Drag boat racing is not something that we see a lot of around BangShift’s eastern world HQ but it is big stuff in the western and southern regions of the country. Hot Rod Magazine’s Mike Finnegan has been involved in the drag boat scene for some time and in this cool video, he takes us inside a race weekend running a sportsman drag boat in an index class. The boat is powered by a 1200hp naturally aspirated big block Chevy which makes some amazing noise as it thunders down the liquid quarter mile.
This video taught us a few things we didn’t know about the sport like the launching procedure, how the boats are tuned and dialed in from round to round, and just how insanely sensitive these things are to changes in the wind and water. For instance, you’ll see footage of the dude Mike is crew chiefing for racing down the water on a nine second lap when he passes under a helicopter hovering above, shooting TV we assume. The wash from the prop on the chopper causes the drag boat to heavy and yaw, nearly wrecking it. It is pretty intense and the driver does a nice job to save it.
Hit the link below to see, hear, and learn about some serious hot rodding on the water!
Damn that is different environment that seems cool as hell for a mid-westerner like me
I spent 5 years crewing on a blown alky hydro….Ed Murphy’s Mission Possible boat….we held the class record at 227.00 mph back in the early 90’s….got to hang with Donnie Couch …Brad Anderson….and Ralph Gorr….Loved it…but also heartbreaking…..we lost our driver Tim Capaldi at Puddingstone ……when I shoved those guys off the trailer you never knew if they were coming back..