As evidenced by the wild lead photo of the funny car belching fire from every possible place, blower explosions in drag race machinery can be spectacularly awful. With the modern advent of burst panels, blower restraints, and blower bags, most explosions today are less photogenic than the “blower bangs” of the old days. Back then, it was not unheard of for superchargers to fly into or over grandstands, land in drivers’ laps, or shatter like glass into a million pieces. All that said, we’ve got some awesome video carnage in this collection.
Oh yeah, you may be wondering what causes a supercharger explosion. Most often the cause is a hung open or otherwise busted intake valve. When all that fuel and flame is allowed to escape the cylinder because of said intake valve being off duty, the combustion happens either in the blower or just under it and it manages to ignite all the fuel that’s being dumped into the motor at the same time. All that kablooey needs to go somewhere and the blower is bolted in the way!
Let the destruction begin!
Here’s video from the late 1980s shot at Santa Pod Raceway in England. It is the most historic and important drag strip in Europe. The driver of this Funny Car got a rude suprise shortly into his run after completing a pretty clean burnout.
Here’s video of how to kill youself while working on anything with a blower bolted to the top of it. Never, and we mean NEVER position youself leaning directly over top of the supercharger. This guy is lucky he wasn’t killed instantly.
This slow motion video shows a “worst nightmare” scenario where the driver stands on the throttle and due to that hanging intake valve, the car instantly pops the blower. This is a perfect example of blower restraints doing their job. That whole mess of kit would hand been launched skyward and could really hurt someone. With the restraints it is held tightly to the motor.
We don’t know who it was or when it happened, but before this flopper goes 60 feet, it appears someone detonates a small nuclear device inside the motor. BLAMO!
