This video is too cool. We had heard the stories of Cummins-powered diesel Indy cars before, but we had never seen any video of them until we stumbled upon what looks to be a Cummins promotional film from 1952 showing the historic qualifying run and the atmosphere at the track. Note how full the place is and remember that this was the last day of qualifying. These days, you could shoot a howitzer and miss the fans during qualifying laps.
It has been Audi along with a handful of other manufacturers in recent years that have used diesel engines in their endurance racing cars. Those machines have made the world stand up and take notice of the potential of oil burner engines in motorsports. Cummins can proudly say that they were on that track nearly 60 years ago when they took the pole position with the fastest qualifying speeds ever recorded at the time. The car was blown up 70 laps into the race when the turbo swallowed junk and fed it to the motor, but the point was proven that the diesel could hang with a gasoline motor.
#28 has been maintained as a runner all of the years since the race. Just last month we rolled the car out of the museum for a quick sprint around our test track, packed up the container and shipped her off to England to run the June hillclimb at Goodwood.
Who was the narrator? It sure sounds like Ronald Reagan.
Exceptionally cool Mr. Dollmeyer. I would be very interested to see modern pictures of the car, especially shots of the stuff under the tin. A video from Goodwood would also be great. Regards Sid Ferguson
Would love to see the Goodwood clip
Strange – I thought high performance diesels blew soot & crap all over the place
no, i think you are mistaking high performance diesels with the tractor pull children.
smoke=noise=showmanship.
clear exhaust=noise=power&torque.
tractor pull pukes over fuel in order to get the heat out of the engine. the heat that would burn up the aluminum pistons is carried out with the unburned hydrocarbons. 1400 degrees F is about the limit for them.
high performance diesels with high temperature coating on the pistons run a little bit hotter and get the excess heat out of the exhaust by running lean, as in a lot more air into the engine than needed for combustion. the excess heat runs hell out of the turbosuperchargers. it is all about heating the nitrogen in the cylinder and making it want to expand. more air, makes more hot nitrogen, makes the nitrogen want to expand, makes the piston move harder down the bore, makes TORQUE which is what is required. diesel engines push supertankers thru the seas. little dinky racing cars are easy