Bruce Lee NHRA and more
In 2001 a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to work on a drag racing car his friend had. I jumped at the chance and became a part of the team. The car at that time was an NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car (nonprofessional ”Sportsman Series”). Here I am turning the engine over with a breaker bar in the shop.
A funny car is a drag racing car with an automobile looking body. Not even close to a regular car, the car like feature is a fiberglass shell that fits over the chassis.
The NHRA nonprofessional Sportsman classes have a small payday. The owner decided we needed to go pro to make enough money to help keep the operation running. With the help of Don Sosenka “Mr. Magoo” we converted the funny car to NHRA Top Fuel Funny Car. As a part of learning I crewed on Mr. Magoo’s team.
Bruce Lee NHRA and more
Here is the funny car after we converted it to Top Fuel. We never actually ran the Top Fuel Funny car in an actual race. The owner changed his mind again. Handling the Funny car body and its cost was just a big pain so he bought a 300 inch dragster chassis and we took everything off of the Funny Car and built a NHRA Top Fuel Dragster.
The engine on Top Fuel cars is incredible. Start with 500 cubic inch Hemi engine block, put on a giant supercharger, 2 spark plugs on each cylinder, they are only good for one ¼ mile pass, 2 50 GPM pumps for fuel, and 32 fuel injectors : 8 in the supercharger, 8 in the intake manifold and 2 in each cylinder. That makes 8000 horsepower. For fuel it ran 90% nitromethane and the car got 50 gallon
Our team is what is known as a “family operation,” volunteer crew and done pretty much as a fun thing to do, but it is a lot of work. Our driver was also our clutch guy, so I got to run the car for warm ups. The last couple of races my wife Cathy was crew help as well. Pretty unique opportunity since women crew is as rare as 4 leaf clovers. The other crew members ladies sat and watched, Cathy w
Bruce Lee NHRA and more
When I was crewing the rules mandated no digital computer controls for the clutch and fuel. I was the main computer/electronics guy for the team. We did have the mandated computer based rev limiter which also was used for programmed spark advance control. The idea was old school no computers for clutch and fuel which ended after I was done. The analog computer (pictured right) was a pain and I p
Ky Michaelson was big on the NHRA circuit back in the 60’s and 70’s. He made friends with Doug Rose who owned and was the driver of the “Green Mamba” Jet Car. He arranged for me to be able to crew for him at an event. I am pretty sure it was a GE J47 jet engine.
Here is a picture of the car doing his famous melting a car with jet exhaust. This was his signature performance at tracks around the US. They chained a car to the back of the Jet Car and he went full afterburner and melted most of the car.