Episode IV: The Blown Cars Strike Back

Will I think it is quite obvious that you will not see injected cars running much in the summer.
It seems the difference in performance is much greater for the fuel cars when running at higher alt. thatn for the blown cars running at lower alt. I'm sure NHRA is getting an ear full from some of the a-fuel teams. Ashley runs all the nationals and her daddy will do what ever it takes to see that the field is leveled. As I have said before this is a real problem and I am sure NHRA is about fed up with addressing and readdressing it. Just a question? Why keep juggeling the rules and fuel % on the fuel cars.
When the temp gets up and the alt. is above 3000' take some blower od away from the blown cars. This would be more to NHRA's liking as it would slow the whole class down for about 1/2 the races.
Before the blown cars get to excited about this because it would cause them to have to adjust their tuneup think about what happens every time the % is changed on an a-fuel car. Just food for thought as I don't think there is any easy solutions to fix this problem in every situation.
At Vegas the fuel cars would have been hard pressed to run as good as the blown cars with 100 percent.

 

Let me expand on your idea Will
How about having regulation fuel tank and main fuel line sizes for all a/fuel cars. Everyone goes to the lanes with 100%. in the lanes tech adds a measured amount of methanol. A jug or two pre mix is set aside by NHRA in the staging area in case of shut offs. Assume all altitude factored races will have 100% so theres no wholesale changes to combinations. Other races are compensated at the head of staging for heat/corrected altitude.

 

Juat get rid of the a-fuel cars and call it good.

It would nice if IHRA changed their top fuel to injected and we all could sort of be happy.

 

Just get rid of the blown cars. The fans could still smell nitro and I wouldn't have to hear the blower cars warming up.

 

It wasnt the third pass it was the fourth pass at fifty some degrees with a correct alitude of 37 feet so you cant compare our run to the guys out west. Also look at last weekend at Indy what happened to the A/Fuel cars when it got hotter. We havent been out west yet and Im not looking forward to going out west because of the fact that the a/fuel cars arent going to run in hot weather or bad air. Also we'd appreciate it if you left us out of your conversations.

 

Hmmm... What are internet message boards... supposed to talk about.

Lets not talk about the racers... lets talk about the pets and the fans that go to the races.

 

Why don't all the drivers & owners get together and sign a petition to run 8 a-fuel cars and 8- blown cars at national events. 4&4 at dvivsional, then we have blown against blown and a-fuel against a-fuel. Then you can only complain about your own counterpart. I know this has been brought up before by myself and others,but never
brought to NHRA in this format of a petition.
just my 2cents. Dave

 

Why don't all the drivers & owners get together and sign a petition to run 8 a-fuel cars and 8- blown cars at national events. 4&4 at dvivsional, then we have blown against blown and a-fuel against a-fuel. Then you can only complain about your own counterpart.

This is the only solution! All others are not going to work.

 

Will,

Even if we had 100% in Vegas there's no way any Afueler would have run a 5.40 at 4300 ft corrected and at 37ft corrected there's no way a Blown Alky car is going to run a 5.18.

I have allways like the rivalery between the 2 types in TAD but this isn't going to work anymore. If NHRA would have left it alone one more year it would have taken care of itself... Nitro for the dragsters and Alky for the funny cars.

Just another opinion...
Doug

 

I have been talking to some the upper people and one of the things they are afraid of is we don't all agree, second they think this would lower car counts, I don't agree I think it would increase car counts. Third they don't want to make any quick decisions that would destroy the class,so if we can all agree on what ot do then they will listen. Then there is the point about money it would increase slightly but someone should do the math it probably isn't as much as you think as we are talking half the cars on each side. the big question is do we all agree or not? If we don't then there is no sense in pursuing it. Is there something else I don't see here ? If there is lets hear it. Dave

 

ok here is the math if I have the correct amounts.
today national total for 16 cars is $33,200
if we do 8x8total is $39,200
In div 5 for 8 cars is $7950
If we did 4x4 it would be $11,100

how I did it was just drop the bottom pay out for 8 cars national 4 cars div with current pay outs.
does not include like indy etc. that have higher payouts
Dave

 

Well what is going to happen here in the real world is that NHRA is going to do nothing probably for the whole year and they take a look at the problem next year. This season will revert to blown cars mostly durning the summer and fuel cars in the spring and fall with a few exceptions thrown in like Chicago, English Town, etc. The world champion will not be desided by who runs the most nationals but who picks their races the best. It will also mean that you will have to do a whole lot of traveling to get the races in where your car preforms best. This means an even greater advantage to the teams with the most money. At the end of the year NHRA depending on the out come will make another rule change on the fuel cars, but what is new. Look at the past. How many rule changes have the fuel cars had to deal with in the last five years? Just like taking od from the blown cars at higher elevations requires changes so to the weight rule last year required most fuel teams to come up with a whole new engine cid combination or add 100-150 lbs of unsafe weight to the cars. It is much easier to count blower pulley teeth than to police changes in nitro. Jeff Wilson was not afraid to compete in good air and although he did not win in the two races at Houston he was still there in the last round and had a very good chance of winning.
My hat is off to Jeff. He was the only blown car at the Houston divisional and one of two at the nationals there. The good blown cars can compete at any race this year some better than others. The fuel cars can't. There will never be parity as long as one type of car has a blower to compensate for thin air. It would be nice if there was enough car count that we could have two 16 car fields aat the nationals but I don't see that happening. Unless, Lucas can make it happen.

 

Seems to me the TAD's used to get over 25 cars at every race. They don't get that anymore, seems the car counts are dropping by themselves. I agree with Will, a Weather factor for the A-fuel Dragsters would work, but I doubt you'd get all the Drivers to agree on what % to run at what track/temp.

 

Doug at gainesville on 3/18/05 time 5pm altitude 125 hum 48% temp 55 density altitude 28 run 5.18 at 276.7 Sunday at 9.41 zero altitude hum38 temp 67 density alt 709 run 5.21 at 271 so as temp and density alt go up the runs slow down. the 5.21 was our third run the second run was at 7pm alt at 50 hum at 29% temp 67 density at 720 and it went a 5.34 at 267. It actually warmed up that night so the density alt went way up and the car slowed down so temp plays a big factor and so does alt.

 

Doug Watt
last year vegas second session divisional 73 degrees, relative humidity 34 percent, barometer 27.70 inches, adjusted altitude 3,702 feet,
B. Riechert goes 5.36/271.52
Myers goes 5.423/261.02,
Greg Tacke goes 5.44

Final session 68 degrees, relative humidity 35 percent, barometer 26.62 inches, adjusted altitude 4,682 feet
Reichert goes 5.342/272.28
Mitch Myers Runs 5.324/272.67,
Robert Perkins Runs 5.438/258.57

What were you saying???

Dean

 

I don't see NHRA ever allowing 99% at one track, 97% at another. They won't want to bother with it.