Steven over at Chizumatic has been waxing rhapsodic over Top Fuel drag racing, and says:

...drag racing is the pure racing event. The only steering the driver does is to try to keep the car going straight, which is not as easy as you might think. It's power and driving skill and equipment, and everything is decided in five seconds. It's noisy and fast and loaded with muscle. The signature smell of drag racing is burnt rubber.

Well, yes, but some people want more than immense farting engines and going straight in a hurry.

Lets put it this way: Top Fuel is the snorting, grunting, knuckle-dragging troll that thinks that 'being subtle' is NOT eating it's opponent. Formula One, on the other hand, is the dashing swashbuckler, personified by Inigo Montoya or Errol Flynn. A dancing master's grace, backed with a solid steel strength and a mongoose's speed.

I'm not trying to knock drag racing. It's fun to watch, and it's quite the spectacle, particularly at night. But lets face it, the mechanicals only have to last six seconds at full throttle, and then it gets replaced. Nice and impressive, but c'mon. F1 engines run at 20,000 rpm for two races (roughly 400 miles more or less), plus two quals, and six practice sessions. The cars can throw five or six Gs at the drivers accelerating AND braking, not to mention turning. And lets not even talk about the theoretical ability to run on the roof of a tunnel due to the downforce they generate.

Top Fuel is impressive, no question, but it's racing for the short-attention span. F1 is DEEP. It rewards careful study. Top Fuel is Football. F1 is Baseball, and it's no surprise that I'm a devout baseball fan, too.

I will give drag racing huge credit, however, for it's attitude towards women in the sport. There have ALWAYS been women, such as the famous Shirley (Cha-Cha) Muldowney, in drag racing, and they've often been better than the male racers.

F1, on the other hand, is run by a neanderthal of the first order, and Bernie seriously needs to beat over the head with a rolling pin because of it.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:18 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 367 words, total size 2 kb.

1 F1 is completely ruined by the governance issues, unfortunately. I still follow it out of habit, but it's not the same. It is a rotten shame. Then again, everything has to have an end at some point.

BTW, I think Bernie did a very good job when he had the power and actually ran things, it is Max The Megalomaniac who I blame for the current sorry state of affairs.

Dragsters are lame though, no argument here.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 02, 2006 04:25 PM (6uek6)

2 I don't know myself, I think by accident Max has made the actual racing far more enjoyable. Clearly his ideas for reducing cost are just not working, however in 2005 we had what I consider a vintage year of F1, and I think we are heading for another this year as well. The Max Factor of random pointless rule changes keeping it all exciting again.

Posted by: flotsky at April 02, 2006 07:44 PM (6T2ID)

3 I can't believe that you're boasting about F1's acceleration when comparing it to drag racing.

Only 6 G's? Is that all? Care to put one of your cars on a quarter and race it against John Force? He often makes 320 MPH on the quarter in his funny car. I bet an F1 car can't even go that fast.

Well, maybe if it was dropped from an airplane it could.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 03, 2006 01:51 AM (+rSRq)

4 Okay, Steven, sure! Head to head, quarter mile straightaway... with a hairpin turn followed by a chicane afterwards.

You'll note, by the way, I was boasting about their acceration AND their braking power. I forgot to mention their ability to RE-accelerate after stopping. Lets see one of your drag racers try that trick.

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 03, 2006 02:36 AM (+rGmJ)

5 "With a redline that can be as high as 9500 rpm, Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light. Including the burnout, the engine needs to survive only 900 revolutions under load." (from Chizumatic)

Steven, that's child's play. I'll point out again that the current F1 engine runs around TWENTY THOUSAND rpms for about three hours per race weekend, and the engine is supposed to last two races. 900 total revolutions? F1 engines do that sitting on the starting grid.

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 03, 2006 02:57 AM (+rGmJ)

6 Since F1 engines rotate around 7000 RPM at "idle", they spin 900 revolutions in 7.7 seconds.

While nitro-fueled drag engines do have outrageous forces running through them because of their displacement, forced induction and choice of fuel, F1 engines also have outrageous forces acting on them because of centrifugal and centripetal forces. Getting 8 pistons with the associated valvetrain to work at 20,000 RPM without having the metal involved come apart is no small feat.

Posted by: SkarTisu at April 03, 2006 03:41 AM (KFUNT)

7 Mac-OS X is better than any Windoze stuff ever created... oh wait, wrong thread.

Can we all make a compromise for rally instead?

Posted by: FabioC. at April 03, 2006 07:21 AM (ubBi6)

8 Um... no. Sorry.
*chuckle*

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 03, 2006 09:24 AM (+rGmJ)

9 Unless you mean THIS "Rally," of course.
http://absoluteanime.com/gunsmith_cats/rally.htm

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 03, 2006 09:27 AM (+rGmJ)

10 Wonderduck, try telling Nico Rosberg they run at 20000 rpm without exploding

Posted by: flotsky at April 03, 2006 11:01 AM (Dl1rW)

11 So it seems that rally isn't really popular in the States. Oh well, your loss.

I don't think that an anime about super-shooters would be my thing. Like someone else in the circuit, I find too difficult to suspend my disbelief in certain occasions. And shooting is one of them.

Posted by: FabioC. at April 03, 2006 11:35 AM (1KmfC)

12 Actually, Fabio, Gunsmith Cats is pretty realistic, or at least as realistic as a "cop show" gets.

There's very little of the contrived trick-shooter "400 indians with 1 bullet" thing in it, for example. It's a classic, AND it takes place in Chicago, to boot. *shrug*

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 03, 2006 05:21 PM (Ffvoi)

13 if i could, rather snippily point out, neither F1 or Top Fuel is an OLYMPIC EVENT.
Or likely to become one!
Unlike, say, three-day-eventing, said event having originated as a test for warhorses in the days before great stinking pollutive internal combustion engines.

Posted by: matoko_eventer at April 06, 2006 06:30 AM (P/5xo)

14 That's right, neither are. And your point is?

The Olympics are a sham of epic proportions, drug-ridden professionals claiming to be "doing it for the love of the sport."

That may be true of the Equestrians, but I'm sorry, nobody cares about the equestrian events.

It may actually be to the credit of F1 and drag racing that they aren't Olympic sports.

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 06, 2006 01:31 PM (Ffvoi)

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