So.. Worsham wins his semi final, but to no fault of his own hangs open an intake valve and backfires the blower and messes up the body. Small fire, no big deal, but they need to replace some wiring. Tim Wilkerson won his semi final round too, but the chutes got wrapped up in the wheelie bar, and it takes a trip to the beach and is up to it's ass in sand. Chassis is straight, Body can use a little fixing, or drag out the spare, but the car needs to be taken all apart and given a good bath.

If they can't make it back in 30 min. for the final they are both out?????

Yeah!!! I want to pay a bunch of money to not see a final!!!


Flame on....

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Go Hight!!!----4.63
Prock Rocket 2008 Style

there will be exceptions to any kind of changes that are made regardless of what they are

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Nostalgia Racing is where it's at folks!!!

Motown Shaker '08

"Joe Fan" will believe what he sees on the Scoreboard...

which really brings us to the next question, is it how long you do it or how quick you do it.... safely?

Okay, why not goes metric... 1/4 Klick= 250 meters= 819ft 4inches+/- an inch...

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To answer your question Paul... bring back the Break rule... Quickest loser is back in if the winner's broke...

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If you go metric you'll confuse all the folks who can't count to ten and will be asking "what's a klick?" 1/4Km or a 1000' either is better than hurting folks or 660'

Semper Gumby
D

Mike - we know you have a lot of knowledge about fuel racing, so I am going to ask you a question that I have asked before and have never recieved a convincing answer.
Why don't teams with unlimited resources just swap in a fresh motor and clutch package every round? I've heard theories that motors take a "set" and that is is easier to tune for the next round. But it seems to me that throwing in a fresh bullet in (possibly) 15 minutes, firing it up and tuning from there might work. I'd really like to know why this wouldn't be better - Jim

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"The Counterfeiter"

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Blogs.NHRA.com - NHRA Driver Blogs

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theDARKSIDE- TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER*

No no no..........

I am talking about the numbers.

NHRA does not want the Alky A/Fuelers too close in performance.

This is pretty much fact.

Slow the big boys down and that'll trickle down to the Alky and especially the A/Fuel cars.

And then heeeeeeeeeeere we go AGAIN

The thing I loved about this sport was NEVER going backwards.

I remember NASCAR going to the restrictor plates and thinking to myself how lucky I was to be involved in a sport where that "NEVER" could happen.

Silly me.

Now that is all I hear and see.

That is why I see merit in a separate 1/8 series.....Totally unlimited T/F and F/C.

JMO

REX

Jim,
I know you asked Mike and I am sure he will give a better answer but in short it is the personality of the engine and the clutch. You can build three identical engines and each one will react/tune differently. The same goes for the clutch packs. Once you understand how an engine is running then you can tune that engine to what it wants to be happy.

If you replaced an engine each run it would be like you were running a first round each time. Scary stuff.

just one man's opinon.
jim

If you bebleve that the cars are going too fast it doesn't require any fancy fix or special parts or pieces. Simply take away volumne of the fuel pump. FUEL = POWER Less fuel= less power. Simple

These are not monster trucks.

I don't care how hard or how soft you run the car, there are things that need to be checked between rounds even if there is no sign of damage. You can't send a car up to the line without making sure everything is 100%. You could spin a man, collapse piston rings, so on and so on and not have time to check it out, and not know there is a problem. Then send it down the track, hope it makes it, and repeat? Or it goes 10 feet and kicks a bone out the side becasue there was damage the run before, but how were they supposed to know??? Say it took 5-10 min to pass the scales, check fuel and tow back.. The left over 20-25 does not leave time for much.

Probably no time for a warm up ethier. I know I can't go to a race without seeing a good old fashioned Kalitta style warm up!

It might have been something to thing about in 1987 (I said MIGHT) but makes no sense in 2007.

I think some of the appeal to drag racing, is to let people walk the pits, and watch the teams tear the cars down, build them back up, and light them off right there! Folks can stand 10 feet away!!! How awesome is that?

Don't take that away Karl! Please!

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Prock Rocket 2008 Style

Paul,
The reason I picked 30 minutes is so people don't lean on them so hard... Fridays and Saturdays won't change... just you have to run the block you qualified with on Sunday... three things will happen, fuel racing becomes more affordable, increasing the fields... closer racing with less breakage, and I really believe the average fan in the stands can't tell a side by side 4.8 from a 5.8 without the scoreboard...

Who knows, it might even bring back 32 car fields...

As far as your last question, Not as Awesome as lighting one off at 11PM on a Thursday night in the Garage... and I love the pits... have for over 40 years... but I try to keep out of the way on Sunday...

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Karl....morning....I like your ideas kinda...but I say let em do whatever they want just keep the same block in the framerails on Sunday and go back to 60 minutes between rounds...
I will be doing the clutch for a fuel car in Vegas/Pomona and I have to do the maintenance w/in 35 minutes of the car entering the pit area or I am out of a job...Most teams could do a 35-50 minute rebuild...and the independents who match race alot are much quicker...

And Jim...You can build ten identical short-blocks and they will respond to the same tune-up but why replace the entire block if all you have to do is sleeves and emery cloth the cranshaft...Easier on the budget...This engines are pretty simple to build...We have made runs w/out a couple of rod bearings before and rods do not come loose...many teams have made runs w/ rags left in the old system-one filters and the motor stays alive for the run..

Jim,

the biggest reason you don't see full engine changes between rounds is because no two blowers, injectors, blocks, or manifolds are exactly the same no matter how much you try to make it so. Rods and pistons are pretty much interchangeable which is why you see fresh racks going in after every run. When you find a combination that your blower, manifold, etc is happy with, changing those aspects of the engine can affect your tune up as Jim B. said. Each of those components have their own integrity and each will react differently. The analogy Jim B. used is a great example. Every round would be like 1st round, and then add the changing track conditions and it can just get to tricky even for the most intelligent crew chiefs (your AJs, Coil, Prock, Okuhara etc) Most teams do put fresh clutch packs on in between rounds....most of them fresh out of the box.

and P.S.....my dad and brother know a hell of a lot more about fuel racing then I do...they taught me everything I know...now we just gotta get them to post here, but i appreciate the compliment

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Nostalgia Racing is where it's at folks!!!

Motown Shaker '08

I seem to remember that some years ago, several of the big teams did try to swap a new bullet between rounds instead of stripping the same engine down and rebuilding. I also seem to remember that experiment didn't last very long.

Anyone remember that? Or was I hallucinating?? (Not entirely out of the question!)

Besides Karl, you're inching closer and closer to the idea of "spec motors." Is that what we want? Teams would buy 'sealed' motors from the NHRA or an "approved supplier" and not be allowed to open them up. You break it, tough. It would do what you want. Shorten the service time between rounds, and cut costs. Goals you want to reach.

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AKA DrRocket

I'd be quite happy with 4.8/4.9 TF and 4.9/5.0 FC's. Of course, I live in "IHRA-Land" and high altitude IHRA-Land at that and that's what I'm used to, but I agree with whassisname saying that he can't see half a second. I've seen 4.5 sec TF runs (@ Seattle) and I've seen 5.0 sec FC runs (here in E-town) and they don't look much different. I'd rather see clean 4.8's with no smoke, no oildowns, and faster turnaround times than 4.5's without all this. Love the ideas to only have 30 minutes and no engine changes.

How about slapping the same rules on ALL classes to prevent the A/FD's and TA/FC's getting too close to the nitro classes? Wouldn't it be nice to be done at the track a few hours earlier than normal? How about the crews - I'm sure they'd appreciate less thrashing and a (somewhat) easier weekend.

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“One day when I was walking through the pits,” Millican said, “Evan said he wanted to talk to me. ‘Do you know how many millions (of dollars) I’ve spent to beat you?’ he said. ‘Since I couldn’t beat you, I’m going to own you.’ "