Daytona500

He is a nice guy. Let a bit too much celebrity status to go his head the last few years...shrug.

Most of the Mears boys are salt of the earth.

Gunner, who has pit/crew passes for most of the Winston West/Busch races..and doesnt pay much attention to NASCAR..but does have friends in low places....

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote on Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:21:20 -0600 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Q: How long will you watch a bunch of guys drive around in circles? A: Oh, 'bout five minutes at the most.

Q: Q: How long will you watch a bunch of guys drive around in circles, if there's a possibility of a crash? A: As long as it takes.

I'm not a big fan of car races, but it is fun to watch them go fast!

tschus pyotr

And there were some spectacular crashes this year but I prefer drag racing to roundy-roundy. When you live in MN you have to find something to do on A sunday afternoon and I hate basketball and ice fishing so my options were limited.

H.R.

Yea. I cant stand to watch (at least what looks like) big american iron go round and round in a circle. Now Formula 1 racing is another thing alltogether. :-) ...lew...

Lew Hartswick wrote in article ...

Yeah, but.....

......I like to watch races where the driver actually *drives* the car.....not the computer.

I betcha J.P. Montoya has a whole new respect for NASCAR drivers now that he is trying to become one.

All that work to get 5 to 10 seconds of track time. I don't get drag racing... ;)

Peter

I much prefer road racing to circle track, but in F1 one waits an entire season for a decent pass. F1 ain't what it used to be.

I think he had respect for the drivers before this. When he and J. Gordon swapped rides at Indy a couple of years back, he professed his admiration. IIRC, Jeff didn't do too badly in the F1 car either.

Peter

On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:15:28 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Peter Grey" quickly quoth:

FOUR seconds and -several- G forces make for a FUN ride, Peter. And that's not counting the smell of freshly burnt alcohol or NitroMethane. Yummy! And, lest we forget, the noise you can FEEL. Earplugs -and- muffs suggested.

-- If it weren't for jumping to conclusions, some of us wouldn't get any exercise.

No doubt the cars are impressive - perhaps the most impresive cars of all to stand next to. I've often said that all racing folks need to watch (and feel, as you said) a Top Fueler run at least once. And I've never driven one. But I like my racing in larger doses. A short road race is 30 minutes and I confess I like going around corners...

Peter

On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:12:11 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Peter Grey" quickly quoth:

Ditto here. I truly miss my old '70 Mark Donahue Special Javelin. I once lost one of the CA Highway Patrol Dodge Interceptor in it on the back streets between Vista, CA and San Marcos, CA. with a beer between my legs. Oops, better not get caught... That beastie handled better than any other car I've ever driven, but I've never raced.

-- If it weren't for jumping to conclusions, some of us wouldn't get any exercise.

I'll root for Casey just on the off-chance he's half as good a guy as his old man.

Peter, I'm with you. I (mis)spent many a youthful summer night at the drag strip, both sanctioned and otherwise. But once I found SCCA racing going on right in my backyard, I never looked back. That was

Both take a very high skill level, but different skills. F1 drivers are the highest paid athletes, and arguably the most fit

I'll agree they are fit. But there is this little race in France where the atheletes provide their own motive power. Ever hear of a guy named Lance Armstrong?

Wes

Just thought I'd post this here trivia.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- t's that time of year to go racing, and I don't mean turn left all the time.

Real racing does not have a start/finish line.

Lets talk Drag Racing.....

Subject: TF Nitro Trivia

• One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

• Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitromethane 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 drive the dragster 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. (Two spark plugs per cylinder) 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.

• In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate 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 redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.

• 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 US,000.00 per second.

The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.428 seconds for the quarter mile (11/12/06, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 336.15 mph. (534 km/h) as measured over the last 33' of the run (05/25/05 Tony Schumacher).

Putting all of this 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 and 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 and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down 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.

AND one other thing -- it don't corner worth a crap!

Thank You, Randy

Remove 333 from email address to reply.

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:56:22 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Rex quickly quoth:

I cut my eye teeth in gymkhanas and autocrosses with Dad in his Austin Healy 100-4. (Would have preferred a 3000, but $$$.) It was working on that car which led me into auto mechanics in that past life. Viva SCCA and AHRA!

-- If it weren't for jumping to conclusions, some of us wouldn't get any exercise.

What region are you in?

Peter

I've been to a couple Nascar races at Michigan and the thrill is the way they are bunched up in a pack at 190 mph. It is a real rush when 43 cars fly by like that. Plenty of passing and great pit work by real teams of guys. Indy cars arre like that also and about 15% faster. Drag racing is just plain loud and smoky.