Why drag races were always a quarter mile (and when that changed) – Jalopnik

Dom Toretto may live a quarter mile at a time, but you know who doesn’t? Drivers in the NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car classes. Organized drag racing has been around since the late 1940s, but progress came fast and furious. By 2008, the speed these vehicles could reach had become a safety issue. After the death of Scott Kalitta, the NHRA decided to shorten the distance for the most powerful racers to 300 meters to help prevent further injuries.

It marked a major change in the sport, which got its start in 1949, when top speeds were just approaching triple-digit levels. About 60 years later, Tony Schumacher drove his NHRA Top Fuel dragster to a then-record speed of 537.58 mph in the quarter mile. Brittany Force surpassed that mark this year when she became the fastest person in NHRA history, thanks to a run of 541.85 mph that pushed her past the previous record of 541.68 mph.

The origin story of the quarter mile itself goes back to the Southern California gearboxes that started with acceleration runs at a small airport in Goleta. The growing buzz about these events caught the attention of a local journalist, and as he was gathering the facts he naturally asked how long the races lasted. To be fair, no one seems to have measured, but Bob Joehnck, an unofficial spokesman for the group, essentially drew a quarter mile out of thin air. From then on – at least until 2008 – the quarter mile became the standard for drag racing.

Many people also raced – illegally and dangerously – on public streets. In fact, when Wally Parks founded the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) in 1951, getting drivers off the road and into closed circuit racing was a top priority. Once that happened, the speeds really started to pick up.

The first NHRA driver to exceed 150 mph in competition was Art Arfons in 1956, although Lloyd Scott broke that barrier at a non-NHRA event in 1955. Big Daddy Don Garlits shot past 200 mph in 1965 and 250 mph in 1975. In 1992, Kenny Bernstein clocked passes north of 300 mph its Top Fuel dragster. Funny Cars, like this Supra with a hilarious underbite, joined the 300 mph club the following year, thanks to a 300.40 mph run by Jim Epler.

But soon after, tragedy began to catch up with the increasing speeds. Driver Darrell Russell died in 2004 during a Top Fuel race after his engine exploded. In 2007, Funny Car driver Eric Medlen was killed in an accident during testing. Then Scott Kalitta – a two-time NHRA champion and son of drag racing legend Connie Kalitta – lost his life after an engine explosion and parachute failure saw him go from the end of the strip, through the run-off area, into a brick wall. As a result, the NHRA shortened the race distance for Top Fuel and Funny Cars to 1,000 feet, giving racers more room to slow down at the end of an event.

While the good old USA measures distances in units of freedom, most of the rest of the world goes metric. But patriots will be happy to know that the world of European drag racing continues to follow the NHRA standard of quarter-mile lanes for most classes except Top Fuel and Funny Car, where the cars compete over distances of more than 1,000 feet. That’s one of the biggest differences between racing in America and Europe, which may raise another question: Is there a world of European drag racing?

Yes, and the organization behind it is none other than the FIA ​​​​(Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), the same organizing body behind Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship and the World Rally Championship, among others. The FIA ​​began overseeing the European Drag Racing Championship in 1997, with the current season including stops in Great Britain, Sweden and Germany.

The sport itself grew in popularity in the 1960s, thanks to events such as the first British International Drag Festival in 1964. The first permanent drag racing facility in Britain was launched in 1966 on an old US air base. The Santa Pod Raceway is still in operation and even takes its name from the Southern California scene, as the “Santa” originated from West Coast cities like Santa Barbara and Santa Monica. The “Pod” part was a shortening of the name shared by the air base and a nearby village, Podington.