Went and attended a different motorsport other than VMX last night..
..what a awe inspiring sight.
...those pit crew trucks and the gear on board, makes our bike trailer a bit oblivious.
* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 4 rows at the Indy. 500.
* Under full throttle, a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 1 gallon 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
the
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.
That, folks, is acceleration!
