![]() ![]() Yet the NHRA has never conducted a formal study to measure the sport's most startling by-product: noise level.Īnd that's no accident. ![]() Two Top Fuel dragsters off the line registered a 2.3 on the Richter scale.Ī Top Fuel dragster is built on a foundation of earthshaking numbers.One of its eight cylinders creates as much horsepower as an entire NASCAR Sprint Cup car its fuel pump delivers 500 pounds of line pressure its 17-inch-tall rear tires create g-force loads equal to those of a space shuttle launch and the rear wing manufactures 8,000 pounds of downforce, enough to run the car upside down in a tunnel, assuming you could get it up there. An NHRA media relations person says they once let ESPN bring some seismologists out to the starting line. The concussion of air physically staggers everyone in the area, and even the most grizzled hot rod veterans cover their ears, while the uninitiated recoil into instinctual poses of survival. As the Christmas tree of lights runs through its cycle, the most powerful internal combustion engines on the planet run through a cycle of sound that moves from the world's largest popcorn popper, POP-POP-POP-POP, to the ramping up of a fighter jet, WHIRRRRRR, to, ultimately, the atomic-breath scream of Godzilla. ![]() It literally scares me off the ground."įor four seconds - the length of a 1,000-foot, 300 mph run - anyone within a quarter-mile of the NHRA's starting line surrenders their entire body to the experience of loud. "Even after three decades, if I don't know that an engine is about to be fired I will physically jump. "I've been coming to the drag strip since I was in kindergarten," says Antron Brown, a pilot of the NHRA's loudest machine, an exposed-engine, winged beast known as the Top Fuel dragster. What about Cameron Indoor Stadium in the middle of a Duke-North Carolina game? What about Neyland, Bryant-Denny or Autzen stadiums in the fall? Or the vuvuzela horns during the World Cup in Johannesburg? I fielded these queries and volleyed a few of my own: Have any of those ever been so loud they made you cry? Or split your eardrum like a Tylenol Safety Seal? Or sent people storming, ears covered, into city hall to protest? But within minutes, e-mails and phone calls from doubting editors trickled in. WHEN THE MAG FIRST raised the possibility of a Loud issue, I immediately offered drag racing as the loudest sport on the planet. People don't know what to expect the first time. The top-end hearing in my right ear is shot. After nearly 20 years of chasing race car drivers for a living, I too have been gnawed on a bit. "Well, that's what I want to talk about," I say, instinctively tilting my head to favor my left ear. "Sorry, son, the Swamp Rats have gnawed off a bit of my eardrums over the years." "I need you to speak up," the 78-year-old shouts, turning his head to face me with his "good ear," which isn't really. These machines hurtled him through milestones of speed - Garlits was the first to surpass 170, 200 and 270 mph - but besting barriers took more power, which created more noise, which robbed Big Daddy of some of his ability to hear. We're standing in the middle of his museum in Ocala, Fla., surrounded by dozens of his signature black Swamp Rat dragsters. This is pretty much the conversation that I'm having with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, the man considered to be the greatest drag racer ever to wrap his legs around a 7,000-horsepower engine and ride it down the strip like a pony. The second says, "It's not Wednesday, it's Thursday." The first says to her friends, "It sure is windy." You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]()
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