Written
by
on June 6, 2016
Contributors: NHRA
“It’s just nice to know that you’re not going into the wall,” Jack Beckman explains.
Nitromethane is a temperamental source of speed, and sometimes it bites
back with no warning. Blower explosions aren’t exactly common, but they
happen to almost everyone. When a blower pops, Funny Cars bodies tend
to disintegrate from the force of the explosive nitromethane as it
back-fires through the intake tract.
“Fast Jack” Beckman is no stranger to the situation, and it shows in his
collected response as the body ejects, and the chassis begins bouncing
from the explosion. “I think it had just started to spin the tires. And,
it’s one of those ones where you wish you had a tenth of a second
earlier to get off the throttle,” said Beckman. “Because, what could
have happened is that it might have tagged an intake valve [from valve
float], and big explosion – I mean, that’s one of the biggest ever.”
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