Drag racing usually involves two cars racing each other over a set distance.
The drag racing fraternity has increased tremendously in recent years with more and more people converting their everyday street cars into powerful machines of speed.
Although distances range from two hundred meters to one kilometer, the four-hundred meter drag race is the most popular.
Drag racing vehicles are special in that they are modified to be lighter and more powerful than in their standard form. A lighter vehicle means that the power-to-weight ratio is increased and hence a greater acceleration will be achieved.
Races of this nature test a vehicle in terms of acceleration and top speed, as well as the driver with regard to skill and concentration. Although the driver does not have any turns to negotiate or opponents to defend against, apart from the competitor in the other lane, he or she must be very accurate with gear shifting and throttle modulation.Some facts
* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro per second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747 but with 4 times the energy volume.
* The supercharger takes more power to drive than a stock hemi makes.
* Even with nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
* Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
* Nitromethane 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.
* 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 off its fuel flow.
* Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the big end of the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronization with the pistons.
* To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before 1/2 track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G's.