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I think there may well be, there aren't as many sponsors willing to foot the bill of an increasingly expensive form of racing.
You're probably right in terms of the actual number of cars out there.
I was thinking more in terms of opportunities to see them run. The little strip where I hung out as a teenager never had a funny car class because there weren't any funny cars in the area, but they had a couple in to run exhibitions at least once a year. I'm guessing that the small tracks are still doing that, and that the bigger tracks that ran funny car classes back in the day are still doing so. But with there being fewer total tracks, there are fewer opportunities to see them along with all other classes of dragsters.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by duster1979
You're probably right in terms of the actual number of cars out there.
I was thinking more in terms of opportunities to see them run. The little strip where I hung out as a teenager never had a funny car class because there weren't any funny cars in the area, but they had a couple in to run exhibitions at least once a year. I'm guessing that the small tracks are still doing that, and that the bigger tracks that ran funny car classes back in the day are still doing so. But with there being fewer total tracks, there are fewer opportunities to see them along with all other classes of dragsters.
I guess I got kinda spoiled, I grew up an hour or so from Raceway Park, they had any number of Wednesday night events during the season.
Not like they use to back in the day, i remember every weekend watching drag races not only funny cars burn regular people racing their muscle cars , hell my brother raced for pinks back in the 70’s.
John Force and his daughters have made that class as about popular as it was ever going to get.
Part of the issue is that funny cars run almost the same numbers as top fuel and only certain tracks can attract and handle them...big dollars.
The ProMod stuff now runs pretty much what the older funny cars did and I personally like watching them just as much if not more, certainly more variety IMO.
This should have quotes and a reference link with it. It’s available on the web by doing a search “top fuel by the numbers”.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbohm
that 11.2 gallons per second, about the same rate as a fully loaded 747 but with 4 times the energy volume, is at full throttle, and since these cars are at full throttle for just a few seconds at a time, they dont need to carry as much fuel as you think. closer to about 30 gallons. they only need enough fuel to run for a minute or so. time wise.
One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.
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 nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F. * Nitro methane 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. 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.
* Dragsters reach over 300 MPH before you have completed reading this sentence.
* In order to exceed 300 MPH in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4 G’s. In order to reach 200 MPH well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8 G’s.
* 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 9500 RPM.
* THE BOTTOM LINE: Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, & for once, NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000 per second.
The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter-mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 333.00 MPH (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66′ of the run (09/28/03, Doug Kalitta).
Putting this all into perspective:
Lets say the 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 & ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip as you pass by it. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the ‘Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line & pass the dragster at an honest 200 MPH. Just as you pass the Top Fuel Dragster the ‘tree’ goes green for both of you.
The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums & within 3 seconds the dragster catches & 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 & not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race!
That’s acceleration!
one more little fun fact, when these cars were making "only" 8000hp, they had trouble with a phenomenon called tire shake. what they found was the tires would actually deform at speed. once over the 9000hp mark, the tire shake went away as they had enough power to keep the tires round.
as for the tire growth, that is actually built into drag tires. the sidewalls are designed to wrinkle to get maximum traction, and then grow to provide an overdrive of sorts.
NHRA racing might not be as popular as it once was. In some of the races I've seen televised there were a lot of empty seats in the stands.
What seems to have increased it's numbers though is the whole Grudge racing scene. X275, No-Prep, Outlaw Drag radial etc.. Just to a google search on Lights Out 9, one of the many grudge type races.
I personally would rather watch a door slammer that looks like a 9 second car , run 4.00's at 200mph in the 1/8th mile on a 275 drag radial than NHRA pro stock.
One of the X275 drag radial cars raced a quarter mile event and ran a 5.86 at 253. That is fast enough to qualify roughly in the middle of the field in a Top Alcohol Funny car event.
This car is probably putting 3500-4000hp to the ground. https://www.dragzine.com/news/5-86-s...l-tire-record/
They should just run it where you line up and go whenever you want, then your time is the only thing that matters or advances you. I went and watched races about 3 times and that's enough for me. You couldn't pay me to go do it again. Nascar too, camping at indy was fun, race sucked, never again. After driving corporate owned Porsches around a track, I'd love to race someones else's car!
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