Between the Panorama City Special, the first sling-shot dragster, and the four engined Challenger 1 Bonneville car, Mickey Thompson built this twin-engined streamliner:
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Originally intended for the quarter-mile, an impromptu stop at Bonneville during Speed Week resulted in Thompson and Voigt temporarily abandoning their drag-racing intentions to instead capitalize on the dragster’s off-the-trailer first run of 242 mph on the salt. Later that week Thompson hit a one-way best of 294.117, breaking a connecting rod during his backup attempt. The front 392 Hemi was placed backward powering the front axle, while the rear 392 was in a traditional configuration, powering the rear axle.
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http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/t...sters.1082497/
Triple Nickel!
There're interesting stories in the that thread. Streamlined bodies that aren't just faster backwards, they want to be backwards.
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As far as the front wheel "pants", Nye made sets for several other dragsters at the time. One of the issues with these pants was that they were very sensitive to airflow, meaning that if the driver used the steering wheel very much on the top end, the car tended to make "immediate" turns in that direction, just like the rudder on an airplane. A little scary, which is why Nye never used them on the original Pulsator...
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Craig Breelove's Spirit of America that had a rudder behind the rear axle, that had drag that wanted to lift the front end.
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At Lions for test sessions Faust experienced extreme steering problems, smashing into the eyes and causing damage to the nose.
Johnson made repairs overnight and the Jungle Four team was back at San Fernando, where the same thing happened on the first pass, causing the dragster to veer off the track. The team supposedly hired a NASA aerodynamicist, who concluded there was so much downforce on the covered front tires that steering could not overcome the pressure, rendering the car unsteerable. Its best time was 8.20 at 197.80 mph.
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www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/streamliner-dragsters.1082497/]