World Record Funny Car Quarter Mile

The History of Drag Racing

• September 2, 2015
• Story By

Elevate racing seems like information technology's been with u.s. forever. In truth it's a postwar phenomenon, with roots stretching back to dry out lakebed racing in Southern California in the 1930s. From those apprehensive beginnings to modern times, when a modern Summit Fueler can get 0-k feet in a tick over three seconds at speeds topping 330mph, we present a brief history of drag racing, hit important milestones along the never-ending quest for the perfect pass. Wally Parks (photo: Tom Medley/N.H.R.A., via New York Times)

• 1913: Wallace Gordon "Wally" Parks was born in Goltry, Oklahoma. His family moved to Southern California in the early '20s. You lot will see his proper noun again in this story.
• Early 1930s: The dry lakebeds of Southern California were broad-open up and available to hot rodders to bulldoze as fast as they dared. Parks starts the Route Runners Club in 1937.
• 1941-45:  World War II gives a generation of American boys engineering know-how, thanks to the aircraft industry requiring ever-amend planes for the war endeavour, and others a gustation for speed and derring-practice for the aforementioned reason.
• 1946: Restless young adrenaline junkies turn to hopping up cars; speed contests and bad behavior spill onto the streets of America, giving the boys and their fenders jalopies something of a reputation. Where speed and testosterone is involved, competition will naturally ensue, and with the dry lakes far from culture, thrifty tinkerers kept their exploits closer to domicile. Games included Craven, where ii opposing cars would accelerate toward each other to encounter who would spook first; Cockle-fender, where moving cars would hit each other without wrecking; and Pedestrian Poker, where a commuter tried to brush (simply not actually hit) pedestrians. The public was getting fed up.
• 1947: The Southern California Timing Clan (SCTA) is formed, meant to organize this growing band of speed fiends. Wally Parks over again helped create the grouping.
• HOT ROD Mag launches. The name itself was provocative, suggesting a seedy if not downright criminal element—only the magazine'south longer-term goals were to mainstream the car-hop-up move, and to brand a shedload of cash in the process.
• Late 1940s: The thought of side-by-side racing becomes known equally "elevate racing" – the origin of the term is unclear. Popular theories: The simply paved section in smaller towns was on the master drag. Racers may have goaded each other to drag their auto out of the shop so they could race. To maximize revs, drivers might concord a auto in gear longer, or "drag" through the gears. Which of these is correct?  Mayhap none, maybe all.
• 1949: Goleta, California saw a lucifer race that some refer to as the first official drag race; some other is run at Mile Square airfield in Garden Grove. Soon, SCTA'southward first "Speed Week" is held at the Bonneville Table salt Flats in Utah. This is the kickoff instance of timed speed runs; the stopwatch puts a premium on acceleration likewise as top speed.
• 1950: Now editor of HOT ROD Mag, Parks discusses an alternative to the lakes racing that SoCal speedsters had enjoyed for decades, "controlled drag racing," in the April 1950 consequence. Shortly later, C.J. "Pappy" Hart (a Santa Ana, California-based gas station owner/mechanic) opens the first official organized drag racing issue. Pappy used an auxiliary runway at Orangish County Aerodrome; it was both closer and cleaner than the dry lakes. He charged .50-cents access to spectators and participants akin, and the Santa Ana drags chop-chop gained a following. Information technology was here that several elevate-racing fundamentals were established. Racers were split into classes that depended on a machine'south year, make, engine deportation and more than. A computerized clock measured top speed at the cease of the quarter-mile (high-tech stuff for the 1950s) and adamant a winner.

Early Santa Ana drags (source: Pinups & Kustoms Mag)

The reasoning behind the quarter-mile distance is as murky as the origin of the term "elevate-racing". Popular mythology ties it to quarter-equus caballus racing, or the altitude of a city block, but in an interview with hot-rodding historian Greyness Baskerville, actualization in Rod & Custom magazine in 2001, elevate racer/ eyewitness Leslie Long swore that information technology was simply the length of runway available, plus a short run-off, at the Santa Ana facility.  Any the case, the quarter-mile soon became the default race-altitude measurement.

• 1951: The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is created to "create order from chaos"; the new sanctioning body would also introduce safety and operation standards to legitimize drag racing. Parks would run both the NHRA and HOT ROD magazine for the duration of the 1950s. Its showtime sanctioned race, at Pomona, is held April 1953.
• 1954: The showtime purpose-built, front-engine dragster (rail job, digger, slingshot…) was built by Mickey Thompson. The driver sabbatum on or behind the rear wheels, with the engine far back in the frame. Slingshots were the gold standard of speed until the early 1970s.
• 1955: The NHRA'south first national issue was held in Bang-up Bend, Kansas. The event was washed out after the tertiary day past the worst storms seen in the expanse in decades; the finals concluded in Phoenix two months later. In the cease, Calvin Rice won Top Eliminator, with a 10.30 e.t./143.95mph run. As well, NHRA established its Stock Eliminator course—one of many attempts to become dorsum to grassroots racing, using cars that looked like the ones that yous could buy in showrooms.
• 1956: Competition for the NHRA came from the AHRA—the American Hot Rodding Association. AHRA was a small but influential circuit of smaller elevate strips across the country, and introduced a variety of crowd-pleasing (and racer-pleasing) changes to the sport that were afterwards absorbed by the larger sanctioning bodies.
• 1957: Nitromethane, used as a fuel in top classes, was notorious: it was volatile, and propelled cars to then-unheard-of speeds. Various NHRA fellow member tracks' insurance companies caught wind; rather than fight the power, the NHRA banned nitro for 1957. The competing AHRA welcomed the nitro-huffing rail jobs with open up arms. Meanwhile, the NHRA established its Super Stock Eliminator class, for street cars built to within factory limits. Classes were adamant to power-to-weight ratios, and presently Detroit'south engineers were a constant presence at major race events, seeking any competitive reward.
• 1959: Historic Santa Ana closes, its runway annexed past the airport for expansion. Racer Eddie Colina introduced bicycle tires to the front end of his track job. Parachutes are kickoff used for braking, and are soon mandatory for any automobile topping 150mph. In the face of the NHRA'due south nitro ban, and with the AHRA lacking a full schedule of events, a group of independent racers created the famed "Smoker's See" at Bakersfield.
• 1960: NHRA expands to accept cars with automatic transmissions. The first NHRA Earth Champ was Buddy Garner, in a Chevy-powered C/Altered Plymouth, who won 24 of 26 events that twelvemonth. Experimental racers with multiple engines get all the rage, as NHRA racers search new paths to speed and spectacle since nitro went away.
• 1961: Detroit is quietly building stock-actualization cars, unadvertised in any Pontiac literature and not meant for public consumption, that were designed to exist flogged on the quarter-mile. Witness the Super Duty Pontiac Catalina: the stripped coupes arrived at the dealer with a trunk total of high-performance parts and no factory warranty.
• 1962: The birth of the Factory Experimental class, which sees stock sheetmetal with powertrains unavailable in these bodies. Recall a 421-cube rope-drive Tempest, or a fuel-injected-Corvette-powered Chevy Two.
• 1963: NHRA bites the bullet and lets the nitro-powered Top Fuel form back into the fold; they instantly ascend to the top of the loftier-performance food chain. ABC's Broad World of Sports covers the US Nationals at Indy, giving drag racing a national audition. The Christmas Tree, a row of countdown lights at the starting line, finally replaces the flagman. And each of the Big Three's drag racing packages are refined: 409-powered Chevy Impala Z11s, lightweight 427-cube Ford Galaxies and 413-cube Plymouth Belvederes become the scourges of the strip.
• 1964: In August, Don Garlits may or may non be the get-go man to hitting 200mph in a race car. His run and record is official, but prove suggests that "Gold Greek" Chris Karamesines ran 204mph in Illinois months before, with Frank Cannon also running over 200mph at LIONS Drag Strip that July.

In the stock classes, after years of Detroit perpetually under-rating their engines to proceeds advantage on the rail (and with insurance companies, no doubt) the NHRA develops their own horsepower figures. In the Factory Experimental division, making power was not the problem…  hooking up on the crappy slicks of the twenty-four hours was an outcome. Engineers tweaked suspensions to solve the trouble: contradistinct wheelbases, solid front axles, olfactory organ-in-the-air stances… all designed to put more than weight on those rear tires, encouraging them to hook upward rather than go up in smoke. It wasn't long earlier "Dyno" Don Nicholson ran the commencement 10-second pass in a "doorslammer"; at the finish of 1964, Art Chrisman, too in a Comet, eliminated the firewall and pushed his engine back a whopping 25-percent. Art Chrisman's '66 Comet funny automobile (source: Chevy Hardcore)

• 1965: The AHRA christens these new cars "funny" cars—weird funny, non ha-ha funny—and ran a course of them in Phoenix; the NHRA ran Chrisman's Comet in the fuel dragster grade because they didn't know how to classify it.
• 1966: Mercury asks the Logghe Brothers to build a one-slice flip-top fiberglass Comet torso and tube frame chassis to match—a recipe that, with some tweaks, all the same holds today. Funny cars, some of which were nitro-fueled like rail jobs, found a home in the new Experimental Stock class. Shirley Shahan becomes the showtime woman to win an NHRA national title event, in a Hemi-powered '65 Plymouth, in forepart of the Wide World of Sports cameras. A match race at LIONS Drag Strip saw John Mulligan run a half-dozen.95 quarter-mile in his Meridian Fueler, but the run was deemed unofficial.
• 1967: Funny cars become their ain category in NHRA. The first official six-2nd Top Fuel run is owned by Dave Beebe, running an altitude-adjusted 6.94 e.t. at Odessa, Texas. Top engines of the era are estimated to produce 1,800hp.
• 1968: The AHRA's heads-up Super Stock Eliminator class sowed the seeds of what is at present Pro Stock. With funny cars evolving across stock classes, but with spectators used to seeing terrific on-track activity, SSE saw the largest possible engine crammed into cars like those y'all could see on the street, running loftier-10-2d passes approaching 130mph. For 1969, the AHRA called it Heads Up Super Stock.
• 1970: NHRA adopts and renames the Pro Stock course, slotting information technology below the Elevation Fuel and Funny Car in their hierarchy. Pro Stock is seen as a blend of high performance and brand identification, an outgrowth of the product based Stock classes, with fewer rules. AHRA, meanwhile, appear plans for its Thousand American Series of Professional Elevate Racing. A season-long points competition would produce a Earth Champion in several classes, with winners receiving greenbacks bonuses at the finish of the season. The Acme Fuel winner, for example, won a $25,000 bonus.
• 1971: Following a catastrophic 1970 crash that saw him hospitalized after a blown driveling hacked off half his foot, Don Garlits develops and builds Swamp Rat Xiv, the first successful rear-engined dragster. Gaullist won the Winternationals and Bakersfield in short society; moving the engine behind the driver soon became the Top Fuel template that remains to this day. Another game-changer was the Keith Black Hemi. Chrysler'southward 392 Hemi engine, dating to the tardily '50s, was the standard among racers, merely junkyards were bereft of usable blocks past 1971, and nitromethane demanded frequent rebuilds. Engineer Ed Donovan had the answer: an aluminum 417-inch block based on the 392 Chrysler but modified to withstand the rigors of nitromethane. The commencement Donovan 417 powered John Wiebe'due south dragster to a track record at Ontario, plus runner-up honors at the '71 NHRA Supernationals. Donovan's cake would shortly boss the field. On-board fire extinguishers are mandatory.

The International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) formed. Born of founder/Muncie Dragway owner Larry Carter'due south inability to become along with Wally Parks, the IHRA invested in track facilities and top-name drivers to depict crowds. They survive to this twenty-four hour period. Don Prudhomme at the 1967 NHRA Springnationals (source: enginelabs.com)

• 1972: Mike Snivley makes the beginning five-second Meridian Fuel run, a 5.974 in the Height Fuel semi-finals at Ontario. The NHRA outlaws large-block Pro Stock cars; the Sox & Martin Hemi Plymouths had won both seasons of the new grade, and the NHRA wanted to shake things up.
• 1973: Don Prudhomme becomes the first commuter to win championships in both Funny Motorcar and Top Fuel. Shirley Muldowney becomes the commencement adult female to obtain a Height Fuel license.
• 1974: NHRA establishes a points system. Gary Brook, Shirl Greer and Bob Gladden become the NHRA's first series champions in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock, respectively. Pro Stock evolves: the commencement tube-frame-chassis Pro Stocker is a 1972 Chevy Vega run past Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins.

Also, elevate racing is re-democratized with the nativity of bracket racing. Credited to Ron Leek of Byron Dragway in Illinois, it was designed to pump up grassroots racing, which had fallen into a slump. With rapidly advancing engineering science and a shaky economy, many weekend racers found themselves priced out. Leek's innovation was racing against yourself as much every bit you lot're racing confronting the clock or the guy next to you. You predict the time you're going to run, and so does the guy in the other lane. Whoever is closest to their prediction, without going quicker, wins; consistentcy is rewarded over all-out speed. Tiresome drivers could compete confronting pro machinery with an equal shot of winning. Advertise a cash prize, and of a sudden cars are flooding the staging lanes, angling for a shot. It worked; bracket racing today is a track staple nationwide.

• 1975: NHRA draws R.J. Reynolds as a series sponsor; the new Winston Drag Racing Series posts a $100,000 prize kitty. Ever-faster racing continued unabated: Don Garlits runs a 5.63/250.69mph run at Ontario, a time that went unchallenged until 1981. Don Prudhomme fabricated the first 5-2d Funny Machine pass, a v.98, forth with the class' first 240mph trap speed.
• 1976: Shirley Muldowney becomes the offset woman to win a national event in a pro NHRA category (Acme Fuel). A year after, she would be Top Fuel earth champion.
• 1977: IHRA throws the existing Pro Stock rules out the window and launches the "Mountina Motor" Pro Stock grade—stock-bodied cars with 500-cubic-inch V8s in heads-up competition that the spectators ate up.
• 1981: A "win calorie-free" appears on the scoreboard. No more having to guess who won.
• 1982: NHRA embraces the 500-cubic-inch Pro Stock formula and Don Prudhomme breaks the 250mph barrier in a funny car. Shirley Muldowney and Lucille Lee confront off in Columbus in the offset all-female person Elevation Fuel final in NHRA history.
• 1984: Don Garlits tops 260mph. The AHRA, so influential in its twenty-four hours, closes its doors.
• 1986: Garlits tops 270mph in his streamlined Swamp Rat Xxx. A year later, SRXXX was enshrined in the National Museum of American History. The path from outlaw elevate racing to full-on acceptance by the establishment was complete.
• 1987: Pro Stock Motorbike is at present a top-level category; Dave Schultz is its starting time champion. Don Garlits tops 280mph in his superlative fueler.
• 1988: Eddie Hill becomes elevate racing's "four male parent" (see what they did at that place?) by being the first man out of the 5s, racking up a 4.990 at an IHRA event in Texas. Before long afterwards, Cistron Snowfall ran the first four-second NHRA run. Don Prudhomme lowers the Funny Motorcar ET tape to v.30.

Eddie Hill hits 300mph (source: Tom Margie)

• 1989: Connie Kalitta becomes the first driver to tiptop 290mph in Top Fuel. Prudhomme breaks the five.20 mark in Top Fuel. Power from a summit-level NHRA nitro-fueled, diddled V8 is effectually 3,000hp.
• 1990: Battle of the Imports, the first all-import drag race, is held at LACR in Palmdale.
• 1992: Erstwhile Funny Car pilot and Top Fuel catechumen Kenny Bernstein records the first 300mph pass in NHRA history.
• 1993: Jim Epler records the first 300mph Funny Car pass, while Chuck Etchells is the first Funny Motorcar airplane pilot in the 5s, with a 4.98 e.t..
• 1994: Kurt Johnson runs the first sub-7-second Pro Stock pass at Englishtown.
• 1996: Kenny Bernstein is the first to win World titles in both Funny Automobile and Meridian Fuel.
• 1997: Warren Johnson, Kurt's dad, records Pro Stock's first 200mph pass. A new sanctioning torso, the National Electrical Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) is the kickoff exclusively-culling-power quarter-mile sanctioning trunk.
• 1998: The IDRC (Import Elevate Racing Circuit) arrives to cater to the newly-emerging power-mar four-cylinder oversupply.
• 1999:Peak Fuel driver Tony Schumacher shatters the 330mph barrier in Phoenix. Battle of the Imports sees the starting time forepart-wheel-drive 9-second laissez passer, a tube-frame Honda Borough driven by Stephan Papadakis. Not long after, Ed Bergenholtz ran a 9.87 at an unsanctioned event in his full-interior, unibody, front end-drive Honda CRX.

Stephan Papadakis at the Battle of the Imports (source: Papadakis Racing)

• 2000: NHRA once again worries that its cars are getting too quick, and mandates a fuel blend with only ninety-percent nitromethane. ESPN covers all national NHRA events.
• 2001: NHRA introduces its Import Drag Racing Serial with a six-race schedule. A twin-turbo-V8-powered rear-drive Toyota Celica becomes the offset sport-compact-course automobile to exceed 200mph.
• 2002: John Lingenfelter pilots the start forepart-cycle-bulldoze machine into the 6s, a Chevy Condescending that went 6.993 at 197.67mph
• 2004: Gary Scelzi becomes the kickoff Funny Car driver in NHRA history to eclipse the 330mph barrier, with a 330.15 2d run in Chicago. NHRA dials the nitro dorsum further, to 85 per centum, an unpopular motility with motorcar owners.
• 2005: A new grassroots sanctioning body, the NHRDA (National Hot Rod Diesel fuel Clan), is created to push button the limits of diesel fuel-powered vehicles.
• 2006: J.R. Todd becomes the offset African-American to win a Tiptop Fuel race. The official NHRA Funny Car quarter-mile speed tape became—and withal is—Jack Beckman's 333.66mph.
• 2008: Hearing owners' grievances, NHRA re-instituted the 90-pct nitro fuel regulations. On-board diagnostics estimate that Top Fuel engines on xc-percentage nitro now put out 8000hp from 500 cubic inches. This is the last yr of the NHRA'southward Import Elevate series.

Larger changes would shortly be in issue. On June 21, Funny Automobile airplane pilot Scott Kalitta was killed when his engine exploded near the finish line, his parachutes did not deploy, and he smashed into a heavy crane that ESPN was using for filming. Equally a result, Top Fuel and Funny Car categories now run a one,000-pes track, with additional safety measures enacted.

• 2012: Limiting Top Fuelers and Funny Cars to a one thousand-foot track doesn't stop the progress of speed: Acme Fueler Spencer Massey went 332mph on a 1000-human foot rails.
• 2013: NHRDA records include Jared Jones' half dozen.64-second dragster, with Marty Thacker claiming 221+mph in his diesel-powered runway job.
• 2015: The calculated power of a Elevation Fuel engine is at present between 8500 and 10,000hp, with 6,000 foot-pounds of torque. As long every bit fuel and fierce competitiveness combine, drag racing will continue unabated.

(Story past B.K. Nakadashi)

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Source: https://www.drivingline.com/articles/the-history-of-drag-racing/

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