How do Drag Race cars accelerate from 0 to 335 MPH in 3.6 seconds?  

Drag race drivers have the same power as 12 F1 cars and drink as much fuel as the 747 at takeoff. The drivers of these drag cars experience same G forces that the astronauts did on the space shuttle. All that power means the car wheels have to be pretty special to get the car from zero to almost 320 miles an hour in under 4 seconds.

How do these specialized tires help the dragsters reach four and a half G’s direct acceleration?

We know that the standard recipe for going really fast is plenty of power, minimal way and a lot of grip. The top field drag racers are the fastest class in drag racing and so take each of these factors to the extremes. Due to this reason top fuel dragsters are the fastest accelerating machines in the world. They use Chrysler Hemi 500 cubic inch blocks with some extreme modifications working out over 8 liters of displacement, they are also heavily supercharged use specialized drag fuel and have spark plugs that are so powerful you could use them as arc welders. This all means they can produce around 11,000 horsepower and drink 11 gallons that's 50 litres of fuel in a single run burning all that fuel produces so much noise that two cars were once measured at 2.3 on the Richter scale.

The engines are under such huge stress that the teams have to completely rebuild them for each run replacing things like pistons, rods, rod bearings and the crank. The crews managed to do all of this in under two hours between rounds so why do the tires crinkle at launch. They're called ripple wall slicks and run at very low pressures to maximize grip. By having the car wheels at about 7.5 PSI around half a bar. The tire squats when applying the engines torque at launch, this flattens bottom of the car wheels increasing the size of the car wheels contact patch improving grip and providing a better launch.

What is the effect of crinkling on car wheels?

The crinkling actually reduces the instantaneous torque off the line but means the driving force is applied more gradually leading to reduced world spin. Applying the force more gently provides better traction similar to how a smoother throttle application in a race car can lead to better acceleration out of corner. When compared to smashing the throttle and causing well spin. The crinkling is a side effect of the huge reduction in the car wheels diameter. It's often called folding of the tire and needs a very specific tire pressure to achieve optimal grip.

The governing body for drag racing the NHRA actually regulates the minimum pressure teams can run. This is after some teams began using less than 5 PSI about 0.3 of a bar which provides a larger contact patch and more grip but can cause a tire to explode or simply be ripped off the car rim at higher speed. The squat of the car wheels serves another purpose as it reduces the overall drive ratio of the car as the diameter of the tire gets smaller. The effective gear ratio is reduced just like changing down a gear. This provides better drive and acceleration at launch the tires can compress by up to 8 inches in diameter reducing the gear ratio by about 20%.  

How the car wheels stretch centrifugal force at high speed?

This can be best seen when the drivers do burn out before the run it's called ballooning. This serves a couple of purposes. The opposite to the squat effect is when a tire stretches at higher RPM which increases the drive ratio of the car and leads to better top end performance when at high speed. The squats and the balloon effect means that most top fuel dragsters use a single drive gear and don't require gearboxes. The tires ballooning also leads to the contact patch of the area of the car wheel touching the surface narrowing and reducing the rolling resistance of the tire. Thanks to their size and extremely sticky soft compound this can have a big effect at high speed.

What compound is used for the car wheels by drag racers? The drag racers use an extremely soft compound far softer than even the softest F1 compound. This means they produced more grip than a harder tire and get up to temperature much faster.

Why mother race series leads to more grip and more performance?

Well tires produced grip through adhesion. In simple terms this is the force needed to overcome the sticky chemical interactions between the tire and the road. Rubber is used in tires because the compound can conform to the surface of the road getting into the rough surface this increases the surface area of the tire that is in contact with the asphalt and allows more force to be applied without sliding. However, it does mean rubber can shear off when in these cracks. This is why softer tires don't last as long because more rubber is removed when applying force through the tire. This stretching of the rubber creates heating effects as the rubber molecules rub against each other explaining why softer tires heat up faster. On the flip side this leads to tire degradation where the rubber can get too hot and shears off much easier leading to rapid tire wear. This explains why drag car wheel manufacturers use compounds that are far softer than other motor sports. Tires are only used for a quarter mile at a time and only in a straight line so it can be extremely soft for optimal grip and therefore optimal acceleration.

Drag is complete burnouts to get the tire up to temperature but also to lay at hot sticky layer of rubber down onto the tracks surface. Unsurprisingly, the tires are expensive. They cost around $900 each and only last 8 runs. They will only cover a couple of miles before being replaced. Top fuel dragster engines produce up to 10,000 Newton meters of torque. All that talk means tires have to be clamped to the car rim to avoid the tire simply being ripped off the wheel when accelerating. Since the early days drag race cars had been rear wheel drive and rear engine. This puts the majority of the weight over the rear axle giving it more grip. They also have large and high rear wings to further increase the downward pressure at high speed.

In the first half second overrun the majority of the downforce doesn't come from the wings the dragsters use the open exhaust headers as they are angled upwards and due to the speed and volume of the air being expelled push the car into the road. They can produce as much as 500 kilograms of downforce enabling more grip for launch as the speed increases. Further through the run the rear wing begins to produce more and more downfalls up to about 3.5 tons of downforce at top speed which is about double what an F1 car produces. The extremely powerful spark at starting the engine is needed to ensure the fuel is lit. If it doesn't lit it can build up and result in an explosion powerful enough to crack the engine block. The engine is also supercharged and has a fuel pump powerful enough to supply 10 gallons of fuel about 50 liters per second.

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