This picture shows it best, taken in early evening hours. What you are seeing is 2 Top Fuel cars about 300feet from the starting line. Flames are good, the demonstrate the all 16 cylinder are firing the 95% Nitromethane Fuel. This produces 8,000 horsepower {per car}. At 600 feet, they will be accelerating thru 250mph! When they cross the finish line 3.85 seconds from starting, they will be going 335 mph. The Thunderous Noise, Fumes, Tire Smoke and attending vibrations must be experienced to give credit.
Cost? The car that wins the Sunday race will have made 8 passes down the racetrack. After each pass the engine will be rebuilt or exchanged due to wear or breakage. The fuel is $95 per gallon, they use 8 gallons per pass. Tire last 3 passes at several hundred dollars each. Most big teams have 8 paid crewmen and a WELL PAID crewchief.
Want to sponsor a middle of the pack car? Put your hand in you pocket for $10 million. Want to win? You need a 3 car team!
Flag presentation on Sunday. It will go to 87° today, the race track will be about 120°, a little too warm to set records. We sit near the starting line in the 1st row, very good seat.
Every pairing starts with a ‘Burnout’. The serves to heat the tire and seat the clutch. Smoke and unburnt fuel blankets the crown as the cars only use about 1/2 power for this procedure.
I mentioned the heat right? I was carful to take precautions and keep well hydrated. I’m here asking them where the ‘C’ is their sign.
Lots of innovative cooking and transportation in the camping area. About 300 units dry camp here. The “Dry” in the previous sentence alludes to water hook-ups only :-0
We left on Sunday afternoon as we must tow 300 miles back to Round Rock. There we will unload the POD into our storage unit on Tuesday. We’ll also put Anne-Marie’s PT Cruiser into the storage area. Update: POD folks gave us very poor service, delivering the POD 10 hours late at 6:00pm. I took us 3 1/2 hours to unload it, you do the math.
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