5g negative bad things happen physiologically - blood vessels start popping in the eyes, possible retinal detachments, etc. I'd think 7g acting transversely to the driver's body in deceleration would cause internal organs to slam against the ribcage and all manner of other nasty things. I wonder how many of these guys have serious injuries or long-term ailments after doing this for a while...

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by KNS

Last year I spent a day at Firebird raceway with the Al Anabi team and had complete access to the pit, catered lunch, etc. It was through my company so I was simply given a pit pass. I think as far as $$$ spent, they are one of the top teams.

I was blown away and had a new admiration for top fuel racing. The engine gets completely torn down after every run, it was amazing watching those guys work. I think they went through a case of brake cleaner just in the disassembly.

And, as mentioned the sound during each run will disintegrate kidney stones.

I'm betting Shawn was very cool and friendly, right? He's a class act.

Don Schumacher racing spends the most money in drag racing, their budget is basically a bottomless pit.

[bkreigsr]

...saw the Force win the Wally live on ESPN over the weekend- the old guy still has it - with a .004 hole shot?
...then he gave a 'shout out' to Connie Kalita for Connie's pep talk before the run.
...still a class act
Bill K

[bkreigsr]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Anyway above about 2.5g negative bad things happen physiologically - blood vessels start popping in the eyes, possible retinal detachments, etc. ..

that's why Bid Daddy had to throw in the towel after he tried a come-back to get in the 300mph club - detached retinas when he popped the chute

[KNS]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

I'm betting Shawn was very cool and friendly, right? He's a class act.

Don Schumacher racing spends the most money in drag racing, their budget is basically a bottomless pit.

Unfortunately, I didn't catch any names or recognize anyone but everyone was quite open and friendly.

What impressed me the most was, while we had access behind all the roped off areas, for the ordinary spectator, the viewing was fantastic. Though I've never been to an F1 race, Bernie could learn something. It's the way it ought to be if you're a race fan.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by KNS

Unfortunately, I didn't catch any names or recognize anyone but everyone was quite open and friendly.

What impressed me the most was, while we had access behind all the roped off areas, for the ordinary spectator, the viewing was fantastic. Though I've never been to an F1 race, Bernie could learn something. It's the way it ought to be if you're a race fan.

Shawn Langdon, top fuel dragster champion 2013. Huge baseball fan.