Mon, 23 Oct 2000, 11:58 AM New Rules For Federal-Mogul Funny Car in 2001

By Michael L. Jex Many Skeptics, Few Believers

More oil Downs, grenaded engines, higher cost are just a few of the comments from car owners, crew chiefs and drivers about the new rules in Federal-Mogul Funny Car for 2001.

Whipple Blower in Pat Austin's ProMax Firebird

The Rule changes recently approved in the Category are as follows:

BLOWER OVERDRIVE LIMITS - Roots blowers will have a maximum overdrive of 70 percent overdrive, Screw blowers will be limited to 92 percent, and Whipple will get 36 percent maximum.

ENGINE SIZE - Maximum Motor size will be increased to 565 cubic inches. The purpose of this change is to allow IHRA competitors who typically run about 540 cubic inches to compete in the category without having to make changes.

WEIGHT - The minimum weight will be increased to 2,200 pounds.

CREW CHIEF COMMENTS:

"All they (the teams) are going to do is lean on it." said Ora Vasquez, crew chief of the Dairy Farmers of Oregon Funny Car. "A lower gear, bigger motors, more compression, more timing. They (NHRA) just created another big expense. It doesn't make sense." Said Vasquez.

"Next year we'll see big motors with still more RPM, and lots more broken parts." finished Vasquez.

By making these rule changes most crew chiefs estimate the following will be required to make up a competitive combination.

1.  Raise Compression of the Engine.
2.  Change Transmission Gear Ratios.
3.  Change Rear End Ratios
4.  Different Engine Size, New Cranks, Rods, Blocks, etc.
5.  Downsize The Fuel Pump.
6.  New Clutch

The estimated cost of these changes according to those that purchase the parts is somewhere in the $8,000 to $10,000 range.

On the surface you'd think Mert Littlefield who makes the roots style blower would be happy with the new rules. His blower is popular in IHRA; the new rules are designed to make the IHRA setup a competitive combination in this NHRA class.

Mert Littlefield's PSI Screw Blower

Not so.

Mert had this to say about the new rules "It doesn't make sense. What NHRA wanted to do is cut down on oil downs. The Dragsters have been the biggest problem because they run such high RPM's at the finish line. Now we'll have to run a lower gear, more rpm like the Dragsters. You can get the boost to continue to go fast, it's engine speed that is the problem." The guys running my roots on a good day in perfect conditions are running in the 5.70's now. We're close to running the port flow at maximum, it's not going to change with these rules."

Littlefield continued "The last time they changed the rules they based overdrive on engine size. So much per cubic inch. It didn't work and they changed the rules. If you compare those numbers to these changes, you can see we're very close to where we started."

Mert doesn't run a roots style blower, he runs a screw blower made by PSI.

"I loved drag racing before I ever made a blower." said Norm Drazy, the inventor of the PSI Screw Blower and President of PSI. "If we were seeing our blower causing engines to blow up from too much boost, we'd make needed changes ourselves. What we are seeing is connecting rod, and valve train failure, not from too much boost, but from parts failure, or incorrect installation and lubrication."

THE ADVERTISED BENEFITS

One of the advertised benefits of this rule change is less maintenance. Less work on the clutch, blower, less work between rounds. The IHRA Alcohol Funny Car class has been mentioned to this reporter several times of an example of this "less work." approach. A close source to FastNews recently went to the IHRA race in Rockingham to see how the Funny Car racers do things. Since the race was rained out there was ample time to observe and discuss how things are done.

Not only do the IHRA racers take out and resurface the clutch just like their NHRA counterparts, they also restrip the roots hi-helix blowers every run. The IHRA racers made the following comment about it "We feel it makes the combination more consistent, and consistency wins drag races." What is obvious is they are not only taking the clutch out of the car between runs, they are working on the blower, something you see only rarely in Federal-Mogul Funny Car.

NHRA RESPONDS

In an interview with FastNews, Len Imbrogno, the Director of Sportsman Racing for NHRA had this to say about the rule changes.

"The problem is too much boost in the Federal-Mogul classes. This is not any different than other forms of motorsports have experienced. Limiting boost has been used to slow cars down the IRL, CART and the restrictor plate in NASCAR." said Imbrogno. "It's important to bring this class back to the principles it was founded on. This was a sportsman class, yet now the costs have risen to the professional level. Only by taking boost away from the cars can we slow them down and open the door for more people to enter the class."

"The other divisions (1-6) are not like Division Seven. One of the biggest issues in other areas was the size of motors. We've tried to open the door for the others with more flexibility on engine size." continued Imbrogno.

When asked about crew chief and owner comments about the change making things worse with engine speed, Len has this comment. "The limiting factor is valve train components. Rev Limits wouldn't work because it would ratchet the class down to whoever's head and combination worked best at a given RPM range. They (The engine builders) can't increase compression and engine speed without drops in performance."

Len summed up the issue this way "We've got to slowly turn the direction of the class to why it was founded to begin with. Sportsman racing, right now it's a professional category. We may need to do more, but this will make it easier to fix."

What this means in on-track performance is a guess, but the 250 plus mph top end speeds should slow down. ET's may not suffer much as the teams may be able to get more aggressive on the starting line.

THE BIGGEST COSTS

If you ask a team owner the top four expenses for his drag racing operation he will likely give you a list that contains the following items as his biggest headaches and expenses for this category.

1.  Travel Expenses - Getting the team to and from the track.
2.  Insurance - Insurance for the big buck tow rigs, materials and the car while it
is in the trailer.
3.  Tow Rig Expense - The cost to transport the team, car, engines, spare parts and
other materials to and from the track.
4.  Consumables - Spark Plugs, Oil, Fuel, even towels, gloves, RTV, etc.

THE 80-20 RULE

One of the oldest business rules taught in any major university business program is
that eighty percent of the benefit is in twenty percent of the solution.  In the
statistics world they call it a bell curve.  Ten percent at the top, eighty percent
in the middle, and ten percent trails at the bottom.

NHRA has gone to a tremendous amount of effort with this rule change. Their most
surprising accomplishment is after spending two weeks researching this story
FastNews was unable to find ONE PERSON that liked the changes.  Consensus has been
reached from that standpoint at least, a rarity in drag racing in any form.

Right now NHRA Federal-Mogul Funny Car Racing is made up of the last remaining ten
percent of drivers and teams.  The other ninety percent have either given up due to
costs and lack of vision of the leadership, or because the MOST IMPORTANT TWENTY
PERCENT of the problem is being ignored while those that remain argue amongst
themselves, making no real progress because of no consensus, no vision, and worst of
all not addressing the fundamental eighty percent of the problem.

Unless NHRA, Federal-Mogul, The Racers, TOGETHER focus on the real reasons why so
many  can't run in the class, the costs are too expensive, these classes will die.
With things so broken, you'd think it would be easier to fix.  The patient that is
Federal-Mogul Funny Car is in the emergency room in full cardiac arrest, and some
feel NHRA just gave them a root canal.

Changing the engines, blowers, or gears will not fix the problems in this class.
Until the parties involved focus on the real problems of too much travel, not enough
money, too many races this Pro Sportsman category will continue to hemorrhage.

Call A Doctor, Call A Specialist.  Most doubt the Dentist did the job.  Please do
something now before the only person left to call is a mortician.