Hey there
I am wondering if anyone had seen this before.
It comes top of a list of bad drag racing ideas.
"A lot of racers have tried to harness the uncontrollable power of a rocket engine, some better than others. You see, the problem with a rocket in a
drag racing situation is that the length of time that thrust is being created is directly proportional to the amount of solid fuel in the tank. The
driver is not controlling the throttle; that’s the job of physics. We’re not talking about a turbine here, like that used in a jet airliner –
those have on/off switches. A rocket? Not at all. You light the fuse and hang on for however long it decides to burn. And that’s why a lot of guys
have been killed driving rocket cars. The Vulcan Shuttle came out in around 1980 or so, a rocket motor housed in a Volkswagen. Yeah, it sounds stupid
to us writing this 30 years later. With a surplus engine that was about 10-feet long, this little Bug acted like an out-of-control bottle rocket, and
eventually killed its driver, Rodney Poole, during a test pass at an airport."
You can read the rest of the article here which is quite interesting.
The Top 10 Drag Racing Creations that didn't work
I was just about to post that as well, crazy stuff. Look up captain Jack Mclure's go kart for even more insanity!!
Some years ago, Superstock magazine did a feature on those "wacky racers".
Yes Jack McClure's rocket go car was awesome, and there is footage and some stories on the web.
Another one I liked was the beetle with the Turbodyne gas turbine engine.
there were kits available to easily bolt to any car and made them into 9 second cars.
As you can guess there was plenty of carnage!
The bug ran a wheel driven 150mph in the sixties.
Mr Sqiggle would love it.....
f&*%$n insane.....talk about a crotch grenade
Like Dave was saying.
The Turbonique Black Widow ran 9.36@168mph and became airborne and crashed at 183mph!!!!
Wheel driven with a small gasturbine engine through a split case vw tranny.
Here it is running "Show Boat" back in the day
http://youtu.be/o9FOOMCPUd0