Top Fuel Dragster Facts

I stole this off my company's forum, crazy stuff!
I can't stand any type of professional racing but these numbers are insane!

One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more
horsepower than the first 4 rows of stock cars at the
Daytona 500.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2
gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747
consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy
being produced.

A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to
drive the dragster's supercharger.

With 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger
on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a
near-solid form before ignition.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full
throttle.

At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and
technology by which quantities of reactants and products in chemical
reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane, the
flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg F.

Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen
above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from
atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is
the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass.
After halfway, the engine is dieseling from compression,
plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 degrees F. The
engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro
builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with
sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in
pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must
accelerate an average of over 4G's. In order to reach
200 mph (well before half-track),the launch acceleration
approaches 8G's.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have
completed reading this sentence.

Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from
light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only
survive 900 revolutions under load.

The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm.

Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for
free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated
$1,000.00 per second.

The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441
seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher).
The top speed record is 333.00 mph. (533 km/h) as measured
over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).

Putting all of this into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter
"twin-turbo" powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up
the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch
down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the
advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up
through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest
200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at
that moment.

The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your
foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears
your eardrums and within 3 seconds, the dragster catches and
passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile
away from where you just passed him.

Think about it; from a standing start, the dragster had
spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted
you off the road when he passed you, all within a mere 1,320
foot long race course.

Edited to add:
I learned also that as of the last few years, Top Fuel dragsters are now limited by the rules to not exceed about 330 mph for safety reasons.