Friday 8th April 2016

Drag Rocket: You Know You Want To

Get your rocket build off the ground with this!

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As you might expect from a website like PistonHeads, the forums are full of car tuning suggestions.

Whatever those suggestions may be, it's safe to say that none of them will come close to the performance boost made possible (if not especially practical) by the contents of this small wooden box, currently starting at £5000 on a well known auction site near you.

Obviously, before you enter the auction you might like to consider a few points. First, you'll need a few more bits to turn your Reliant Robin into a Veyron-humbling mega-machine.

Then there are the seriously life-endangering characteristics of rocket power, not just for anyone standing behind but also for the mug behind the wheel.

American 'Slammin' Sammy Miller was an addict of extreme acceleration. He traded the relatively pedestrian pace of nitromethane-powered Funny Cars (one of which put him in hospital for six months) for the eerily silent but utterly outlandish pace of rocket-powered drag vehicles.

Just how quick were they? Well, in 2012 Spencer Massey's bellowing Top Fueler set a new NHRA world record ET by covering the quarter mile in 3.729 seconds at a terminal speed of just under 330mph. Nearly 32 years ago, in July 1984, Sammy put his Oxygen rocket car into stage at Santa Pod. 3.58 seconds later he silently coasted through the top end lights at 386mph. This remains the quickest quarter mile pass recorded on any dragstrip anywhere.

With Sammy admitting that he routinely blacked out during his 10G runs, the NHRA sanctioning body felt obliged to make rocket cars illegal. So as not to waste the car, Miller strapped some skis to Oxygen and drove it at 247mph on New York's frozen Lake George. Well, you would wouldn't you.

Tragically, Sammy was killed in a Texas oilfield accident in 2002. Here he is bursting most of Santa Pod's control tower windows in his 30,000hp Vanishing Point funny car. And here we see him (or thanks to the edit, don't see him) having a bit of a moment at the Hockenheim. Cool refuelling guys in silver raincoats and Vader helmets weren't just part of the spectacle: rocket fuel is pretty nasty stuff.

Legal rocket action is now available once more in the UK in the loopy bike-riding shape of Frenchman Eric Teboul, due to appear at the Pod a couple of times this year. Why not win the auction and turn up in your rocket Robin? After all, there are no moving parts to wear out, apart from your eyeballs.

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DRAG CAR ROCKET
Price: Bidding opened at £5,000
Why you should: Everyone dreams of running a rocket dragster
Why you shouldn't: The rocket has been sitting in a shed for a number of years

See the original advert here.

For your chance to win a passenger ride in a dragster click here.

[Eric Teboul photo: Mark Skinner]

[patmahe]

This + shed of the week = A lot of performance for 6k

[Equus]

The rocket chamber is the easy bit, unfortunately.

The pressurised fuel tanks, and control valves that don't dissolve or corrode when you pass concentrated H2O2 through them is the bigger problem.

...but then the biggest problem is getting hold of concentrated H2O2, these days.

Until you've resolved these issues, it's just a nice ornament for your mantelpiece. Or perhaps you could turn it nozzle-upwards and put flowers in it?

Edited by Equus on Friday 8th April 13:30

[Veeayt]

I heard Richard Hammond loved one.

[Equus]

Veeayt said:

I heard Richard Hammond loved one.

That was a jet you eejit.

[Gandahar]

"This will require fuel controls and pressurised fuel system."

So it's just the bit at the end?

No wonder Richard Noble has been delayed if he is sticking stuff on ebay.

[hornet]

At the risk of being a massive pedant, the quoted 3.7 sec ET is over the reduced distance of 1000ft. From memory, fastest Top Fuel ETs before the change were in the 4.4x sec range. Makes Miller's records ever more impressive. Nice list Here. He was running 3 second / 300mph+ quarters in the late 1970s for crying out loud!

I was fortunate enough to see Vanishing Point run at Santa Pod in the mid to late 80s (although not the 386mph pass) and it was mind bendingly quick. Seen plenty of 4 sec / 300mph+ Top Fuel runs, but Vanishing Point was just in a different league altogether. "Jaw dropping" doesn't really do Miller justice.

Oh, and the vehicle in the picture is clearly a jet. Sorry

[Nik Attard]

And if that is a little too much work, you could always try to win the passenger ride in a dragster.

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-advertorial/win...

[Blackpuddin]

I saw Miller at the Pod too. It was, as Hornet says, mind-bending. One second you were looking at the car on the start line, in total silence apart from the odd puff, the next second there was an empty space where the car had been.

[Coatesy351]

Use it for a rocket go kart?

[unsprung]

article said:

With Sammy admitting that he routinely blacked out during his 10G runs...

[hairykrishna]

What an excellent find. Unfortunately these days nobody will supply hydrogen peroxide in high enough concentrations so it's basically useless. I suppose a sufficiently committed lunatic could distil their own. How much fuel did vanishing point use per run?

[Tango13]

Anything rocket powered is mad!

The maddest of the lot was the X-15, 60,000lbs of thrust in an aircraft weighing 15,000lb

It would gain 100mph of forward speed in a single second, in a 45 degree climb whilst already doing 3,000mph+

The astronauts would complain that they could feel the muscles that held their hearts in place stretch from the sustained acceleration/decelleration.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DFIDW9K/ref=dp-kindl...

Edited by Tango13 on Saturday 9th April 10:58