It is CRAZY the amount of distortion those tires go through! I'm watching the NHRA Bristol round showing right now and am always amazed at what those rear tires go through! Anybody know what the life is of a rear? Are they one and done?
Most teams change them every pass, smaller efforts are said to make 2-3 passes. It looks like the grip is exceptional at Bristol today, must be cooler.
Front tire inflation pressures in all classes is consistent at 40 PSI. Drive tire inflation pressure varies by class. Listed below are the general inflation pressure guidelines by class. Class Drive Tires Top Fuel / Funny Car 5 PSI Pro Stock 5 PSI Pro Stock Truck 6 PSI FM Dragster / Funny Car 5 PSI Comp 4-8 PSI Super Gas / Super Comp 5-9 PSI Super Stock / Stock 6-14 PSI Stock Radial 16-22 PSI. It is interesting to note that after a burnout and a quarter-mile run, the rear tire pressure only increases about 2 PSI. They grow about 8.5 inches during a 325-mph run reaching a maximum of 44.5 inches. They last about 4-runs.
Yup it's bonkers. Also check out how much the frame bows with the front wing forcing that end down and the motor trying to snap the frame into pieces. Mid track they look like a pissed off cat. There is so much down force from the exhaust when they drop a cylinder it throws the car off track.
It's incredible. The entire grandstands shake like crazy and you literally feel it in your chest...from 100 yards away!
It's gotta be awesome as hell to feel the g-forces in one. Approaching 8 g's at launch and an average of 4 over the 1/4 mile.
It's a lot more impressive than you could ever imagine. I was at Charlotte and took a drive to the track while the family was at Great Wolf. Kallita's team was testing. I weasled my way in and got a great view from the starting line. My eyes are still burning 4 years later.
I was at Doug Herbert's open house one year, and the featured event was starting his Top Fuel car in the parking lot. I was about 15' from it when he blipped the throttle a few times. It's absolutely nuts how fast an engine of that size can rev up. BTW, before he started it, he explained that about 1 time out of 50 the engine blows up while being started. Then he pushed everyone back 20'.
When I was in the publishing business, I was fortunate enough to spend a day shadowing Larry Dixon and Don Prudhome at Maple Grove. Dixon told me the roughest part, physically, is when the chute deploys. You have to time a blink with it or else you risk tearing your optic nerve. Insane. They both signed a piston and rod that came out of a motor from that weekend for me. It was in a running motor for what I can imagine is only a few minutes and it was junk. If you think motorcycle racing is expensive, the "consumables" from one pass are ridiculous. Cams are a single use item as is much of the rotating assembly. The first time they get full power through them, they're junk. Oh, and I'd have to double check the exact number, but I think that starting the motor, doing a burnout and then accelerating through the quarter uses about 20 gallons of fuel. Haha. Drags aren't my gig, but the whole scene was pretty intense.
They use something like 500 connecting rods a season, more pistons, plus like you stated the single use items. Insane.
I took my son down to Pacific Raceways to see them run because he had never had the experience of a nitro car race. We watched from as close to the start line as we could and I asked him if what I had described to him made sense. He said, it does NOW. We watched the Kalitta team do the full turn around on the car and it was seriously impressive. I asked on of the crew guys how many passes they make on one set of tires. He said 5 is the max.