We have seen all sorts of stuff happen to heavy duty drag race cars during engine warm ups. We have seen them backfire, we have seen them seize up because they had no oil in them, and we have seen them fail to fire at all. What we have not seen is what happens in this video when the crew of what looks to be a funny car finally gets their lump lit off and making noise. Because of the grainy quality of the video we’re left with a few lingering questions. While it is tough to ID it seems like this is a small block Chevy. Also, are our eyes fooling us or are those a pair of carbs on top? You can hear what sounds like an electric fuel pump whirring away in the background so who knows.
The crewman squirts some gasoline down the bug catcher and it fires and quits. The same thing happens on the second attempt. The third attempt is the charm and the guy over the engine gives it some throttle to bring the revs up before letting it settle down to idle. Right about the time that happens is when you need to start paying attention to the front of the engine because that’s where the action is.
Of all the ways we have seen things go bad on warm ups, this is the one time we have ever seen THIS happen. The lack of reaction from the crew and bystanders means that everyone was kind of still trying to process exactly what just happened in front of them. We feel badly for the team but you have to admit that this is pretty funny.
Thanks to Pudgey Callum for the tip!
Bad luck but your starter guy should have shut you off. The first think I immediately noticed was the belt slap coming from the blower. I don want to place blame but this one got by him and again sorry for the bad luck. Timmy Winkel
That had bad news from the start, who could not see that top blower pully assy wiggle around, must have been a fake case, not the throttle response from blown engine…glad nobody was hurt….