PHOTO: JAMES SISK
“I still think there’s as much as
a tenth of a second possibly
in a quarter mile, and maybe
that much in an eighth. I think
this year in the eighth mile,
in good conditions, you’re
going to see some high 3.50s
from a big tire nitrous car,”
Carpenter believes.
when I look at it now, there’s no way you can’t have an automatic. You
couldn’t do it with a clutch.
It’s the smooth transition of power, and to be able to apply the power,
that much power, that early, and how quick we turn on all our nitrous
systems, it’s all so important. That’s the key. The early numbers are what
makes or breaks, especially in an eighth-mile race.
It takes all those things, though, to do it. The fuel injection to be able
to put the fuel where you need it at the different engine loads, and then
the torque converter to be able to apply it and then the tires and the
track to hold it.
TL: I think it was camshaft and cylinder head technology [in MMPS].
When I first started racing, we’d run our springs all year, and now you
can’t do that. A lot of times you’ll replace two or three springs in a race,
especially when it was quarter-mile racing, it’s a lot harder on springs. But
it’s definitely been camshaft and intake and cylinder heads.
The camshaft, they got more aggressive on the lifts, and cylinder heads,
I’m sure they went to bigger valves in them and opened up the heads. So,
you did gain a few cubic inches, which helps.
If you stepped back a decade, you likely couldn’t have predicted
doorslammer racing would go in the direction it has. Where did you
see this going 10-15 years ago?
GA: I think back then, I would have said each year goes by, we’ll gain
10-15 horsepower with the engine and that’s going to continue because it
did for so many years. But that stopped. That’s gone away. I didn’t perceive
that coming, but that’s absolutely gone away. And nowadays, if you gain
five [horsepower] a year, you did it, you had a great year. So that was not
the case for many, many, many years in a row. You didn’t find 10, 15, 20
horsepower in a year, you got left behind and just like everybody, it has
to every year. But with all these rule changes, that has kind of come to
an abrupt halt.
MW: Well, 200-plus mph was quite a milestone. I mean, you look at
throughout history, now you’ve got drag radial cars that are going 221 mph
in the eighth-mile. I had a friend of mine, he’s followed my racing and he’s
a car guy, but truly doesn’t understand what we’re doing. He follows drag
racing, he’s like, “How fast do you think your car would go quarter mile?”
And I’m like, “Well, really fast.” And he’s like, “What do you mean?” And
I’m like, “If we geared it, and we put a three-speed transmission with a
lock-up in it or a four-speed Liberty or a five-speed Liberty with a lock-up
to where we could run the quarter-mile, I mean, seriously, a drag radial
car could go 300 miles an hour.” When you put that into perspective that
it would be capable of doing that, or close to it, that’s unbelievable.
Whenever you think about that type of stuff, and the evolution, it’s
just crazy. I mean, they’re defying physics. I mean, that’s all that you can
say. It’s crazy.
CC: I would’ve projected that these cars probably would be two-tenths
slower than they are now. I would have never dreamed that they would
be where we are today. I’ve had a good gauge on this stuff and I’ve been
involved in it at a level that I’ve seen it change and grow and I’ve looked
at it, but I would’ve never dreamed it would have gotten to this point. I
really wouldn’t.
For what knowledge and skill I have, [the evolution in technology]
PRO MOD PIONEER CHARLES
CARPENTER HAS EMBRACED THE
EVOLUTION IN DOORSLAMMER
RACING, CONTINUING TO PERFORM AT
A HIGH LEVEL AND SET CAREER-BESTS.
July 2020
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