I didn’t see a thread like this so I’ll start one. This is a short clip of the driver of a high powered Camaro drag car making some very quick decisions.
I like drag racing, about the only kind of sport related thing I’ll watch if I catch it. It is dominated on the top end by so called Top Fuel Dragsters. Everything about them pushes the limit. Modern dragsters of this type are estimated to generate as much as 10,000 HP and produce more G-force at the starting line than an astronaut experiences from a launch. Here’s a video of one being checked out between races. People in the know are wearing ear protection. If you don’t want to sit through a minute of it just idling, skip forward to about 1:10. This is a record setting top fuel run. If you’re not familiar with this type of race, it is a race against time basically, how fast can you cover 1320 feet, from a standing start. 338 MPH in less than 4.5 seconds. This was 5 years ago so they’re even faster now. The initial “false start” is to get the tires hot and sticky for better traction.
One more video of Top Fuel. These cars are hard to imagine without experiencing them. This video is mainly of unsuspecting bystanders and spectators witnessing top fuel runs for the first time. It’s not something I regularly do but, for me, it is a bucket list experience, to be close by when one of these makes a run down the track. Be forewarned that you might hear an expletive or two from the crowd.
How do you start a dragster? In order to keep weight down, they have no on board starter. In fact, there’s not even a conventional cooling system (notice, no radiator!). This is the typical way of starting a dedicated drag race car.