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Race Car of the Day : June 28, 2014; Racing Champions' '96 Top Fuel Dragster
Topic Started: Jun 27 2014, 11:22 PM (905 Views)
craftymore
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Support your local demo derby.

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Racing Champions' 1996 Top Fuel Dragster is today's race car of the day.

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Wikipedia.com
 
NHRA regulations limit the composition of the fuel to a maximum of 90% nitromethane (Since 2008); the remainder is largely methanol. However, this mixture is not mandatory, and less nitromethane may be used if desired.

Kenny Bernstein was the first drag racer in NHRA history to break 490 km/h (300 mph) in such a class of car on the 1/4 mile at the gatornationals on March 21st 1992, and Tony Schumacher the first over 500 km/h under the new rules established in 2008 with the shorter strip.[2]

While nitromethane has a much lower energy density (11.2 MJ/kg) than either gasoline (44 MJ/kg) or methanol (22.7 MJ/kg), an engine burning nitromethane can produce up to 2.3 times more power than an engine burning gasoline. This is made possible by the fact that, in addition to fuel, an engine must admit air in order to generate force: 14.7 kg of air is required to burn one kilogram of gasoline, compared to only 1.7 kg of air for one kilogram of nitromethane. This means that an engine can burn 8.7 times more nitromethane than gasoline.

Nitromethane also has a high latent heat of vaporization, meaning that it will absorb substantial engine heat as it vaporizes, providing an invaluable cooling mechanism. The laminar flame speed and combustion temperature are higher than gasoline at 0.5 m/s and 2400 °C respectively. Power output can be increased by using very rich air fuel mixtures. This is also something that helps prevent pre-ignition, something that is usually a problem when using nitromethane.


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Fuel is your one stop source for a general overview of top fuel dragsters.

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Racing Champions was among the 1st companies to offer a full line of assorted dedicated racing castings. Bruce Sarver's ride from 1996 is decked out CarQuest sponsorship colors.

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Wikipedia.com
 
Top fuel dragsters are the fastest sanctioned category of drag racers, with the fastest competitors reaching speeds of 330 miles per hour (530 km/h) and finishing the 1,000 foot (300 m) runs in 3.7 seconds, or the full quarter mile (402 m) in 4.4 seconds.

Because of the speeds, this class almost exclusively races to only the 1,000 foot (300 m) distance, and not the traditional 1/4 mile (1,320 foot / 402 m). The rule was changed in 2008 by the National Hot Rod Association following the fatal crash of Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta during qualifying at the SuperNationals, held at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ. The shortening of the distance was used in the FIA at some tracks, and for 2012 is now the standard Top Fuel distance. The Australian National Drag Racing Association is the only internationally recognized sanctioning body that races at 1,320 foot for the majority of races in Top Fuel.


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Edited by craftymore, Jun 28 2014, 08:37 AM.
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juantoo3
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I believe this is the first Top Fuel dragster we've featured! (Not a funny car though, a funny car would have a fiberglass body that more or less looked like a regular car and would tilt up for the driver to get in and out) This is what is known as a Rail, and since Don Garlits came out with the rear engine design for his Rail and started winning races in the early 70s (and just as important, increasing driver safety from exploding engines), everyone competing for the last 40 years or so has run rear engined designs in Top Fuel. These are the fastest cars in the quarter mile powered by reciprocating engines. Last I checked they were pushing the 320 mph mark, in 1/4 mile from a standing start.
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craftymore
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Support your local demo derby.

I've edited the wiki info to be correct now. I wasn't aware these were called Top Fuel.
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juantoo3
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

craftymore
Jun 28 2014, 08:39 AM
I've edited the wiki info to be correct now. I wasn't aware these were called Top Fuel.
"Top Fuel" is more the category, these rails run Nitromethane (and who knows what other improvements since I kept closer tabs on the sport), that is what makes them Top Fuel dragsters. A rail can run anything, I've see rails built to run with Model T engines, Crosley engines, Volvo engines...more for a laugh than anything but it shows that a rail dragster can run in a number of classes...but by far the most competitive is Top Fuel.

There used to be a middle class as I recall, that ran an alcohol mix, and if memory serves that category was called AA. It is here where a lot of the privateers ran their fuel altereds, gassers and open rails, which to my way of thinking were always the more imaginative and creative racers. Hot Wheels made a few in the past 5 or so years, like the Rat Trap and Pure heck altereds and the Comet and 55 Chevy gassers. Another category HW covered a bit was the altered wheelbase Super Stock racers, with cars like the Melrose Missile.
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juantoo3
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If I may be allowed a moment to wax nostalgic:

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This is "The Bug." I saw it at Garlit's museum some years ago, but that doesn't appear to be where this pic was taken. Be that as it may, this car is widely considered to be the very first dragster. In fairness, there was already an ongoing "lakes racing" tradition that started up right after WWII, with guys building their Hot Rod pre-war Fords (mostly) and Belly Tank racers, and it is from this tradition that we get T-buckets and Model A Hot Rods...even the most modern renditions can trace their roots to the lake racers of the late 40s.

Back to the Bug...that was mid 50s, and you can see the stripping down to bare essentials following the already tried and true formula that came from the T-buckets. As I recall this is built on a Model T frame. This was the car to beat in its day.

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This is Don Garlits' Swamp Rat 1. All told there were something like 27 Swamp Rats built through the years as Garlits improved his designs. It was really coincidental I brought his dragster up, it was the first of the early 60s era dragsters that I found.

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This is one of Tommy Ivo's creations, using 4 big block Buick nailheads. Note the open rail, this is somewhere between an altered and a rail dragster.

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Another altered, just to get some semblence of what I am speaking of. The differences can be subtle, and a lot has to do with what fuel they burn as to what category a racer is placed in.

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This is an example of a rail dragster typical of what ran in the mid 60s. Notice the open frame.

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At some point someone got the idea to wrap the open frame in some minimal body work, and you ended up with a lot of rails that looked similar to this in the late 60s and early 70s.

Don Garlits' Swamp Rat XIII was very similar to this, and that is what he was running when the engine exploded, costing him half of one of his feet. Recuperating in the hospital, so the story goes, Garlits mapped out what would become the biggest revolution in Top Fuel racing...the rear engine dragster.

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This is a nice cutaway view, and guys that actually race cover this frame with a minimal body. Other ideas were tried through the years. Wedge dragsters were a quick flash in the pan...that's where the Snake and Mongoose Hot Wheels from the redline era come from...but as it turned out the wedge was too heavy and the detriments outweighed the benefits, so that design was dropped.

A shovel nose got a lot of use in the 80s in an effort to keep the front wheels on the ground at speed. It worked well enough for a time that most top drivers used some version, until there was a bad accident where a dragster with a shovel nose inadvertantly popped a wheelie and the shovel then caught the wind at speed and flipped the car right over, hard. Shovel noses were dropped after that. There are some HW dragsters that have shovel noses made in the 80s, but usually overlooked by collectors because they look funny.

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This is more typical of Top Fuel dragsters for the past 20 years or so. This is about as close as I can get to the car of the day featured at the start of this thread.

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By contrast, this is a more modern Funny Car

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And this is a Funny Car from the late 60s-early 70s when I was really into the whole thing...well, as much as a ten year old kid could be.

So Funny Cars and Dragsters are VERY different animals, though they share many of the same parts.

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69Stang
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Station Wagon
Very Nice selection!!!! Nd I love all the extra drag photos as well, fun stuff!
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ivantt
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New casting? Quick! Take it apart!
NICE JOB, Wes, Thanks!!
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