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Nitro-Huffing Time Machines

Barracudas, Novas and Mustangs return to the 1320

Nitromethane, or CH3NO2, can be used in a number of different ways, such as a component in dyes, and in the manufacture of antacids. Boring. Nitromethane can also be used in the manufacture of resins to make plastic snowglobes for tourists to take home from winter attractions. Slightly more exciting, but no barnburner.

Nitromethane is also employed occasionally as a rocket propellant and, in more recent times, as a fuel for propelling fire-breathing racecars down the 1320 feet of the drag strip. Now we're talking! Nitromethane used as a fuel has the bonus feature of carrying its own oxygen. With or without help from a supercharger, nitromethane can make a lot more power than gasoline or alcohol when crammed into a good old American V-8. How much more power is the part that is often hard to predict, but this is where the fun begins.

Sometimes nitromethane propels racecars to 300-plus mph in under five seconds. Other times this exotic fuel blows apart the engine into expensive scrap metal before the racecar can go three feet. Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars are among the most brutal, honest and mind-blowing form of automotive performance on any racetrack. You can literally feel a nitro car rumble down the strip.

Laugh It Up

Back in the '50s and '60s, intrepid souls started pouring nitromethane into a large variety of engines crammed into a plethora of racecars. On the west coast, dragsters ruled the roost. Hundreds of the long, skinny racecars showed up to run nitro to the capacity crowds at local drag strips. Back east, cars with bodies, like the one on the Super Stock Dodge the little old lady from Pasadena drove, were the heavy hitters. In an effort to get these cars moving faster off the starting line, the racers started to shift the bodies and axle locations around for better weight transfer and traction, and the term Funny Car was born.

The cars looked a little funny. Eventually the stock chassis and bodies were dispensed with altogether and a fiberglass shell of the original car was shaped to fit over a tube chassis with a blown nitro engine stuffed into the center of all the tubing. These early Funny Cars were the precursors to today's modern 300+ mph nitro huffing monsters. The reality was there was nothing too funny about nitro-huffing Novas, Mustangs and Chargers out on the drag strips of America.

Wicked, surly or thunderous may have been better adjective choices. Racers on a budget towed their rides to tracks around the country and raced at pre-arranged match races that pitted the heavy hitters against each other and ended up selling a lot of seats in the stands on Saturday night. The cars folks saw win from those seats helped dealers sell a heap of cars in the showrooms on Monday. "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" was the mantra of the big three when it came to Funny Car racing in the Sixties and Seventies.

What Is THAT?

As time went on and speed, aerodynamics, television and cubic dollars changed drag racing forever, the Funny Car of yesteryear faded into the history books to be replaced by something faster and much different than the rides of the early pioneers. Today's Funny Cars click off times unimaginable in the early Seventies, yet unfortunately bear very little resemblance to the production cars they are supposed to be.

Fresh from the everything-old-is-new-again department is the news that Funny Cars that look like production cars are back, thanks in large part to some of the original match racers, some new converts and the Goodguys Vintage Racing Association. The nitro-huffing, ill-handling, mean-spirited thunderous examples of the apogee of American musclecar manufacturers have returned in all their metal flake paint-on-fiberglass glory. For the time being, the owners and racers that comprise the Goodguys Vintage Racing Association's Funny Car ranks are doing their best to put on a good show and keep the whole thing from turning into a who-can-spend-the-most-money race. Standing on the starting line while two of these beasts light 'em up is akin to opening the time portal to the 1967 Manufacturer's Funny Car Championship at Orange County International Raceway. And now there's another place to take in some nitromethane rumbling through the headers is once again upon us. All you have to do is get out and enjoy it.

Resource

www.good-guys.com