this email i got is bound to start some good conversation:

Subject: Impressive drag racing facts.

This will put motor racing right into perspective for you. These things
>are seriously impressive.
>One dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows
>at Daytona (or Bathurst 1000).
>Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro per
>second, the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747, but with
>4 times the energy density.
>The supercharger takes more power to drive then a stock hemi makes.
>With nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on
>overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before
>ignition.
>Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
>Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an
>arc welder in each cylinder.
>At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame
>front of nitro methane measures 7050 degrees F.
>Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the
>exhaust stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from
>atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.
>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
>at 1400 degrees F.
>The engine can only be shut down by cutting off its fuel flow. If spark
>momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in those
>cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder heads off
>the block in pieces or blow the block in half.
>Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the big end
>of the crank) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front to
>rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronization with
>the pistons.
>To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of
>over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before 1/2 track, launch
>acceleration is closer to 8G's.
>If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once
>NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.
>Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence.
>Top Fuel Engines ONLY turns 540 revolutions from light to light!
>The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.
>To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster elapsed
>time record is 4.477 seconds for the quarter mile. This means that you
>could be coming across the starting line in your average Lingenfelter
>powered "twin-turbo" Corvette at 200 mph (on a FLYING START) and the
>dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A DEAD STOP in a Quarter
>mile distance!


[I think my brother added this to the email:]

"Yeah but put a corner half way up the track and it is absolutely stuffed."