One of the best things about human nature, it seems, is that people will race just about anything and will, at some point, take the performance of said racing machines to an absurd limit. Take, for instance, tether-car racing. It’s a pretty simply concept: Build a small-scale car—a model, basically—and add power to it. Then, tie it to a string that is attached to a pole in the center of a circle track and see just how fast the sucker’ll go. I’m simplifying here because I don’t know all the nuance, but it sounds like a good way to spend a weekend to me.
As I understand it, people race all kinds of tether cars, but Vector Racing has produced the Thrust SSC of the tether racing world. It looks like a classic wedge-shaped streamliner and weighs just eight pounds fully assembled, thanks to a cast aluminum chassis and a carbon fiber top. This thing is the business and is well capable of exceeding 200 mph on a tether track thanks to its Neu 1530 motor. Power output seems a bit nebulous from what I’ve read and, again, I’m no expert on electric motors, but as I understand it, this is about like slapping a 3,000-horsepower helicopter turbine to a boat and ripping through the water like a maniac. Except you’re in considerably less danger of turning to mincemeat with a tether car.
When I watch this run, I’m struck not just by the utter insanity of building a 200 mph model car but of the absolutely alien sound it makes as it turns a few dozen laps with the motor cranking at 60,000 RPM. I absolutely must go see this in person.
If it was electric he wouldn’t be push starting it
It’ll be so high geared it wouldn’t be able to start from a standstill by itself. No different to Bonneville land speed vehicles that need pushed up to a speed that they can pull away from.