WEBVTT

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- [Narrator] This is Racing Tech.

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Name a car on the road
today that is powered

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straight from the factory
by a 500 cubic inch engine.

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(distorted bell rings)

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(engine revving)

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(distorted bell rings)

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I'll wait.

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(engine rumbling)

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(distorted bell rings)

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Hard to do, isn't it?

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It's been a few decades since

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any daily machine contained
that kind of power.

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However, you can still find
them at a drag strip near you.

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(car rumbles past)

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I'm talking the engines powering

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the National Hot Rod Association or NHRA's

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Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars.

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Now the long nose top fuel dragsters

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are typically about 25 feet in length,

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made up of a Chromoly steel tubing

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and carbon fiber composite.

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The monster engine sits at the very rear

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while the driver sits ahead of it.

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Funny cars don't quite look so funny

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but they have a shorter
chassis and a carbon fiber body

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shaped to resemble a
production car vehicle

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with the engine situated
in front of the driver.

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Both are powered by
the same 500 cubic inch

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V8 supercharged engines
derived from Chrysler Hemis

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running on Nitro methane fuel

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to lay down nearly 11,000 horsepower

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in one track run sanctioned
at a thousand feet.

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So if you're doing the math

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that's well over a thousand
horsepower per cylinder.

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It's why Top Fuel Dragsters
are some of the fastest

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accelerating cars in the world

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managing a zero to a
hundred time of one second.

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Yeah, one second.

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And the G's behind the
experience are similar

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to what an astronaut would
feel in a rocket launch.

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It's crazy.

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So in a thousand foot run

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cars reach upwards of 340 miles per hour

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in about four seconds.

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Reason would say that that
kind of power can be dangerous,

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and that's absolutely correct.

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Most of the serious fires and explosions

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that you'll see on track is
from a cylinder or multiple

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that got just a little too much power

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creating enough force to
send a rod or a cylinder

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clear through the engine casing.

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For more on the technology
(car zooming by)

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behind the racing series you
love, head to jalopnik.com.