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How The Rockets Work...
My Partner, David Knight, and I were walking around a minor meeting at Santa Pod. We always like to have a close look at the originality and workmanship that goes into the many cars and bikes that are somebody’s pride and joy.
There were two guys working on a drab little old dragster that was well past its sell-by date. It was what was going on in the bit where the engine should be that caught our attention. Lots of high-pressure bottles and hoses and a straight bit, about a metre long, that was mysterious in its function.
“What’s that?” we asked, pointing to the mysterious bit.
“A rocket”
“What does it run on?”
“Plastic and laughing gas”
We were hooked.
David has been involved in drag racing since Santa Pod started. He knows all the people, and all the history, having worked on many of the famous cars. Stories of ‘Slammin Sammy Miller’ are his favourites. Sammy was the rocket car man. Three-second runs at over 400m.p.h. are still the fastest thing ever seen at any drag strip. Anybody messing around with rockets got our approval and support.
On one test day, at a ‘Run What Yer Brung’ the Public address commentator at the track was wondering out loud what the car was, as we pushed it to the line.
Then the car went.
“Fucking Hell it’s a rocket. The guy’s strapped a rocket to his arse and took off!!”
Forgive the expletive undeleted, but that’s exactly what he said over the loudspeakers.
The crowd loved it.
I gradually got to know Charles Berg, the man behind the project. I helped out here and there, finding a few much-needed chassis parts, and being the odd-job person on the crew. The little car was spectacular – lots of noise and a huge white-hot flame coming out of the back.
It wasn’t really that quick, but every time it ran, Charles seemed to get a bit more out of this strange rocket motor. My first suggestion was to put a two-tube motor in. But the chassis simply wasn’t up to it. Charles finally broke into the 12-second bracket in August 2003. Now it was obvious that, with a much lighter car and more rocket tubes, this concoction was capable of going really fast.
Read More (How The Rockets Work)
There were two guys working on a drab little old dragster that was well past its sell-by date. It was what was going on in the bit where the engine should be that caught our attention. Lots of high-pressure bottles and hoses and a straight bit, about a metre long, that was mysterious in its function.
“What’s that?” we asked, pointing to the mysterious bit.
“A rocket”
“What does it run on?”
“Plastic and laughing gas”
We were hooked.
David has been involved in drag racing since Santa Pod started. He knows all the people, and all the history, having worked on many of the famous cars. Stories of ‘Slammin Sammy Miller’ are his favourites. Sammy was the rocket car man. Three-second runs at over 400m.p.h. are still the fastest thing ever seen at any drag strip. Anybody messing around with rockets got our approval and support.
On one test day, at a ‘Run What Yer Brung’ the Public address commentator at the track was wondering out loud what the car was, as we pushed it to the line.
Then the car went.
“Fucking Hell it’s a rocket. The guy’s strapped a rocket to his arse and took off!!”
Forgive the expletive undeleted, but that’s exactly what he said over the loudspeakers.
The crowd loved it.
I gradually got to know Charles Berg, the man behind the project. I helped out here and there, finding a few much-needed chassis parts, and being the odd-job person on the crew. The little car was spectacular – lots of noise and a huge white-hot flame coming out of the back.
It wasn’t really that quick, but every time it ran, Charles seemed to get a bit more out of this strange rocket motor. My first suggestion was to put a two-tube motor in. But the chassis simply wasn’t up to it. Charles finally broke into the 12-second bracket in August 2003. Now it was obvious that, with a much lighter car and more rocket tubes, this concoction was capable of going really fast.
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