The Physics Behind Drag Racing – This is a big question that brings together a lot of what we’ve discussed in other HowStuffWorks posts about drag. And, apparently, there is an easy way to learn how much your car is worth.
In the article How Force, Power, Torque and Energy Work you learned about Newton’s second law, which we can also state if force (F) equals mass (m) times acceleration (a).
The Physics Behind Drag Racing
What this equation means is that the force applied to the car causes your car to accelerate. When you drive at a constant speed, the power generated in the engine is converted to the tires. Gravity acts in the opposite direction and is equal to the force the engine produces on the tires. Since these forces are equal and opposite, the net force on the car is zero, so the car has a constant velocity. If you remove the power produced by the engine (by putting the car in neutral, for example) then the only force on the car is drag. Since there is a net force on the motor, the motor will begin to decelerate.
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If you can measure the mass of the car and its speed, then you can determine the power. You can weigh the car at the dump to find out how much it costs. And you can determine the acceleration by measuring the time it takes for the car to slow down when you put it in neutral.
It will help you understand a little more about the dynamics of the car before you start testing.
The force pushing a car down the road varies with the speed at which the car is moving. It follows an equation of the following form:
The letter v represents the speed of the vehicle, and the letters a, b and c represent three different parameters:
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The key to this equation is that the car’s power increases very quickly. The force of the car at 70 mph is much greater than the force at 60 mph.
This means that we want to measure acceleration in a very narrow range. Something like 3 mph or 5 kph should work. We will do this in metric units because they are easier to use.
Let’s say that your car has a weight of 2,000 kilograms (kg) including you and your mother, and you are looking at a speed between 100 kph and 95 kph (which gives a speed of 97.5 kph or about 60 mph so in the freeway where the speed limit is too much). You should choose a flat section of road with less traffic, and you should do this on a day when the wind is calm and it is not raining.
Let your mom drive up to 105km/h, and set your stopwatch. Tell your mom to put the car in neutral so you can start moving. When the car slows down to 100 km/h, turn on the timer, and stop the car when it reaches 95 km/h. You may want to do this several times, perhaps going to the opposite side of the road. Always write it down and compare it.
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Let’s say the average time was ten seconds. Now you have everything you need to calculate gravity. You have to do a few conversions. You must be accelerating in meters per second (m/s
Your car decelerated at 5 kph, which is 5,000 meters per hour, or 1.389 meters per second. It took 10 seconds to decelerate, so the speed was 0.1389 m/s.
You simply plug mass and acceleration into the equation F = ma to get force. There is a useful measurement converter here.
So the force of this hypothetical car at 60 mph is about 60 pounds. This also means that in order for the car to go 60 mph the engine must produce 60 pounds of force on the wheels.
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We can also find out how much energy it is. Power is equal to pressure multiplied by velocity. So what we have to do is multiply the force in newtons by the speed in meters per second, this gives us power in watts.
The average speed in your test was 97.5 kph, which is 27 meters per second. So your power is 278 N multiplied by 27 m / s = 7, 500 Watts, or 7.5 kilowatts, which has 10 horses. Drag racing is one of the simplest forms of motorsport and, obviously, one of the oldest. Two cars cut side by side and race from a standstill to the finish line of the one kilometer (402 meter) race. It’s easy enough that many racers around the world compete with their street cars. But as you’ll learn from the basics of Top Fuel drag racing, there are some exciting things going on at the top of the game.
In this video, Driver61 breaks down some of the basics of Top Fuel drag racing. We’ll get into the most popular numbers here. With the single-minded goal of pulling the curtain as fast as possible, strength is essential. Each 8, 2-liter V8 supercharged engine produces 8,200 kW (11,000 bhp). This means that two Top Fuel dragsters make more power than the entire Formula One team combined.
In addition to overheating, the engine must survive 900 revolutions at full load. Each engine is rebuilt after each pass. Cars produce more power but weigh less than a ton, about 500 kg less than your average family car.
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Top Fuel cars don’t run the quarter mile anymore. The traffic had started to speed up on this stretch. Dom Lagana holds the record for fastest quarter-mile. He achieved a top speed of 544, 50 km/h to stop the clock in 4, 485 seconds in 2017.
Since 2012 the governing body of Top Fuel racing, the NHRA, has established the new track as 1,000 feet, or 305 meters. Brittany Force currently holds the new distance speed record with a pass of 3, 641 seconds at 545, 45 km/h covering the speed set by Lagana about 100 meters less. You can watch his videos in this video.
Watch and listen to the Top Fuel drag racing facts in the video below, we promise, you will be blown away; we certainly were. Don’t be intimidated by all the calculations on our friend Jason Fenske’s famous whiteboard: Setting up a rear wheel drive is an exact science that is easily repeatable once you get the basics down.
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, takes us through the physics involved in accelerating from a standstill as quickly and efficiently as possible in a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Just remember all these forms and calculations the next time you find yourself behind a Dodge Viper at the dragstrip, okay?
No, actually, Jason, as usual, has a knack for making even the most difficult subjects easy. He starts with an example of a car with a 50/50 front/rear weight distribution, and does the math. He then shows us that moving between higher gravity and shortening the wheelbase can lead to higher speeds. This isn’t a good idea for anything that isn’t intended to tow a car, but moving loads around makes a lot of sense.
Video watch and then put your favorite behind-the-driver to see what you have learned. Actually, this video doesn’t really help. The movie does, though, and so does this one.
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