I just read an article that a new movie about the famous rivalry in drag racing between Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen. It's coming out in the spring of 2013. These guys were 2 of my heroes of the day, along with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, "TV Tommy" Ivo, Mickey Thompson, "Hawaiian" Roland Leong, and "Grumpy" Bill Jenkins. I had the Snake and Mongoose Hot Wheels cars as a kid along with the drag race set that included parachutes! I still have them along with 1:24 scale special editions that were released from Mattel.

http://www.snakeandmongoosemovie.com/

I personally met Don and his top fuel driver of the day, Larry Dixon, about 10 years ago when I was at a meeting in Warren, MI. Don (now just a team owner) and the team were on their way to a meet in Ohio (Norwalk I think). The team was partially sponsored by Chevrolet that year. It was an honor to meet him and he was as humble as he could be. No ego that I saw. When they lit up the dragster, wow was it loud! Something north of 3000 HP according to Don. No one is really sure since there aren't dynos able to withstand that much HP abuse.

I recall him saying that an engine block was good for 4 runs max. Pistons, rings, spark plugs were replaced every run. Rods lasted 2 runs max. Crank 2-4 runs depending on the run. The engine is shut off by cutting the fuel off. The spark plug electrodes are usually burned off before mid-track and the engine runs on heat of compression, much like a diesel (which is why you have to cut off the fuel to stop it). There is so much air/fuel fed into this motor that one the compression stroke the mixture is on the verge of becoming a solid!

The engine block is based primarily on the old 426 Elephant Hemi motor but it is cut from billet aluminum as are the heads. The crank is billet steel. The block has no water jackets, which adds a ton of rigidity and strength to the motor. There are no water jackets as the engine only runs less than 2 minutes from start to finish. A 14-71 blower sits on top of the intake and they run around 55-75 pounds of boast depending on altitude as well as weather and track conditions.

Huh, interested in seeing this movie.

Wow, never really thought about the insane implications drag racing at that intensity has on the engine.

The power these engines produce is just totally insane. I can see why the roll cages in these things are spec'd out at over 22Gs. I know one of the reasons that Don Garlits finally retired for good was that the negative Gs he was constantly experiencing when the drag chute came out was damaging his retinas. It takes a huge set of kahonies to run a Top Fuel or Funny Car these days and high 7 figures to field a team for the season.