When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Discussion
Just about any gearhead or racer knows the nickname for the hemi is the "elephant engine", but we also know that when something has been around long enough it will eventually get the "dinosaur" nickname hung around its neck.
For anyone who went to the movies or rented "Jurassic Park" on video, you already know that a modern day encounter with a real dinosaur could be a perilous life changing event. I mean the kind of change that involves adrenal glands screaming in pain, heart rates that would make a nurse faint and the kind of gasping but silent,yet intense level of prayer that puts you on a first name basis with Jesus Christ himself.
This particular dinosaur was a 6-71 blown,33% overdriven, 392 hemi that had been put together from several old slingshot dragster engines. All good parts mind you, but the focus was "go" and not "show" as I stuffed this 80% nitro burning beast into an unappealing and downright nasty model A Ford.
The whole experience began when I was coaxed far beyond the water box and lighting off the rear slicks in a full on high gear smoke fest.
No wait, the craziness really began 35 minutes earlier when I walked past the make shift work bench in the pit area. I brushed against something and turned to watch our only hydrometer slowly roll of the bench and shatter into a hundred pieces on the ground. My crew chief and I quickly made the decision not to try to find someone out of our class to borrow one from, but instead to dump the fuel tank and adjust the setup to run straight NITRO!
My next clear thought was to deep stage the car and try to cut an almost perfect light. The car launched with more torque than I had ever felt before, lofting the front wheels skyward almost instantly. A kind of euphoria came over my whole being, maybe this is what its like to be scared so badly you don't even realize it yourself, or maybe you're just in awe of the sensation of being pushed down the track by the hand of God Almighty.
Then all at once the wheels touched back down to earth and the feeling instantly changes to raw, mortal fear as the car rockets forward like being shot from a cannon. We aren't talking circus stuntman cannon here either, I mean the sixteen inch guns on the deck of the battleship U.S.S.Wisconsin.
At this point I found myself frantically sawing the steering wheel back and forth just to try and keep it going in something that would pass for a straight line. All the while I subconsciously, and methodically tried to work out a plan to get this screaming relic into high gear with my knee! With the backsides pucker factor easily exceeding 100% at this point, there was no way I was letting go with either had for even a second.
As if all this wasn't enough, the wheels turned in the back of my brain with the relentless pace of an NBA shot clock, knowing that if I kept the hammer down this vintage hemi would surely come unglued if I didn’t get into high gear post haste. Burning the straight nitro would compound the problem of the high revs leaning out one or more cylinders, and in my experience that has always been followed by a large boom! I then proceeded to oil down the lane from about half track to the point where I came to a stop at the return road.
Nervously I climbed out of the smoldering remains of what was the culmination of my entire life’s savings, not to mention the hours of wrenching, sweat and barked knuckles. As I pondered my next move, I was then greeted by the smiling face of my cowboy crew chief with a large wad of Copenhagen precariously perched on his lip.
He looked at what was left of the car and all he said was; “Just kind of gives you a big ole' chubby now don’t it?”
Sage wisdom for the ages to say the least.
This was my one and only run in a nitro fueled anything! Future generations will look back at these hemi hot rods and say; “Yeah, but that’s when dinosaurs ruled the earth.”
For as long as I’m alive and building hot rods the car in my garage will be one of those dinosaurs! Bring on that kid with the front wheel drive, nitrous injected, rice rocket. He won’t be handing me my ass anytime soon, no matter how big a turbocharger he installs.
As for the prehistoric experience down the track, the timeslip read 7.22 at 108mph. That's top fuel fast for a model A, especially when you consider I never got the thing into high gear. Proof positive that a woolly mammoth can outrun a T-Rex if you give him a shot of nitro!
For anyone who went to the movies or rented "Jurassic Park" on video, you already know that a modern day encounter with a real dinosaur could be a perilous life changing event. I mean the kind of change that involves adrenal glands screaming in pain, heart rates that would make a nurse faint and the kind of gasping but silent,yet intense level of prayer that puts you on a first name basis with Jesus Christ himself.
This particular dinosaur was a 6-71 blown,33% overdriven, 392 hemi that had been put together from several old slingshot dragster engines. All good parts mind you, but the focus was "go" and not "show" as I stuffed this 80% nitro burning beast into an unappealing and downright nasty model A Ford.
The whole experience began when I was coaxed far beyond the water box and lighting off the rear slicks in a full on high gear smoke fest.
No wait, the craziness really began 35 minutes earlier when I walked past the make shift work bench in the pit area. I brushed against something and turned to watch our only hydrometer slowly roll of the bench and shatter into a hundred pieces on the ground. My crew chief and I quickly made the decision not to try to find someone out of our class to borrow one from, but instead to dump the fuel tank and adjust the setup to run straight NITRO!
My next clear thought was to deep stage the car and try to cut an almost perfect light. The car launched with more torque than I had ever felt before, lofting the front wheels skyward almost instantly. A kind of euphoria came over my whole being, maybe this is what its like to be scared so badly you don't even realize it yourself, or maybe you're just in awe of the sensation of being pushed down the track by the hand of God Almighty.
Then all at once the wheels touched back down to earth and the feeling instantly changes to raw, mortal fear as the car rockets forward like being shot from a cannon. We aren't talking circus stuntman cannon here either, I mean the sixteen inch guns on the deck of the battleship U.S.S.Wisconsin.
At this point I found myself frantically sawing the steering wheel back and forth just to try and keep it going in something that would pass for a straight line. All the while I subconsciously, and methodically tried to work out a plan to get this screaming relic into high gear with my knee! With the backsides pucker factor easily exceeding 100% at this point, there was no way I was letting go with either had for even a second.
As if all this wasn't enough, the wheels turned in the back of my brain with the relentless pace of an NBA shot clock, knowing that if I kept the hammer down this vintage hemi would surely come unglued if I didn’t get into high gear post haste. Burning the straight nitro would compound the problem of the high revs leaning out one or more cylinders, and in my experience that has always been followed by a large boom! I then proceeded to oil down the lane from about half track to the point where I came to a stop at the return road.
Nervously I climbed out of the smoldering remains of what was the culmination of my entire life’s savings, not to mention the hours of wrenching, sweat and barked knuckles. As I pondered my next move, I was then greeted by the smiling face of my cowboy crew chief with a large wad of Copenhagen precariously perched on his lip.
He looked at what was left of the car and all he said was; “Just kind of gives you a big ole' chubby now don’t it?”
Sage wisdom for the ages to say the least.
This was my one and only run in a nitro fueled anything! Future generations will look back at these hemi hot rods and say; “Yeah, but that’s when dinosaurs ruled the earth.”
For as long as I’m alive and building hot rods the car in my garage will be one of those dinosaurs! Bring on that kid with the front wheel drive, nitrous injected, rice rocket. He won’t be handing me my ass anytime soon, no matter how big a turbocharger he installs.
As for the prehistoric experience down the track, the timeslip read 7.22 at 108mph. That's top fuel fast for a model A, especially when you consider I never got the thing into high gear. Proof positive that a woolly mammoth can outrun a T-Rex if you give him a shot of nitro!
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