Showing posts with label mopar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mopar. Show all posts

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Drag Boat Racing


All folks here love hot rods, we tend to see them cruising down the streets of Modesto, drag racing on the back roads of America, tearing up the drag strips of Southern California, hitting the oval tracks, and crowding the parking lots of the native Mel’s. Currently a place were you usually don’t see hot rods or a minimum of an area you wouldn’t assume you'd see a hot rod is on the water! That is right there are a bunch guys who build hot rods to on the water known as drag boats!

Drag Boats started method back in the 1500s when Christoper Columbus raced the Mayflower against the Argo and set the then record for the lowest ET.

Seriously now drag boat racing started not too long after drag racing on land did. It possibly started when one guy claimed his boat was faster than his friends boat. The next issue you know they were drag racing their boats on the lake! By the 1960s Drag Boat racing grew and drag boats became their own type of boat. Most of them run the same motors as their pavement cousins, but use their own boat styles and that they their own launching and staging formats similar yet different from their land cousins!

How drag boats are run is very kind of like that of the land lovers, 2 boats are paired to race, they line up, when the sunshine turns green on the tree they go! (Yeah they have floating trees for drag boat racing). Their are some differences though , due to the very fact they have to race on water.

Drag Boats use a moving start after they race. This beginning system was implemented as a security precaution as a result of it is tough for a ship driver to see if the boat can launch straight from a standing begin because of there being a scarcity of traction on water.

As 2 boats are paired up with the drivers holding on the rope, a countdown clock begins before the boats get the green light-weight to go. During competition, if either boat crosses the beginning line before the inexperienced light is illuminated, it is disqualified. When the light turns inexperienced both drivers quickly abandoning of the rope, shut the cockpit door and hit the throttle to launch!

When the boats launch (particularly when the Prime Fuel and Prime Alcohol classes launch) walls of water get shot up over 30ft within the air and also the boats themselves literally get airborne for some seconds! Then the boats Jump forward into the air before landing to complete the race!

Another issue regarding drag boats is like the cars they come in all completely different shapes and sizes. You have everything from speed boats with little block motors to flatbottom boats with Hemis, and to even hydroplane boats running High Fuel Keith Black motors!

Categories in Drag Boat racing vary from personal watercraft (jet skis, little boats) to outboard motor boats, to eleven.0zero Second flat bottom boats, to Professional Mods on water (just about anything goes) to High Alcohol Flat Bottom and High Fuel Hydro boats that run nearly as quick as there land cousins. High Fuel Drag Boats will finish the liquid quarter mile in 4.five seconds!

The Lucas Oil Drag Boat series is the most important Sanctioning Body for drag boat racing, other sanctioning bodies embody the IHBA (International Hot Boat Association) and the SDBA (Southern Drag Boat Association).

What makes drag boat racing exciting? Well there are a number of totally different reasons it is exciting, the loud sound of the motors, the laborious launches that send walls of water thirty feet into the air, the quickness of the boats and a lot of.

Thus what are you looking ahead to land lovers? You recognize what drag boat racing is currently get your hot rod out there to the nearest lake and race!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Street Legal Dragsters


Regarding per week ago I was wondering what would create a extremely cool and terribly distinctive Hot Rod. What did my wondering return up with? A Street Legal Dragsters! I realized this was a cool idea but I  additionally thought someone had to have designed one before right?There needs to be one that has been engineered, is driven and makes weekend passes at the drag strip. Thus I embarked on looking for a street legal dragster and here is the story and what I even have found.

One factor I did find out is that street legal dragsters are rare and VERY VERY HARD TO REALIZE! I figured they were visiting be rare but their extremely may only be five or vi rear dragsters in  existence and one street legal funny automobile and one street legal sprint car which’s it!

So here are a number of the street legal dragsters (they'll be the sole street legal dragsters) that I have found.

The Stragster
The Stragster is owned by Vince Spretnjak of Calumet Collision Hot Rod Shop. The idea behind the Stragster was meant to be a Hot Rod that was part Pro Street and part Slingshot Dragster (if you raise me, I say they got both components down extremely well). The Stragster is powered by a Blown Mopar 354 Hemi, with old school vogue Hillborn Fuel Injection, aluminum heads, and Vertex Magneto for ignition. All of this is often hooked up to a Tremec five speed transmission.

The engine and five speed are hooked up to a 9? Ford rear with a coil over suspension. 4 disc brakes are used to prevent this monster in a hurry (you know for once you racing driving in the street). The great issue regarding the stragster though is it is truly driven on the road!

 The Super Mustang

Drag Racer Tom McEwen is more known for being Don “The Snake” Prudhomme’s drag racing rival in there famous Snake vs Moongoose races in the early 70s racing in there Mopar Funny Cars. Before this but Tom McEwen was a Ford guy and with Fords help, he designed a street legal dragster in 1967 named the Super Mustang.

The Super Mustang could not seem like the opposite Mustangs however I guess you can say its what the Mustang would look like if the Mustang was a slingshot. The automotive is said to possess been a publicity stunt between Ford and McEwen to attract additional attention to Fords drag racing and Fords cars.

The Super Mustang is powered by the famous Ford 427 SOHC “Cammer” engine, the body is a Fiberglass/Plexiglass body designed to look like a Slingshot Dragster (technically it's a Slingshot Dragster).

The Super Mustang has solely ever made a few Appearances, the foremost famous one at the 1967 NHRA Winternationals where Tom McEwen got it to run 8.sixty @ 180 MPH that was an incredible time and speed for the era. The automotive was conjointly featured on the cover of a 1967 Issue of Automotive Craft. The Super Mustang disappeared (expect as a Hot Wheels car) largely as a result of it remained in Mickey Thompsons Private Collection till his death in 1988. It wouldn’t be seen once more until the late 2000s when it absolutely was spotted at a few automotive shows and later sold for $154,00zero at Gooding & Company Monterey Auction in 2009.

Here are some of the opposite Street Legal Dragsters I have found. Sadly these don’t have as giant of a Back Ground story like the Stragster and also the Super Mustang but they're cool.

I Found this one on the HAMB, its done during a late 50s, early 60s vogue T-Bucket Slingshot

I believe this is the road Legal Slingshot that was featured in the 1968 Issue of Automotive Craft

The Moody Blues

The Moody Blues isn’t a Street Legal Dragster but a Street Legal Funny Automotive. The Moody Blues could be a 1970 Opel Street Legal Funny Automobile.

I am not positive the present standing of the Moody Blues however back in 2010 the car kept introduction for sale on ebay, as a Street Legal Funny Automotive. The Moody Blues is powered by a blown 392 Hemi connected to a 2 speed transmission. The Moody Blues was also featured many years ago in Hot Rod Magazine.

Even though they were a Hard Realize, there are Street Legal Dragsters out there. Street Legal Dragster has to be one among the best hot rods a man might own, they're unique, look cool and build nice head turners for when you're driving on the road.