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Home > Articles > KruzIn Park > Drag Racing Now & Then
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Drag Racing Now & Then
By Milton Pistenz, Contributing Editor
Sometimes you hear somebody marvel at the incredible speeds and staggeringly quick elapsed times generated in the top fuel classes, and then they’ll compare the figures to the pitiful performance numbers posted when the sport of drag racing was in its infancy. The next mental step would be to fantasize at what it would be like to have a 21st century Top Fuel Funnycar go back in time to wow the fans, say, fifty years ago. And to make it even more mind-blowing for those early dragstrip spectators, "massage & paint" the carbon-fiber & Kevlar body to look as close to a slippery 1953 Studebaker H-T coupe as possible!
Now if we were able to transport that super-trick streamlined Studee and crew back in time (silly as it may be), so that the 2004 TF/FC was staged on the old Motorburg Airport dragstrip starting line in 1954, when the world record was around 10 seconds at 144 mph, we would have the possibility of a couple things happening:
1. No matter how the clutch was set up, the flopper would probably sit and smoke the strip with literally no transfer of traction, since it would not have the advantage of our modern dragstrip surface construction and exotic traction compounds covering the first few hundred feet of the pavement. In fact, if this 8000 horsepower beast could achieve any serious traction, it would probably delaminate and rip away any starting-line asphalt that was used in those days. So, in reality, this potentially sub-five second machine could possibly get its clock cleaned by the local hot dog in his $500 junkyard special.
 2. If, by some miracle, it could make the trip without smoking the tires, it would probably run an even higher top speed than today, as timing clocks used to straddle the finish line with beams 66 feet in front of and 66 feet after the quarter mile finish line. Today, both top speed timers are placed ahead of the stripe. However, this 330 mph fantasy fueler would probably run off the end of the runway, dual chutes or no, because of the short shut-off area at the Motorburg Dragway in those days. This, of course, wasn’t a peculiarity exclusive to our humble strip, but a fact plaguing most quarter mile strip facilities during the early fifties. To even stand a chance of stopping, the modern racecar would have to pop its chute before the finish line in order to keep from flying into a culvert or cornfield.
Suddenly, you get a little better appreciation of some cobbled up fifty year-old car, with no chute and automotive drum brakes on the rear only, accelerating at a rate comparable to a stock Suzuki Hayabusa of today. What’s more, these slingshots of yore pushed through high pressure street compound retread slicks with no more than a fraction over 8 inch tread-width for a contact patch of less than one quarter of the area that modern Top Fuel cars depend upon. And, to add insult to injury, these "minimalist constructions" were lucky to sport even a single hoop roll bar or basic bell housing scattershield. They didn’t call them "rail jobs" for nothing.
Nevertheless, modern technology moves ever forward, and the tricks learned over the last fifty years could certainly be utilized to create a specially designed vehicle to run astounding speeds in those primitive conditions. One way would be to construct and install a very sophisticated computer-controlled traction control system, kind of an automatic "super- transmission" (similar to the design technology used in Formula One Grand Prix cars), instead of the manually calibrated multi-clutch set-up used today. Although exceeding current records without jet or rocket power may prove unlikely, 5 second E.T.s @ 300 mph may have even been possible down the narrow old Motorburg racetrack with such a fly-by-wire system. Another way to conquer those old "as fault" dragstrips would be to scratch-build the ideal purpose-built ultimate record-setting racing machine... Maybe it would be kind of a "cartoon concept car". In other words, a modern drag machine with gigantic gummy slicks and high pressure systems applicators to spray traction compound in front of the tires during the run. We could name it the "Wild E. Coyote". As they used to say, "Beep, beep, yur ass!"
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