We’ve been showing you the cool vehicles dreamed up over in England by Tom Armitage and his band of henchmen. They are they are the guys who turned a Postman Pat shopping center ride into a drag race car and over the last year and change the guys constructed a tiny slingshot dragster with a four banger motorcycle engine mounted up front. The engine is equipped with a split pair of headers that look and sound fantastic and up until we were tipped off to this video, we knew it ran OK and was a lot of fun. We’re upgrading the “runs OK” part to “flipping flies”!
These videos show Tom Armitage at the controls, running a bunch of 10-second quarter mile passes at York Raceway in England. These are not simple straight ahead runs, no. These are sideways, wild, hang on tight and wrangle the car down the track laps at York. As you’ll see, getting the thing off the starting line is a challenge. The car runs on very small slicks and they seem to dead hook and lug the motor down pretty hard (while simultaneously yanking the front end up!) on the launch and we’re guessing that earlier attempts at getting aggressive with the car resulted in big tire spin so this is the alternative to that. While we’re not sure we’d fit in the cockpit, we want to drive this mean little monster badly.
Does anyone else think that this car could serve as a brilliant and fun new class in drag racing? They built it for decently short money, it runs 10s at nearly 130mph, and the dragster acts more like a classic slingshot than any modern built slingshot we have seen lately. Between having the front end up and the track crossing attitude, it just looks neater than hell sitting there because it is so small. Eight of these cars would put on a fantastic exhibition, no question.
We’re going to follow up with Tom to get some time slips and more data, but until then you have to check out this video and see what the little slingshot is all about. Would you drive it? WE WOULD!
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THE WORLD’S COOLEST (AND ONLY?) MINIATURE MOTORCYCLE POWERED SLINGSHOT –
This would be an awesome class of drag racer, looks like an old school dragster, runs a motor you can pick up for pennies in a scrap yard that will last for ages and makes big power, is a truly wild ride and runs proper numbers. Hell, I’m going to break out my welder, find some tubes and build one, then I’ll get in touch with these guys and grudge race around the country!
Damn right this should be class! Low buck, heads up front (bike)engine dragsters hell yea, I’d be tempted by that! A few basic rules but not enough to stifle creativity and you’re off, convinced this would be a winning formula.
The first car I ever built was a Harley powered RED, it was pretty neat but we didn’t spend any money to develop it further. Its still around and gets run at NED occasionally. Then I built another for a guy in Florida, but don’t know what ever happened to it. Lots of people have built motorcycle powered dragsters, but they never seemed to take off
Watch for small automotive throw away motors to be doing this soon. Ten second passes and slower in an open bodied slingshot is an incredible ride and circumvents a lot of rules that cost a ton and don’t truly offer increased safety.
I don’t know what their clutch set-up is, but by the sound of the launch, it’s most likely a stock one with heavy springs. Throw a multi-stage lock-up in it and I bet that thing would squirt out of the hole pretty well. Better yet throw some spray on that bad boy. My stock motor gsxr1000 with some minor drag set-up (no stretch) has run 9:70s @ 151 with my 185# butt on it. As long as you keep the weight down, bike powered machines boogie.
A few years back there was a company called Dakota Dragsters that built dragsters with motorcycle & snowmobile engines. Also check out the UMDRA @ http://www.umdra.com
Slipper clutch like a super street bike, sniff of nitrous and hello 8’s then 7’s and here comes the expense boys!
Then again N/A Nitro Ecotec and hello 6’s
I own a mini pro funny car built by GBC racing in milford Indiana chrome molly certifys 7.50 at 175 mph at 670 lbs. Hayabusa powered. Your right needs a lockup clutch and a auto shift sounds like he is hitting the rev limiter and then shifting.