I just read this. Don't know if it is true, but it sounds like it!
You are riding the average $250,000 Honda MotoGP bike. Over a mile up theroad, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter milestrip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run theRC211V hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and pastthe dragster at an honest 200 mph (293 ft/sec). The 'tree' goes green forboth of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. Youkeep your wrist cranked hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine thatsears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passesyou. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where youjust passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mphand not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed youwithin a mere 1320 foot long race course. That, folks, is acceleration.
* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepowerthan the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500. * Under full throttle, a Top Fuel dragster engine consumes 1½ gallons ofnitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the samerate with 25% less energy being produced. * A stock Dodge 426 Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive thedragster's supercharger. * With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, thefuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylindersrun on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle. * At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitromethane the flamefront temperature measures 7050 degrees F. * Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above thestacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric watervapor by the searing exhaust gases. * Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of anarc welder in each cylinder. * Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way,the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow. * If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up inthe affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blowcylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half. * In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at anaverage of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, thelaunch acceleration approaches 8G's. * Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed readingthis sentence. * Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! * Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions underload. * The red-line is actually quite high at 9500 rpm. * The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew workedfor free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated$1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The topspeed record is 333.00 mph (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of therun (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).
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