The Four Major Classes of Drag Racing
A day at the drag strip can be fun for everyone from the little boys who love the smell and sound of high-speed cars to their fathers who grew up with the muscle car era. This may also be very confusing if you don't know the classes and rules of the races. The biggest drag racing league is the NHRA, National Hot Rod Association. Everything in the race must be fair and very exact. To do this the NHRA uses a classification system. Class eligibility is based on various requirements and specifications, including type of vehicle, engine size, vehicle weight, allowable modifications, and aerodynamics. The four Professional categories are Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Bike.
Top Fuel dragsters, the fastest-accelerating vehicles in the world, are the most recognizable of all drag race cars. These cars are limited to a 25-foot body and are very low to the ground. This is important because they are capable of covering the quarter-mile in less than 4.5 seconds at speeds in excess of 330 mph. A supercharger, fuel injection, or a nitro methane-burning engine may power these long narrow "missiles". In this class, it is easy for the cars to produce more than 6,000 horsepower.
The second fastest class, Funny Cars, usually don't look anything like the production vehicles on which they are based. The bodies of these cars may be constructed out of composite carbon fiber. This is a lightweight semi durable material. The reason why these cars may be made of this is because they aren't as powerful as the Top Fuelers. This class also may be supercharged, fuel-injected, or nitro methane burning. The limitation of horsepower, however, is greater. They must be under 6,000 to qualify in this class. With less horses behind the wheel and less aerodynamic designs most of these cars will travel the quarter-mile in less than five seconds at speeds more than 320 mph.
My favorite class, Pro Stock cars, on the other hand, looks like their showroom counterparts, but that's where the similarity ends. This class is reserved for 1990 or later two-door coupes and sedans that are limited to 500 cubic inches. These cars must have a milder powerhouse though. They must be carbureted, gas- burning cars. Other than that, there really aren't many more limitations.
Nascar…. When you think of moonshine you think of the hillbillies in overalls fireing up grand daddys still in the b ack forty. It may come to a shock to you when you learn that nascars the billion dollor enterprise with 100,000 cars that are engineered to be as fast as they can be. Its hard to belive it all started from shine runners. During the great depression millions of gallons of shine were in need of distribution. This is where the ridge runners came into play. The shiners needed a way to get there shine from the stills to the stash houses…. The cops at the time had stock cars and if you could out run them then you wre free. You can only get in trouble if you are caught in the act….. the backwoods shiners started to build cars that would out run the cops. This was the beginning of nascar…..
The green flag drops on the first race in The National Dirt Racing Association(NDRA). It doesn’t matter where people go, on some little road in a small town, people will find a small dirt track. The speedways are mostly always located in city areas where a large amount of people live. After a weekend of racing the teams head to the shop to fix the car up again. Despite the fact, that racing had been around since before 1978; whenever Mr. Robert Smawley introduced NDRA, and later Mr. Bill France introduced NASCAR, more people paid attention to the sport of racing.
The Physics Behind the Power of an Engine Insert the key, turn, and vroom. And down the road you go. Most people take for granted the strange conglomeration of metal and plastic under that sheet of metal, either in front or back of their vehicle. The engine, as you may have guessed, is a modern marvel- so to speak. They’re found in cars, trucks, boats, airplanes.
Some say that automotive racing began when the second car was built. For over a hundred years, competition has driven innovation in the car industry, thus the industry maxim “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” NASCAR and drag racing contributed greatly to muscle cars’ success. Muscle cars were born from these competitions as factory made race cars. Because of this, the muscle car quickly moved from a low quantity specialty item to the image of the American automotive scene. Each brand had to have one and each one needed better performance and personality than the next. The Golden Age began in the 1960s with the introduction of more performance models such as the Chevy SS Impala and the Ford Galaxy Starliner (Auto Editors).
Take a look at your car, it probably can only hit eighty on a good day. Then watch the top fuel and funny car dragsters of the National Hot Rod Association who get three hundred miles per hour on a bad day. You would be blown away at the diffrence in power. The pure power and the amount of noise that these cars produce will blow you away. I'm going to inform you on a lot of the amazing facts about the nitro powered dragsters of the NHRA. First, i'm going to inform you on how drag racing started and on how drag racing works, then how the dragsters work. Following that i'm going to explain how the equipment keeps the drivers and workers safe, finally I will explain how the sport is evolving,
...ferent jobs and different options like horsepower and inside. If you're a retailer and you are taking you buyers to look at a house you want a nice car to take them in. Not a van or a truck. If you're a construction worker you want a truck that works as hard as you do and not a van or a small truck.
There are many different kinds of vehicles on the road, but the ones that stand out the most are muscle cars and sports cars. Their unique design and body styles will catch people’s attention wherever they go. The Ford Mustang, a high performing muscle car introduced in 1964, is the most notable muscle car on the streets. It is most known for its unique body design with a long hood and short, rear decks. Their high performing V8 engines make their exhausts have a really deep, loud growl. When you think of sports cars, the first that comes to mind is the Chevrolet Corvette. Its sleek body style paired with its ability to stick to the ground around corners, makes it a very notable sports car in America. The two most iconic versions of these
A Mark IV Toyota Supra and Chevy Camaro SS pull up at a red light on a lonesome stretch of flat road amongst a dimming blue sky; the drivers nod at one another, rev the engines, and jam the accelerator pedals. When two drivers try to outrace each other on public streets, automobile driving makes a turn into the illegal form of motor racing known as street racing. Several possible causes to this aggressive street driving include a recent release of movies that inspire racing by the desire to fulfill the adrenaline rush raging in young people, the overall convenience of street racing, and most importantly, a way for teenagers to achieve nobility status in a short a time.
Drag: Here's where aerodynamics come into play. As an object moves through the air, it is met with air resistance as speeds increase. This air resistance pushes against your CO2 car and prevents it from going as fast as it could in a vacuum. You can't completely ever reduce drag, but you can help reduce it by building a more aerodynamic car, but those are more difficult to create.
You can never run away from your stupid little bring down problems the way you can when you have a ten cylinder hyper carbon engine and wheels rated for at least three hundred mph.
To make comparing easier, a 2004 Ford SVT (Special Vehicle Teams) Mustang Cobra and a 2000 Acura Integra Type R will be used as the comparison. The engine in the Mustang is a 4.601 liter, 280.8 cubic inch V-8 engine with 32 valves DOHC (Dual Over Head Cams), sequential electronic fuel injection, and an Eaton Generation IV roots-type supercharger, with a TTC T-56 6 speed Manual creating 390 break horse power at 6000 RPM and 389 foot pounds of torque at 3500 RPM. It has a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds, a quarter mile time of 12.6 seconds at 112 mph, and has a limited top speed of 155 mph. The Integra has a B18C5, 1.797 liter, 110 cubic inch, 4 cylinders, 16 valves DOHC VTEC engine. It creates 195 horse power at 8000 RPM and 130 foot pounds of torque at 7000 RPM. It has a 0-60 mph time of 6.5 seconds, a quarter mile time of 14.7 seconds, and has a limited top speed of 135 mph.
In order to have a fast and efficient car all these things I have discussed need to be taken into consideration. A fast car should be designed with aerodynamic surfaces for a balance of maximum production of downforce and minimum drag creating surfaces. It should have as small an engine as possible to reduce mass and reduce the necessary size of the frontal area, but a large enough engine to be able to produce enough horsepower to be able to create more force than the resistance the car faces to accelerate and enough to balance with those forces at high speeds. The tires should be wide enough for fast acceleration and good cornering but not so wide it creates large amounts of rolling resistance. Your overall best example of such a car would be formula one races or Indy cars because they have to have good handling, fast acceleration and reach and maintain high speeds.
of cars but also in a wide range of styles and sizes, including, mini-vans, sport utility vehicles
Frank Choi set out to form an imports only drag race where the track turned away all the muscle cars. His vision became what is now called the Battle of the Imports, one of the most popular drag series and the first of which was started in 1990. Today there is a professional drag racing series by the National Hot Rod Association as well as the Nopi Drag Racing Association run by an aftermarket company out of Atlanta called Nopi.
...xty-seven mile an hour record, until now. The Current world’s fastest car is now the Hennessey Venom GT. Last year, 2013, the Venom reached a speed of two-hundred and sixty-five miles an hour. This year, 2014, the Venom reached a speed of two-hundred and seventy miles an hour, making it the official worlds fastest car.