The last word on the 1000' foot debate
Discussion
Previous quartermile record 4.4 something at 330+mph.
Today at the four-wide event, 3.8 seconds to 332mph, and when the car crossed the old finish line it was safely below 300mph.
So the time taken to reach the same speed has dropped by over half a second and the cars are accelerating considerably harder than they were five years ago?
Can we at last put an end to all this '1000 foot racing is terrible for the sport of Drag Racing' b
ks please?
Slinky, close the thread :-)
Today at the four-wide event, 3.8 seconds to 332mph, and when the car crossed the old finish line it was safely below 300mph.
So the time taken to reach the same speed has dropped by over half a second and the cars are accelerating considerably harder than they were five years ago?
Can we at last put an end to all this '1000 foot racing is terrible for the sport of Drag Racing' b
ks please?Slinky, close the thread :-)
Interesting point, and a phenomenal achievement. Although in the incident that created the 1000ft era, the car was "safely" below 300mph too. I think the cost advantages have been obvious, the safety aspect; negligible at best. Given a specific set of circumstances, disaster could still strike, even at a nice "safe" 1000ft. The fact an internal combustion engine can accelerate a car to those speeds in 1000ft is incredible, but you'll never convince me that it's anything more than a financial thing why the distance continues to be shortened.
Surely if it is more affordable to get greater acceleration out of the cars, that has to be a good thing? Agreed, I never bought the safety arguement. I think the 'for christ sake dont put a line of spikey concrete blocks across the end of the runoff area' arguement is far more compelling...
It's certainly safer. It gives an extra 320' of stopping distance and lower terminal speeds should anything go wrong. Is it enough safer to make a real difference, rather than merely pacifying the insurers? Probably not. I think we're all in agreement that safety wasn't really the driving factor behind the decision.
But surely to accelerate the same mass to the same speed in half a second and 320ft less the engine has to be hit with a considerably larger tuning stick? So the parts saving point is moot?
Morgan Lucas and Matt Hagan amongst others have shown already this year you can blow em up just as good in 1000ft as you can on the 1/4.
I don't really care either way, I want to see big noisy cars go fast at the end of the day
and preferably the beginning and middle too.
Making an internal combustion engine accelerate something to 332mph in 3.8 seconds is astounding. Schu was 3.12@287 at the 1/8th on the first 330mph 1000ft pass, that's mental.
10 years ago we got excited seeing a fueller run 5.1@287 on the 1/4 over here.
Interestingly Morgan Lucas' string of mid 3.7s with sub 3second 1/8th netted considerably lower speeds. The DSR boys have found something!
And while we're here, Bill Reichert 5.14 in an a-fueller on 94%, that is also worthy of bowing down to
Morgan Lucas and Matt Hagan amongst others have shown already this year you can blow em up just as good in 1000ft as you can on the 1/4.
I don't really care either way, I want to see big noisy cars go fast at the end of the day
and preferably the beginning and middle too.Making an internal combustion engine accelerate something to 332mph in 3.8 seconds is astounding. Schu was 3.12@287 at the 1/8th on the first 330mph 1000ft pass, that's mental.
10 years ago we got excited seeing a fueller run 5.1@287 on the 1/4 over here.
Interestingly Morgan Lucas' string of mid 3.7s with sub 3second 1/8th netted considerably lower speeds. The DSR boys have found something!
And while we're here, Bill Reichert 5.14 in an a-fueller on 94%, that is also worthy of bowing down to
Edited by MotorPsycho on Sunday 15th April 23:30
Jon C said:
Previous quartermile record 4.4 something at 330+mph.
Today at the four-wide event, 3.8 seconds to 332mph, and when the car crossed the old finish line it was safely below 300mph.
So the time taken to reach the same speed has dropped by over half a second and the cars are accelerating considerably harder than they were five years ago?
Can we at last put an end to all this '1000 foot racing is terrible for the sport of Drag Racing' bks please?
Slinky, close the thread :-)
The thread might as well be closed as no matter what anyone says 1000 foot is here to stay but i have to disagree with you Jon about it not being a backward step for the sport.As you say the time taken to reach 330 mph has dropped by half a second and the cars are accelerating considerably harder than 5 years ago which must put more strain on parts therefore the cost saving argument for going to 1000 foot will most likely not be true, so if this continues in a few years they will be running over 300 mph at 660 foot and will they then have to reduce the race distance to 660 feet? surely that is something nobody wants and would definatly be a backward step for the sport.Today at the four-wide event, 3.8 seconds to 332mph, and when the car crossed the old finish line it was safely below 300mph.
So the time taken to reach the same speed has dropped by over half a second and the cars are accelerating considerably harder than they were five years ago?
Can we at last put an end to all this '1000 foot racing is terrible for the sport of Drag Racing' b
ks please?Slinky, close the thread :-)
My impression is the NHRA {or maybe their insurers}are paranoid about terminal speeds, if TF starts doing 330 mph consistently at 1,000ft I suspect there will be pressure to either find some way of limiting power or they will reduce the distance to 900ft or whatever.
The thing with motor racing {as has been demonstrated in F1 over the years} is that "cost saving" measures very rarely seem to translate into any reduction in the money actually spent as if teams save money in one way they tend to spend it somewhere else. Therefore I bet DSR/Force etc are spending just as much running their cars now as they did when we still had the full quarter.
I don't buy the safety argument unless the strip has a run off which is too short anyway and I'm very dubious about the cost saving argument so therefore I can't see any sensible reason for 1,000ft at all.I also don't like the " it's here and there is nothing we can do about it so you can only say good things about it" attitude which some people seem to adopt to close down any debate. Drag racing is not {yet}North Korea where desent is not allowed !
Bill
The thing with motor racing {as has been demonstrated in F1 over the years} is that "cost saving" measures very rarely seem to translate into any reduction in the money actually spent as if teams save money in one way they tend to spend it somewhere else. Therefore I bet DSR/Force etc are spending just as much running their cars now as they did when we still had the full quarter.
I don't buy the safety argument unless the strip has a run off which is too short anyway and I'm very dubious about the cost saving argument so therefore I can't see any sensible reason for 1,000ft at all.I also don't like the " it's here and there is nothing we can do about it so you can only say good things about it" attitude which some people seem to adopt to close down any debate. Drag racing is not {yet}North Korea where desent is not allowed !
Bill
MotorPsycho said:
But surely to accelerate the same mass to the same speed in half a second and 320ft less the engine has to be hit with a considerably larger tuning stick? So the parts saving point is moot?
Morgan Lucas and Matt Hagan amongst others have shown already this year you can blow em up just as good in 1000ft as you can on the 1/4.
I don't really care either way, I want to see big noisy cars go fast at the end of the day and preferably the beginning and middle too.
Making an internal combustion engine accelerate something to 332mph in 3.8 seconds is astounding. Schu was 3.12@287 at the 1/8th on the first 330mph 1000ft pass, that's mental.
10 years ago we got excited seeing a fueller run 5.1@287 on the 1/4 over here.
Interestingly Morgan Lucas' string of mid 3.7s with sub 3second 1/8th netted considerably lower speeds. The DSR boys have found something!
And while we're here, Bill Reichert 5.14 in an a-fueller on 94%, that is also worthy of bowing down to
mentioned Reicherts run on facebook. All they need now is Monroe Guest back. Never forget that 5.15 et I saw over pond. I understand FIA A fuel runs 96% nitro?Morgan Lucas and Matt Hagan amongst others have shown already this year you can blow em up just as good in 1000ft as you can on the 1/4.
I don't really care either way, I want to see big noisy cars go fast at the end of the day
and preferably the beginning and middle too.Making an internal combustion engine accelerate something to 332mph in 3.8 seconds is astounding. Schu was 3.12@287 at the 1/8th on the first 330mph 1000ft pass, that's mental.
10 years ago we got excited seeing a fueller run 5.1@287 on the 1/4 over here.
Interestingly Morgan Lucas' string of mid 3.7s with sub 3second 1/8th netted considerably lower speeds. The DSR boys have found something!
And while we're here, Bill Reichert 5.14 in an a-fueller on 94%, that is also worthy of bowing down to
Edited by MotorPsycho on Sunday 15th April 23:30
dodgeomini said:
mentioned Reicherts run on facebook. All they need now is Monroe Guest back. Never forget that 5.15 et I saw over pond. I understand FIA A fuel runs 96% nitro?
Too right! I love a-fuellers, was a good few years back now where there was a solid string of low 5.1s from a few cars, then they started kicking the nitro back which really hampered them. All time reord is still Bill's 5.10@284 from 2007, pretty sure on 100% you'd now be seeing 4second 300mph a-fuellers, that would have been epic.MotorPsycho said:
Too right! I love a-fuellers, was a good few years back now where there was a solid string of low 5.1s from a few cars, then they started kicking the nitro back which really hampered them. All time reord is still Bill's 5.10@284 from 2007, pretty sure on 100% you'd now be seeing 4second 300mph a-fuellers, that would have been epic.
Yes a 4 second A fueler would be awesome. There was another guy, Mick? Myers who ran a 5.10 in 2004@pomona.Ive got an amateur vid of it somewhere.He never returned back after the nhra reduced the nitro I dont think.dodgeomini said:
Yes a 4 second A fueler would be awesome. There was another guy, Mick? Myers who ran a 5.10 in 2004@pomona.Ive got an amateur vid of it somewhere.He never returned back after the nhra reduced the nitro I dont think.
Mitch Myers yea, retired after they dropped nitro % the first time. Tuned by none other than Steve Boggs, probably one of the all time great all round tuners, great success with blown alky, blown nitro and injected nitro.Since there seem to be many "last words" on this topic, I might as well add mine.
I never quite understood the "safety" aspect, on some european tracks there is a long shutdown area,
but since the drivers want the -kind of- same -basic- setup on every track they run,
this step seems unavoidable....*sigh*
It will be interesting seeing how the teams can cope with the shortened track
and how steep the learning curves will be, how fast they can get.
I will be listening quite curiously to the announcers @ Main Event,
hearing how they sell / explain this to the audience,
do you think everybody paying for the grandstands / banking will have noticed this change to 1000 before the weekend ?
Maybe the UK racing punters are well-informed, but I have my doubts about the majority of the Hockenheim crowd.
As for the whole CH3NO2 topic, weren´t there thoughts / plans inside the NHRA for "a future without Nitro",
with blown nitro cars first downsized to 400cui and other classes made to be the "new heroes",
or was this ditched like the monostrut wing ?
Last question, why are FIA A-Fuelers car still running a higher percentage than their US colleagues ?
I think the % in the US is down for years now, but FIA are not following as usually done (1-2 years later) ?
I never quite understood the "safety" aspect, on some european tracks there is a long shutdown area,
but since the drivers want the -kind of- same -basic- setup on every track they run,
this step seems unavoidable....*sigh*
It will be interesting seeing how the teams can cope with the shortened track
and how steep the learning curves will be, how fast they can get.
I will be listening quite curiously to the announcers @ Main Event,
hearing how they sell / explain this to the audience,
do you think everybody paying for the grandstands / banking will have noticed this change to 1000 before the weekend ?
Maybe the UK racing punters are well-informed, but I have my doubts about the majority of the Hockenheim crowd.
As for the whole CH3NO2 topic, weren´t there thoughts / plans inside the NHRA for "a future without Nitro",
with blown nitro cars first downsized to 400cui and other classes made to be the "new heroes",
or was this ditched like the monostrut wing ?
Last question, why are FIA A-Fuelers car still running a higher percentage than their US colleagues ?
I think the % in the US is down for years now, but FIA are not following as usually done (1-2 years later) ?
i understand the NHRA's decision to go 1000ft , especially after seeing them reaching 332mph over 1000ft , would have we been looking at 350mph over the quarter on that run?
But , as for us going 1000ft racing is pretty pathetic and i wont be going up Santa Pod again until they realise how stupid the idea was and that they return to the proper distance , over here we only just started( Andersen Bro's + Kim Raymond (a very freak run) ) to run the numbers the NHRA were running 15 years ago. I think the class top fuel is pretty much of a joke over here now , we will be seeing regular top speeds of 270mph , with maybe Urs just touching 280mph ? . So yeah for me drag racing has had it now , yawn! been going up the pod and good ol shakey since i were a youngster in the early 90's watching the likes of Jens Nibo , Rico Anthes getting ever closer to the 4 second barrier and then Barry Shievels , Rub Turner and Anita Makela in top alky battle it out. Thats when drag racing over hear was so exciting. Why oh why did Tierp have to come along.
But , as for us going 1000ft racing is pretty pathetic and i wont be going up Santa Pod again until they realise how stupid the idea was and that they return to the proper distance , over here we only just started( Andersen Bro's + Kim Raymond (a very freak run) ) to run the numbers the NHRA were running 15 years ago. I think the class top fuel is pretty much of a joke over here now , we will be seeing regular top speeds of 270mph , with maybe Urs just touching 280mph ? . So yeah for me drag racing has had it now , yawn! been going up the pod and good ol shakey since i were a youngster in the early 90's watching the likes of Jens Nibo , Rico Anthes getting ever closer to the 4 second barrier and then Barry Shievels , Rub Turner and Anita Makela in top alky battle it out. Thats when drag racing over hear was so exciting. Why oh why did Tierp have to come along.
Nitro Head UK said:
i understand the NHRA's decision to go 1000ft , especially after seeing them reaching 332mph over 1000ft , would have we been looking at 350mph over the quarter on that run?
But , as for us going 1000ft racing is pretty pathetic and i wont be going up Santa Pod again until they realise how stupid the idea was and that they return to the proper distance , over here we only just started( Andersen Bro's + Kim Raymond (a very freak run) ) to run the numbers the NHRA were running 15 years ago. I think the class top fuel is pretty much of a joke over here now , we will be seeing regular top speeds of 270mph , with maybe Urs just touching 280mph ? . So yeah for me drag racing has had it now , yawn! been going up the pod and good ol shakey since i were a youngster in the early 90's watching the likes of Jens Nibo , Rico Anthes getting ever closer to the 4 second barrier and then Barry Shievels , Rub Turner and Anita Makela in top alky battle it out. Thats when drag racing over hear was so exciting. Why oh why did Tierp have to come along.
Thats pretty ignorant. The teams wanted it, and its not like Santa Pod Raceway themselves have made that choice, I hope you enjoy missing a top notch season.But , as for us going 1000ft racing is pretty pathetic and i wont be going up Santa Pod again until they realise how stupid the idea was and that they return to the proper distance , over here we only just started( Andersen Bro's + Kim Raymond (a very freak run) ) to run the numbers the NHRA were running 15 years ago. I think the class top fuel is pretty much of a joke over here now , we will be seeing regular top speeds of 270mph , with maybe Urs just touching 280mph ? . So yeah for me drag racing has had it now , yawn! been going up the pod and good ol shakey since i were a youngster in the early 90's watching the likes of Jens Nibo , Rico Anthes getting ever closer to the 4 second barrier and then Barry Shievels , Rub Turner and Anita Makela in top alky battle it out. Thats when drag racing over hear was so exciting. Why oh why did Tierp have to come along.
And FYI current 1000ft records (after one season)
ET - Tommy Johnson Jr 4.00 backed up by 3.95.
MPH - Risto Poutiainen 305mph backed up by 304.
Kim's 4.64 was not a freak run by any stretch of the imagination either, the Anderson's had been building up to that all season, I saw Kim run 4.7s at Gardermoen the previous race shredding the blower belt at 1000ft (ironically...) The Anderson's have been streets ahead of everyone for a long time, look at their history. Records and championships with everyone they've tuned, Jens Nybo, Tommy Moller, Hakan Nilsson, Andy Carter, TJ......
If you're going to quote racers names please make the effort to spell them correctly
Edited by MotorPsycho on Tuesday 17th April 08:26
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