Top Fuel thunder in centre of Adelaide
The most extreme form of bitumen based motor sport is to be featured at the 2012 Clipsal 500 Adelaide with demonstrations by some of the nation’s top exponents of drag racing.
National champion Darren Morgan will be in the hot seat of the AEG Powertools Top Fuel dragster and Phil Lamattina will be piloting the FUCHS machine when they take to the Adelaide circuit made famous by Formula 1 and V8 Supercars.
“These Top Fuel dragsters will be the most powerful and the fastest cars ever seen on our circuit and the demonstration runs will an awesome, brand new feature at the nation’s best and biggest motor sport festival,” Clipsal 500 Adelaide Chief Executive Mark Warren said.
The AEG Powertools and FUCHS Top Fuel dragsters will be seen on circuit on both Friday, 2 March and Saturday, 3 March together with Top Alcohol and Supercharged Outlaws drag vehicles.
The demonstrations will occur at 10.35am on Friday and 5.35 pm on Saturday with the Top Fuel machines running on Pit Straight and the Top Alcohol and Supercharged Outlaw cars doing runs on Brock Straight (Bartels Road) and Brabham Straight (DeQuetteville Terrace).
Greg Brown’s A1 Drag Racing team will have their 3000 horsepower Top Alcohol Funny Car out performing, the team recently announcing their step up into the ANDRA Pro Series, capable of five second quarter miles and top speeds of 400kmh. As for the Supercharged Outlaw car of Marco Elbe, it’s a 1955 Chevrolet black two door with a wild flame paint job that has a 526 cubic inch Hemi engine that makes for extraordinary burnouts and extremely quick quarter mile passes.
The specification details and performance of Top Fuel dragsters read like science fiction but make them the fastest accelerating machines in the world with the 8 metre long FUCHS landlocked missile capable of covering the quarter mile in 4.5 seconds at speeds in excess of 500kmh.
To achieve this, driver Phil Lamattina requires fuel to be delivered to his engine at the rate of 65 gallons per minute or the equivalent of running eight bathroom showers at the same time!
The AEG Powertools machine of Darren Morgan has an engine that produces more horsepower in one of its eight cylinders than the total output of a V8 Supercar engine. In other words the total output of the drag machine is over 8000 horsepower, and to get that amount of power to the ground the rear wing produces 3.5 tonnes of down force!
The demonstration will be a preview of the ANDRA (Australian National Drag Racing Association) Pro Series round at Adelaide International Raceway on April 13-15 where Morgan and Lamattina will duke it out for championship points.
It is the first time in a decade championship drag racing has been held in Adelaide and along with the Clipsal 500, adds to Adelaide’s reputation as a motorsport mecca.
All the drag racing cars will be on display for the public to see close-up in the Feature Race Paddock 2 (off Wakefield Road) in between the on track demonstrations and the sight and sound of these amazing machines is just another reason why the Clipsal 500 Adelaide is The Race That Rocks.
For more event information visit www.clipsal500.com.au
Image courtesy cacklingpipes.com