Drag Racing

[JBR-Kiwi 286]

Well as the first post onto this sub forum I thought it would be a great opportunity to start up a thread devoted to the noble sport of strapping a chair onto, effectively a big bomb and then race your fellow nutter in a flat out adrenaline fueled quarter mile at a time. As the great Dominic Toretto once said:

 

“I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I’m free.”

 

 

So for myself, I have been racing and competing since I was the age of 8, and I am now 28 so motorsport has been a massive part of my life. Now living in the midlands means that I am central to so many race tracks, and for the purposes of this thread, I actually live only 15mins from the UK's premier drag racing track Santa Pod. So I will be trying to put up as many photos as I can from things I have seen there.

 

 

Feel free to contribute your own stuff! And remember....

 

“Ask any racer. Any real racer. It don’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning’s winning.”

[JBR-Kiwi 286]

And so to kick this off here is a video that I took quite a few months ago at Santa Pod, featuring two of the most impressive jet engined drag cars that I have ever seen. I was lucky to see them run in the dark and the noise and power coming off of these vehicles is phenomenal!

 

 

 

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

@JBR Kiwi That video is amazing. I agree with you, the sound is truly magnificent to hear. Do you get to know what types of jet engines did they use? Are they very common now in Drag Racing?

[JBR-Kiwi 286]

2 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

@JBR Kiwi That video is amazing. I agree with you, the sound is truly magnificent to hear. Do you get to know what types of jet engines did they use? Are they very common now in Drag Racing?

 

 

From what I understand a lot of them use jet engines that you would normally find in a helicopter and you are looking at nearly 5,500lb of force. In a full bore clean run you are looking at a speed of nearly 340mph in a quarter mile which is just insane. These are fairly rare to be honest and are usually found doing demonstration runs rather then seriously competing.

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

Hey @JBR-Kiwi, do these run regularly at the track near you? If they do and they are in the day it would be great to pop down and take my son. Whilst he may struggle with the noise I think he'd love seeing the amazing dragsters and watching them fly down the circuit.

 

I dunno but there's something quite refreshing and satisfying watching the flames burst out of a dragster that is ripping past you in nano-seconds.

[Diddums 4,305]

I do love a bit of motorsport me. Sadly I married a TV addict who loves shit telly so that's what we watch. I love endurance racing and my heart died when I saw the end of the Le Mans this year. Toyota deserved that win and it's such a shame that they didn't make it. F1 can suck my balls, that sport sold its soul to the devil a long, long time ago. I love the TT and can't wait to go. I'll probably go next year if I can find a fucking ferry to get me there. 

 

As for drag racing, well, I remember as a youngster going to the former Rainbow Raceway a couple of times. The strip was always the underdog to the Tarlton international raceway but we could never go there. It was simply too much of a bitch to get there and the tickets were out of the reach of whoever we were with (and my self). For this reason Rainbow used to bend the rules quite a bit to draw in more fans. The track was built in 1968 and finally folded in 2003 when they lost all affiliation with the saffer racing board. My fondest memory was when we were there and my mate and I went to get some soft serve for us and his parents. The soft serve was right at the start of the track, so we got what we wanted, started walking back, when a couple of funny cars ripped a burnout. Of course my instant reaction was to preserve my hearing so I stuck my fingers in my ears. 

 

I spent the rest of the day with sticky ears and swatting bees away from me wondering when one of the fuckers was going to zap me. A wise lesson was learned that day.

 

Anyway. The jet cars were always a flop for me. They just didn't have the same appeal because I knew that they were a party trick and it didn't matter which was fastest. Then one day they set off and one of them had an afterburner failure so spent the whole track setting the grass on the side alight, which meant that the track was shut down for an hour whilst the only fire truck took care of it. There were only four jet cars in the whole country, here's two of them at the aforementioned Tarlton. 

 

Anyway. That all died when I left South Africa and hasn't really been ignited since. There are some folks on another forum I visit who own a car called Bad Habit. I've never seen it in the flesh but I think Crispy might have, dunno. You may recognise it, I dunno. 

 

 

 

 

I should probably get in to motorsport. Nothing like kicking people's arses. 

[JBR-Kiwi 286]

On 06/05/2017 at 7:56 PM, GazzaGarratt said:

Hey @JBR-Kiwi, do these run regularly at the track near you? If they do and they are in the day it would be great to pop down and take my son. Whilst he may struggle with the noise I think he'd love seeing the amazing dragsters and watching them fly down the circuit.

 

I dunno but there's something quite refreshing and satisfying watching the flames burst out of a dragster that is ripping past you in nano-seconds.

 

Yeah there's always something going on at Santa Pod. It's definitely exploded back into popularity again and the crowds keep growing. 

Keep an eye on the website and wait for an event with the top fuel cars in it and then he will get to experience the sight of the fast cars, the noise and the vibration/bass that goes right through you when the Top Fuel monsters go past. Plenty of the stands there sell ear protection if either of you require it so it's a good day out. 

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

1 minute ago, JBR-Kiwi said:

 

Yeah there's always something going on at Santa Pod. It's definitely exploded back into popularity again and the crowds keep growing. 

Keep an eye on the website and wait for an event with the top fuel cars in it and then he will get to experience the sight of the fast cars, the noise and the vibration/bass that goes right through you when the Top Fuel monsters go past. Plenty of the stands there sell ear protection if either of you require it so it's a good day out. 

 

Whats the website mate? I'll have a chat with the wife about possible dates and let you know if I pop there so maybe we can have a beer whilst we're there.

[crispymorgan 1,041]

Ah, bad habit. That is one loved motor. The amount of work and detail is mind blowing. Great thing about drag racing is the ability to talk to mechanics and drivers. I talked about going with my dad but never found the time. We should definitely do something, would be a hoot.

Via the FG App

[JBR-Kiwi 286]

4 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

 

Whats the website mate? I'll have a chat with the wife about possible dates and let you know if I pop there so maybe we can have a beer whilst we're there.

Here you go mate http://www.santapod.co.uk/calendar.php

 

european meet would be good ones to get to if you can as it is always heaving with the big teams coming over. 

 

Yeah sounds good mate would be good to finally meet up and have a beer whilst we die from the nitros cancer fumes 😄

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

1 hour ago, JBR-Kiwi said:

Here you go mate http://www.santapod.co.uk/calendar.php

 

european meet would be good ones to get to if you can as it is always heaving with the big teams coming over. 

 

Yeah sounds good mate would be good to finally meet up and have a beer whilst we die from the nitros cancer fumes 😄

 

Ace, nice one Kiwi! I'll have a look at that Saturday race day in July then if its a good one. An FG meet up watching dragsters sound even more fun on top, especially with a beer  I'll report back with a date and see if you can make it down for one.