Those of you steeped in drag racing lore are undoubtedly familiar with the 1968 HEMI-powered Dodge Darts and Plymouth Barracudas. These limited edition, track-bound '68 package cars brought out some of the biggest names in drag racing and helped solidify the automaker as a force to be reckoned with down the 1320. When Dodge unveiled the Challenger drag race package at SEMA, we knew the Mopar crew had something serious up its sleeves, and we've got an exclusive clip of what's to come.
Chrysler isn't releasing the details on this non-street-legal, drag-race ready model yet, but earlier reports suggest an overall weight savings of around 800 pounds by stripping the interior down to the bare essentials (one seat, a set of gauges and no sound deadening material), nixing the wipers and A/C and replacing many of the body panels with composite material. The front brakes will also be modified, along with the rear end and front crossmember, and a roll cage is assuredly part of the package. As for power, expect a big HEMI V8 under the hood producing over 500 hp and close to 500 lb.-ft. of torque. All of that is speculation for now, but expect official word from Mopar shortly. Check out our exclusive video after the jump to keep you satisfied in the interim.
At highway speeds, your vehicle is fighting an invisible foe trying to hold it back. The nemesis is wind resistance, and it is an automobile's worst enemy. Overcoming the resistance of the air is the key to increasing acceleration, top speed, and improving fuel economy.
Wind resistance is often measured with sophisticated computers in multi-million dollar wind tunnels. The result is usually expressed as a number called the "drag coefficient" (Cd). While having a low drag coefficient is important, the size of the vehicle (expressed as "frontal area") is also important. In general, as drag coefficient and frontal areas decrease, a vehicle becomes easier to push through the wind. Automakers are well aware of this, so they go to great lengths to ensure a low Cd on vehicles designed for high efficiency. Some approximate Cd values for well-known vehicles.
There are a couple of ways to determine the Cd of your vehicle. If your vehicle is stock, simply look it up on the Internet. If you have modified your car with wider tires, spoilers, roof rack, or changed the ride height, then your Cd has changed. To determine whether your mods are hurting or helping you at the pump (or the track), why not calculate it yourself with a few household items and an Excel spreadsheet? Of course, this requires a bit more effort... but, if you have any geek in your bloodstream, this will really get your juices flowing. The process is too long to detail here, but check out the simple instructions, grab your household items, and let us know what your results are. Thanks for the tip, Farris!
What do you do with a Porsche GT2, a Corvette Z06, and an abandoned aircraft runway? That's obvious: you line both cars up, nail the throttle and crown the victor. Thankfully, that's exactly what the chaps at Autocar did when they pitted the new GT2 against the Z06 on a long piece of straight pavement. No timing lights, no start/finish line, just two guys with heavy right feet and a camera crew to capture the action.
To refresh your memory, the GT2 is the hottest car currently in Porsche's inventory. Under its decklid, a 3.6-liter twin-turbo six-cylinder powerplant pumps out an impressive 530 hp and 500 lb.-ft. of torque. The Chevrolet Z06 has been in showrooms a bit longer, but nothing holds back its 7.0-liter eight-cylinder engine packing a 505 hp punch with 470 lb.-ft. of torque. Oh yeah, we should mention (before you all point it out) the German costs about twice as much as the American.
We won't tell you who wins the Porsche vs. Chevrolet battle, but we will say the contest will be significantly more "balanced" when the blokes can bring the upcoming 620 hp 2009 Corvette ZR1 to the tarmac. Thanks for the tip Mike!
Just like in the '60s, some people will take their new 2008 Dodge Challengers to the drags. Chrysler is reportedly ready to make this very easy for new Challenger owners. Allpar is reporting that within a few weeks, there will issue forth from Chrysler a Super Stock special version of the Challenger. The intended application is Stock Eliminator drag racing, and the cars get their own VINs and lots of lightening. Powering drivers down the strip will be versions of the Hemi and 5.9 liter Magnum V8s, twisting through manual or automatic boxes.
Jettisoning things like wipers, HVAC, sound deadening and seats make for a Challenger that's definitely not road-ready, but much lighter for track applications. 800 pounds have reportedly been trimmed out of the car through the omission of equipment and special composite body parts. Mechanicals have been modified to better suit the use, too. The main body unit gets tweaks, and the front crossmember is modified to a drop-out unit. Front brakes are largely unnecessary when the nose is in the air for part of the run, so lightweight units have been fitted. The fascia support and cooling system also get the slim-fast treatment. More information will supposedly arrive soon, but a 1,320-pounding neo-E body pony car appears close at hand.
During the development of General Motors' new GMT900 SUVs, the team in charge of design was taken out to the company's Milford Proving Grounds and made to dress in drag as an exercise. They wore high-heels, fake press-on nails and garbage bag skirts to simulate what The Car Connection refers to as "female handicaps" (are we really calling them that?) while operating various features of their new 'utes. The result was at least three features on GM's new SUVs that wouldn't have been there otherwise: retractable running boards for easier entry/exit in a skirt, a larger center console that can hold a purse and an easier to operate rear lift gate.
The idea for this excursion into androgyny came from Mary Sipes, a vehicle line director at GM and a woman with a mission to make her company's vehicles more user friendly for females. Since women comprise more than 50-percent of the buying public, she realized it would only help the company's bottom line to consider them more when designing new vehicles. Since the design teams are still very male dominated, Sipes decided to dress her teams in drag to force them to consider their vehicles from a female perspective. Hmmm... perhaps a better solution than playing dress up would be to just hire more women. Regardless, the intent was commendable, but we're wondering if our female readers can think of any other missing features that might make their lives a little easier.
There could hardly be two more different approaches to the exotic supercar than the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano and the Porsche Carrera GT. One's a production Italian gran tourismo with a front-mounted V12, and the other's a rare German targa with a mid-mounted V10. The Ferrari was designed and executed to be easy to drive, while the Porsche is reportedly twitchier than a monkey drinking coffee. As far as exotic sportscars go, they're like apples and oranges.
The question is, which one is faster? The video after the jump has your answer. The two supercars make two runs from a rolling start. One pulls ahead but by the end of the drag strip the second is ahead by a couple car-lengths. Follow the jump to find out which took the checkered flag.
(If you're thinking the Enzo would be a more fitting adversary for the Carrera GT, you're not the only one.)
What to do with that spare Mopar big block you've got left over from your monster truck project? Why, let's build a motorcycle! We're not using our arms that much, anyway, so we might as well just tear 'em right out of the sockets; it's not like we perform manual labor, we're keyboard jockeys. Voice-recognition software will ensure our job security once the old extremities are history, anyway.
Bike owner and builder Nick Argyle got out of the monster-truck business but still wanted a nice toy. He'd downsized his shop, so the available space dictated a motorcycle. Nick's wife was down with it as long as he used the engine he had sitting around -- an 8.2-liter supercharged Mopar V8. Whooee! That's a lotta iron to climb over just to get to the drag strip. It's road legal, and some ingenuity led to the engine being used as a stressed member of the frame. Note also the routing of the supercharger drive belt through the front forks.
Basically, the bike looks like a couple of wheels bolted onto an engine. Sure, that describes essentially every motorcycle on the road. In this instance, however, it's supremely cool (and strange) to see an engine sitting there looking just as it would under the hood of a car, but with a set of handlebars and a drive chain connected to it. There's no performance data, but some rough math assuming a 1500lb total weight (blown Mopar big blocks aren't light -- the engine alone probably weighs 1000 pounds) and using the provided horsepower figure of 1200 gives an estimated quarter-mile ET of 6.27 seconds with a trap speed of 217 MPH.
Damn.
We'd be curious to see actual ETs, as we just scratched a few things out on paper without knowing gearing or the actual weight using the handy formulas in our Auto Math Handbook. Even if it didn't go fast, it looks mean, and we bet it sounds even meaner with those wide open headers. WHAT!?
The murder of motorsports legend Mickey Thompson and his wife in 1988 was one of the most brutal crimes to hit the automotive world. Nearly two decades later, prosecutors in Pasadena, CA hope to bring the alleged perpetrator to justice. The trial against Michael Goodwin opened on Monday with claims that two yet-unidentified hitmen fatally shot Trudy Thompson before killing Mickey outside the couple's home.
The motive for the mob-style execution is claimed to be a failed deal between Thompson and Goodwin involving stadium racing in SoCal. When things went sour, Thompson successfully sued for around $750,000, forcing Goodwin into bankruptcy. Prior to the killings, Goodwin was overheard making verbal threats against Thompson. Goodwin's lawyer claims that no connection exists between the defendant and the two hitmen.
Mickey Thompson is probably best-known nowadays for the products that carry his name, but he established his reputation by being one of the most innovative racers on the track, in the dirt, and at the salt flats. The "Christmas tree" lights used at nearly every dragstrip owe their existence to Thompson, and he also developed the frightening - and fast - "slingshot" dragster chassis. The crowning achievement of his career, however, was piloting the first piston-powered wheeled vehicle beyond the 400 MPH mark in 1960. Thompson's many accomplishments earned him a posthumous induction into the Motorsports International Hall of Fame in 1990.
The Mustang is currently Ford's hottest hand, and at this year's SEMA show the Blue Oval is laying its cards on the table. Front and center in the place of honor within Ford's display are three GT500s, each tuned and tweaked for various activities: a drag racer, hybrid racer/daily driver and full blown racer. The most brash by far was the Shelby GT500 Professional Road Racer, which looked like it just drove out of a video game where such machines can be driven without the fear of injury or death. It features Ford Racing's 5.0-liter Cammer engine producing "more" than the stock GT500's 500 horsepower. The car includes a 6-speed sequential race transmission, and 6-piston (front) and 4-piston (rear) calipers clamp on 2-piece rotors all around. Meanwhile, the suspension's damping can be adjusted three ways to suit track conditions. And how about that GT-spec rear wing that looks right at home on the GT500's short rear deck? Unfortunately, the GT500 Professional Road Racer is just a concept study, though we hope the Blue Oval has the brass to take it out on the track soon to see what it can do.
Check out the Shelby GT500 Draggin' Snake from Paul's High Performance and the Shelby GT500 Road and Track after the jump.
In a tragic accident on Sunday, 17-year-old Canadian drag-racing protégé Kendall Hebert died when her jet-powered dragster crashed into a wall at Toronto Motorsport Park in the suburb of Cayuga, outside Hamilton, Ontario.
The accident occurred during a demonstration, not a race. The young Hebert had just finished a quarter-mile sprint down the track, reaching over 480 km/h (just under 300 mph) when the car inexplicably hit a concrete wall, sending the vehicle rolling and throwing its driver out of the cockpit. To make matters even worse, Kendall's family was in attendance and saw the crash that took their young daughter's life. According to provincial police, the event was also being broadcast over the internet.
(For those who have been following the news and might be wondering what made this accident fatal, while Top Gear's Richard Hammond is alive and recovering after a similar accident, the difference may lie in Kendall sadly having hit a wall directly, while Hammond rolled over grass, lessening the impact.)
Kendall came from a racing family; her father and sister both race competitively, and Kendall was looking forward to joining them after her 18th birthday, which she sadly never reached. Our condolences to the bereaved Hebert family.
(Our gratitude to Kevin for having sent us the sad news.)
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