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Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

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  • Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart


  • #2
    Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

    I have a November 1972 "Super Stock and Drag Illustrated" magazine with that kart in it. Wish I has a scanner but I don't so I took photos of the two page article. This thing has always amazed me. This version is with the hydrogen peroxide motor with 1050 pounds of thrust.



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    • #3
      Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

      Upon watching the crowd's reaction to McClure's 5.9-second (!) pass at either the '73 or '74 Manufacturers Meet, AHRA-prexy Jim Tice said, inside OCIR's tower, "Next year, let's forget about the 32 Funny Cars, and book a couple of these things, instead!"

      I've always loved exhibition acts, of all kinds. In terms of both performance and crowd appreciation, I've never seen anything that compared to Cap'n Jack's go-kart.

      --DAVE WALLACE

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      • #4
        Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

        Dave, I asked around and no one was for sure what became of McClure. Did he go back to fishing?
        That which you manifest is before you.

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        • #5
          Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

          Originally posted by D2
          Upon watching the crowd's reaction to McClure's 5.9-second (!) pass at either the '73 or '74 Manufacturers Meet, AHRA-prexy Jim Tice said, inside OCIR's tower, "Next year, let's forget about the 32 Funny Cars, and book a couple of these things, instead!"
          Dave, that is hillarious !!

          But, to see McClure's rocket kart back in 1964, with a Turbonique rocket motor mounted to the back, must have been really something to see at the time, especially for that day and age.

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          • #6
            Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart


            What would two T-32 turbonique thrust engines do in a formula atlantic rolling chassis?
            Thrust output at 1000 #s. Total gross weight with driver about 900#s.
            What would be accelleration, speed , distance, with burn times ranging from 4 seconds to 12seconds in duration?
            Also, what basic formula answers this? approximations are good enough, exact calculations not needed. THX mike

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            • #7
              Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

              Capt Jack McClure Is alive and well living in Florida, My good friend Ky Michaelson better known as THE ROCKETMAN has a lot of info about Capt Jack. Web site the-rocketman.com E mail [email protected] He has a new project going with Capt Jack. Thanks for remembering------ Capt Jack [email protected]

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              • #8
                Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

                Woah woah woah......

                Captain Jack....for real?! Holy crapola!

                Got any whoppers you can chare with us?

                Thanks for joining in the fun!

                Brian
                That which you manifest is before you.

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                • #9
                  Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

                  Originally posted by captnjack1
                  Capt Jack McClure Is alive and well living in Florida, My good friend Ky Michaelson better known as THE ROCKETMAN has a lot of info about Capt Jack. Web site the-rocketman.com E mail [email protected] He has a new project going with Capt Jack. Thanks for remembering------ Capt Jack [email protected]
                  YEAH! We'd love some stories!

                  While we're waiting . . . he's some more web goodness on Capt Jack and those rocket karts:

                  http://vaiden.net/rocket_gokart.html

                  And of course the BASIC TRAINING for all Bangshifters must include Iowahawk's history of the rockets behind the rocket karts:

                  Turbonique!

                  Here's the early 2006 version: http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk...real_acme.html

                  And I humbly nominate the following excerpt as the greatest couple of paragraphs in hot rod literature in the past decade:

                  "Once upon a time in the postwar, before the advent of EPA and OSHA and the Consumer Products Safety Commission and weenies in bike helmets and multilingual warning stickers on stepladders, crazy people walked this earth. Good, fun-loving Americans who knew that "instructions" were something you threw in the trash along with the empty Falstaff bottles. A halcyon era filled with manly men who savored the wholesome virtues of a rugged game of un-seatbelted automotive chicken.

                  Where did they all go? Perhaps it was the feminization of culture, or the rise of litigation, or the cumulative toll of various maimings. All I know is that entire industries were once devoted to sating their demand: tether lawn mowers. Home blowtorches and 110 electric welders. Oly party balls. And for the kids, Jarts and clackers and Thing Makers and M-80s. But there is one name that stands alone at the apex of the daredevilry supply industry: the Turbonique Company of Orlando, Florida."

                  Here's the 2008 edit that appeared in Jesse James' Garage Magazine:

                  "Now, all of us enjoy horsepower. Still, it?s difficult, in today?s litigious, wussified safety culture, to imagine anyone sending away good money for a hop-up which involved plumbing the trunk of your car with highly volatile rocket fuel, and which could easily blow your crankshaft out the bottom of your engine. It?s even harder to believe that a company actually manufactured and advertised it.


                  Well mister, know this: America wasn?t always a nation of lawsuit-happy crybabies. No sir, once upon a time, before the advent of EPA and OSHA and the Consumer Products Safety Commission and spandexed weenies in bike helmets and rubber-coated playgrounds and multilingual warning stickers on stepladders, risk-takers walked this earth. War-hardened, devil-may-care Americans who knew that ?instructions? were something to throw in the trash along with the empty Falstaff bottles. The kind of men who had a garage full of blowtorches and 110 electric welders; chain smokers who gardened with space age insecticides and tether lawn mowers, and bought their kids Jarts and clacker balls and ThingMakers and M-80s for Christmas.


                  It was an age when people understood that fun and risk went hand in hand, and it was in this zeitgeist that Middlebrooks found a willing customer base."

                  http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk...real-acme.html

                  Garage Magazine: http://www.garagemagazine.com/?p=354

                  And here's Steve "Magnetto" Magnante's bitchin story on Turbonique: http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e...que/index.html

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                  • #10
                    Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

                    Coming Soon to BS.com

                    Captain Jack...The interview!


                    Speedy has provided your study materials...not get reading kids!






                    Brian
                    That which you manifest is before you.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

                      His buddy Ky Michaelson is possibly even more insane. He has put a rocket on pretty much everything you can think of.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Vintage Race Car of the Week: Captain Jack McClure's Rocket Go-Kart

                        Brian, I don't know any other way to reach you, I lost your number and email address.send me your number we need to talk ...capjac [email protected]

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