Drag Racing

Please discuss here all your remarks and pose your questions about all racing series, except Formula One. Both technical and other questions about GP2, Touring cars, IRL, LMS, ...
johnny comelately
110
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 00:55
Location: Australia

Re: Drag Racing

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1WD peculiarity is counter intuitive steering, you have to lean into where you don't want to go!

johnny comelately
110
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 00:55
Location: Australia

Re: Drag Racing

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Strad, you are right, Suzuki now, i have been living in the past too much :wink:
there is not much factory stuff in them though as you would know.

FightingHellPhish
0
Joined: 10 May 2017, 10:47

Re: Drag Racing

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johnny comelately wrote:
27 Mar 2018, 00:09
FightingHellPhish wrote:
26 Mar 2018, 21:31
strad wrote:
19 Mar 2018, 20:09
Top Fuel Harleys run 1000hp and yeah they wear bullet proof vest because they can blow the plugs right out of the head and can actually lift the cylinder or heads off as well.
I thought about this and Funny cars and peoples obsession on safety. You don't climb back into a Funny Car less than an hour after a blow up like Hagen and Hight experienced if you're obsessed with safety. Not that I don't care about safety. It's just that you can't let it rule your life.
Eh, the blowers are setup to come apart a certain way when this stuff happens and they are tethered to the car. Its why a bunch of drivers havent been killed by shrapnel in the modern era. It really isnt the issue that its being made out to be.
That is only partially right and the other part that has been left out nullifys the assertion.
These are serious matters and it is important to properly understand the scale of the issue.
Often that can only come from experience.
Blow ups like these are a bomb (hence the name) and the use of the word shrapnel is for a proper reason.
Just to lighten the mood a bit, it was funny to see a crankshaft rolling down a pit road after one of these non-issues. (top bike)
I was only referring to funny car. Thought that was pretty apparent. Afaik, TF Harley doesnt use superchargers.

FightingHellPhish
0
Joined: 10 May 2017, 10:47

Re: Drag Racing

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strad wrote:
27 Mar 2018, 01:09
Like said earlier. Maybe I misunderstand FightingHellPhish ,but he seems to me to imply it is no longer something that requires a bit of courage to do.
If so I think he should re-watch the video in slo-motion.
As for the bikes they've had to readjust their driving style because they were carrying the front wheel the whole way. And I have to assume he realizes what steering there is, is done by shifting their weight/leaning.
At these levels drag racing takes a fair amount of intestinal fortitude. Especially after after a large blow up.
.
Performance T/F bike
▪ 1/8 mile:
- 3.835 secs, 204.91 mph (329.77 kmh)
▪ 1/4 mile:
- 5.817 secs, 242.77 mph (390.70 kmh)
▪ Estimated 1500 Horsepower :shock:
God no bikes are a whole different ball game compared to any cager.. I'm making the point that the funny cars kaboom the way they do with minimal real damage because of break away studs, tethers, blowout panels, etc. The drivers of the funny cars are professionals and had these blow ups before. The announcers were concerned about the frequency this year compared to even just last year. Short of the block somehow turning into a 500lb GBU, the detonations are mostly flash

Maritimer
19
Joined: 06 Sep 2017, 21:45
Location: Canada

Re: Drag Racing

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A big pop and an hour of track prep :x :lol:

johnny comelately
110
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 00:55
Location: Australia

Re: Drag Racing

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FightingHellPhish wrote:
27 Mar 2018, 06:10
johnny comelately wrote:
27 Mar 2018, 00:09
FightingHellPhish wrote:
26 Mar 2018, 21:31


Eh, the blowers are setup to come apart a certain way when this stuff happens and they are tethered to the car. Its why a bunch of drivers havent been killed by shrapnel in the modern era. It really isnt the issue that its being made out to be.
That is only partially right and the other part that has been left out nullifys the assertion.
These are serious matters and it is important to properly understand the scale of the issue.
Often that can only come from experience.
Blow ups like these are a bomb (hence the name) and the use of the word shrapnel is for a proper reason.
Just to lighten the mood a bit, it was funny to see a crankshaft rolling down a pit road after one of these non-issues. (top bike)
I was only referring to funny car. Thought that was pretty apparent. Afaik, TF Harley doesnt use superchargers.
Harley can go 120CID supercharged

User avatar
strad
117
Joined: 02 Jan 2010, 01:57

Re: Drag Racing

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WOW A number of videos I watched said it was a Suzuki. :oops:
However when I visited McBrides site they list the engine as a Kawasaki :oops: that should make JAW happy. :wink:
There is a possibility this is out of date as they have built a new bike that took over a year to build.
Specs
1511cc Puma/Kawasaki
•1000 Horsepower, estimated
•70mm stroke, 83mm bore
•59:1 compression
•BME Rods (Bill Miller Engineering)
• Vance & Hines Cylinder Head
•Puma crankshaft and case assembly
•Dailey Engineering 3 stage dry sump oil system
•Steve McBride engineered drive system
•Belt Drives Ltd. Belt Drives
•1 Gallon oil capacity

Chassis:

•'94 Race Visions
•Wheelbase: 100 inch axle center to center
•Weight: 1030 lbs
•Fuel Usage: 4 gallons per run
•Fuel Capacity: 6 gallon capacity
•Carbon fiber body and body panels
•Rear Tire Size: 14" x 31.5"
•Performance Machine Brakes - 11" diameter rotors, front and rear
•Ohlins Forks
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss

johnny comelately
110
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 00:55
Location: Australia

Re: Drag Racing

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Image

User avatar
strad
117
Joined: 02 Jan 2010, 01:57

Re: Drag Racing

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In 2010, Rickey House was racing his Nitro Harley on a drag strip in Arizona when his motorcycle flipped at 200 mph, and House flew off and tumbled down the track.

He spent the night in the hospital, then came back the next day and ran two more rounds on a damaged bike.

And there was that time in Ohio: After he did his burnout, the engine dropped a cylinder and blew the head off. On Nitro Harleys, you pretty much lie down on the motorcycle. House ended up knocked out, with a concussion. “That,” he said, “was a sonic boom, right there.”

For the last decade, House has competed in the International Hot Rod Association’s Nitro Bike class. These are the biggest, baddest, loudest, heaviest, almost cartoonish drag bikes there are.

Slower classes “don’t give me the adrenaline rush the Nitro bikes do,” said the 57-year-old Texan. “It’s kind of hard to back up, you know?” One competitor said it would probably be kind of like spending years on heroin, then switching to Advil. Just not the same.

At one track, the local Hells Angels chapter came out in support of a member racer. At another, it was the Bandidos. (Club motto: “We are the people your parents warned you about.”)

Make no mistake: These are tough guys. And they are, in fact, all guys: Unlike the slower, lighter Pro Stock motorcycle class in the NHRA, which has multiple female racers, none rode in the Nitro Bike class in the IHRA this season.

Tough guys. North Carolina businessman Tii Tharpe fell off his Nitro Harley at the IHRA World Finals in Memphis, going 217 mph. Seven days later he got back on the bike at Rockingham, North Carolina. He qualified fourth.

The motorcycles in question weigh about 1,000 pounds. Engines are typically Harley-Davidson V-twins, supercharged and pumping out about 2,000 horsepower on nitromethane fuel. The rider sits in a little notch above the engine – no padding – stretches out on his stomach, essentially laying prone, chin a few inches from the top of the engine. Riders wear Kevlar vests under their fire suits in case the engine explodes. A long wheelie bar helps them launch, and a parachute helps them stop.

The official IHRA top speed record is 230.76 mph, though a month ago at Castrol Raceway at Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, Tracy Kile ran a jaw-dropping 246.98 mph. But for it to become an IHRA World Record, you have to make a second pass within one percent of the speed of the record run, and Kile couldn’t back it up.

The record elapsed time, from a standing start to the end of the quarter-mile, is 6.204 seconds, set earlier this year at Maryland International Raceway by Bob Malloy.

Last Friday, qualifying for the IHRA Northern Nationals at U.S. 131 Motorplex in Martin, Michigan, Malloy put on a riding demonstration. You steer not by turning the handlebars, but – as with any motorcycle – applying body weight from one side to another.

Malloy looked like he was wrestling an anaconda down the slippery track – leaning left, right, backward, forward – even leaning his head from side to side as he made minute corrections. “You have to,” he said. “The front wheel is off the ground for most of the run. You’re riding completely on the back tire.” And that tire is a massive Mickey Thompson racing slick so wide that the bike will pretty much stand up on its own when the rider isn't on it.

So what’s the appeal? Malloy shrugs, shakes his head. “If you’ve ever done it,” he said, “you’d know.”

When it was all over at the Northern Nationals, Jay Turner, seen above, had won his second straight IHRA Nitro Motorcycle title. “A long weekend,” he said, “but a pretty good one.”
Different sanctioning bodies have different rules, but they are all monsters
Do people get used to/comfortable with the dangers of any type of racing? Of course, Whether Drag bikes, all the way to F1. Not a lot of people have what it takes or they'd all be doing it.
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss

johnny comelately
110
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 00:55
Location: Australia

Re: Drag Racing

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Contracts wouldn't let them but who out of the pimple faces of F1 would give it a shot? Maxie Verstaapen might.

simieski
9
Joined: 29 Jul 2011, 18:45

Re: Drag Racing

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johnny comelately wrote:
27 Mar 2018, 04:48
Further to the armchair brigade:
when you try and contain an explosion it doesn't implode, stuff (shrapnel) has to go somewhere...look down.
one fellow I know had a nitro Triumph and in the pits on opening up the throttle it hydrauliced like they do and the crank parts departed through the bottom ricocheting up the road, it would have killed anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The crankshaft rolling up the pit road was from detonation on a alcohol turbo bike, crank was welded pinned still broke. and that is what is slightly annoying when you see posters in here saying some detonation (in these engines, high cylinder pressures) is tolerable.....really....as i said ...armchair
Could this risk not be significantly reduced with the addition of aramid fibre? Good enough for containing fan blades.
Thank you to God for making me an Atheist - Ricky Gervais.

johnny comelately
110
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 00:55
Location: Australia

Re: Drag Racing

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simieski wrote:
05 Apr 2018, 22:26
johnny comelately wrote:
27 Mar 2018, 04:48
Further to the armchair brigade:
when you try and contain an explosion it doesn't implode, stuff (shrapnel) has to go somewhere...look down.
one fellow I know had a nitro Triumph and in the pits on opening up the throttle it hydrauliced like they do and the crank parts departed through the bottom ricocheting up the road, it would have killed anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The crankshaft rolling up the pit road was from detonation on a alcohol turbo bike, crank was welded pinned still broke. and that is what is slightly annoying when you see posters in here saying some detonation (in these engines, high cylinder pressures) is tolerable.....really....as i said ...armchair
Could this risk not be significantly reduced with the addition of aramid fibre? Good enough for containing fan blades.
Yes, sometimes they use bullet proof vests for riding.

J.A.W.
109
Joined: 01 Sep 2014, 05:10
Location: Altair IV.

Re: Drag Racing

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@ strad - this is the kind of old school Kawasaki - I dig;

Boris Murray, on the Denco triple-triple, way back in the day, when you could 'run what ya brung'..
Image

Nowadays its a bit too formulaic, with promoters pushing the faux 'Harley-Davidson' for the crowd,
while constraining what more up-to-date stuff - can utilize..
"Well, we knocked the bastard off!"

Ed Hilary on being 1st to top Mt Everest,
(& 1st to do a surface traverse across Antarctica,
in good Kiwi style - riding a Massey Ferguson farm
tractor - with a few extemporised mod's to hack the task).

User avatar
strad
117
Joined: 02 Jan 2010, 01:57

Re: Drag Racing

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I can appreciate the sentiment.
I started out in the AHRA which at the time had looser rules than the NHRA.
Under the AHRA you could show up with almost anything and they would find a class for you.
Even a 4 cylinder, blown (4:71) injected, running nitro. It was classed an X/D.
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss

NoDivergence
50
Joined: 02 Feb 2011, 01:52

Re: Drag Racing

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Pfff, slow.

Rocket cars are where it's at. Not traction limited, except to actually stay on the ground :)