Vrooom! Drag Racing Film early 70's

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] just probably the biggest thing the driver thinks about before the race is making sure that his car is prepared properly you always worry about all the little details being done you work as hard as you can with the time that you have but I think most drivers are like myself once the engine starts you forget all about that and you worry only about the task at hand which is making a good burnout with an entire sticky getting staged properly and getting down the quarter-mile just as fast and quick as you can like by yourself in the car you know all alone out there it's something that gets into your system just pulls you back into the seat and syncs your eyeballs back a few inches and they're ready I used to feel as though the fellows were really for me you know really wanted me to stay in the Top Fuel ranks but this seems to be a lot of sour grapes as far as the boys are concerned I love me they think it's a male sport it's kind of male sports it's just that you know I'm a race car driver I just happen to be a woman that's all doesn't make any difference I'm a target it's like the mold gunfighters of the west constantly everyone's taking a shot at you in every run that I make when I go to the line in competition the guy that races me gives it his best shot and it used to be a thing with me and I just love to get to the boys I just love the Tantrums they throw and they kick their cars and beat their cars with their helmets and it's great I like it I work for a speech up and I hang around the races I love the cars and I love the competition I love the men to go down the road with the rig like I have in spare engines and parts and whatever probably you're talking around $50,000 some races pay as much as thirty five thousand thousand that's what you'd like to win the big ones obviously well I think the top ten pros all earn over $200,000 a year in this court I know I do and I'm sure some of the rest aren't as much or more I look at drag racing isn't in a different aspect it it's more of a hobby to me so I don't drive making money off of it if the car pay for itself and maintain you know after I put everything in to get running I'm happy in 1950 before drag racing where I come from in Florida they didn't have a drag strip and we drag raced on the streets course we got a lot of trouble doing and that's why we got our local drag strip which was in those days just and old up being an Air Force runway I think the most drastic difference between then and now was just about anybody if go racing that really had an intention to do so the cars themselves $1,000 would be a tremendous amount of money to spend on a car I myself started out with a single unblown being engine went to a dual unblown engine car then one blown and one unblown engine the next step was for engines after that it seemed to be a little ridiculous madisyn 544 285 point seven one miles an hour for the pollution factor with this car you get an instant 3,000 horsepower or more I get about three and a half G's the force against my body it is a true Rock and I like to astronauts use for the moon the basic controls that you find in the top fuel car probably just a little bit more complicated than most people think of but really very simple and basic we have a handbrake since both feet are busy one the right foot on the throttle and the left foot on the clutch so all the braking is done with a handbrake on the left side we have the shifting lever for the two speed transmission forward position in this car is low gear the reserved reverse position is high gear generally shift this approximately 600 feet down the track which means when we stage the car you hold the breakers leave the starting line change hands on the wheel and shift the final one is probably the most important to a driver and that's this parachute release over on the right hand side just going in to the track timing cramps at the finish line just move the lever forward and it pulls the pin at the chute which flops the parachute down on the ground down from the 230 mile an hour ride and all you have to do is manipulate all these different controls in the period of six seconds that's just danger in the speed we run 230 miles an hour and with the speed it's dangerous and we have a fire danger where we burn nitro methane which is a waste product it consumes about four gallons to the quarter mile and that's why it's impractical to use it as a motor fuel in a passenger car I've done just about everything you can do one of these things rolled burn crashed flew drag racing is far I like watching the cars crash I don't follow the names through that time is there anything like that it's like excitement and the color and the people it's a good clean sport you know a lot of stiff competition you can't beat it we sit up here at the top row every year just have a boggle freeze to death by the time I'm very colorful I think the cars are very creative their designs and colors and names and the smell the big blowouts that they have here and things like that the smell and the noise not a toy I know it's almost a sexual thing I think people really get their kicks I guess I get rid of my frustrations driving on a highway I get so much enjoyment because they're running about two seconds faster than they were in 69 [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Nick Pettitt

Views: 172,454

Rating: 4.8777099 out of 5

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Id: Kz3EtlWpIaY

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 04 2020