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No car is higher on the drag racing food chain as Top Fuel dragsters. Known for their speed and incredible power, these race cars would not be as successful without nitro-methane fuel. While many of us have experienced the downright breath-taking start up of one of these dragster’s nitro-meth engines, many would be surprised who was behind making the fuel a staple on the drag strip to begin with.
As we found out from Autoholics, it’s the same man behind hundreds of performance parts and one of the leading automotive companies in the country- Vic Edelbrock Sr.
Edelbrock was a go-getter from a very young age. After his family’s grocery store burnt down when he was just 14, Edelbrock took a job running Model T’s all over the Wichita, Kansas area, fixing them with whatever he had when they’d break down on the side of the dirt roads. This launched his career in the automotive industry.
By 1950 at the age of 37, Edelbrock had been making performance parts for four years and was famous for the “Slingshot” manifold used in his 1932 Ford. It was also in 1950 that Ed Haddad, famous Midget race car driver, approached Edelbrock with perfecting nitro-methane, a racing fuel formulated by the Dooling Brothers that had gained the reputation of being highly explosive. While other performance automotive guys wouldn’t touch the stuff, Edelbrock saw it as a challenge and began testing right away.
Using one of the industry’s first dynamometers that he bought in 1948, Edelbrock tested a V8-60 flathead engine using a 90/10 mixture of gasoline and nitro-meth. Vic Edelbrock Jr. remembers that fondly, saying, “The spark plugs were so hot they turned into ‘glow plugs.’ When they tried to shut it off, it kept right on running.”
This didn’t deter Edelbrock, however. After rebuilding the engine with colder spark plugs and strengthened internal components, Edelbrock and his crew continued testing. After countless tests, the perfect formula was decided- an 80/20 mixture of gasoline and nitro-meth. This mixture produced a history-making 40 percent increase in power for the V8-60 flathead.
Being the go-getter that he was, Edelbrock then took the new fuel mixture to the track. With Roger Ward behind the wheel of his V8-60 flathead Midget, Edelbrock saw an instant victory as his car was the first thing to beat the performance packed Offenhauser-powered race cars. Due to racing guidelines, Edelbrock had to keep his new fuel mixture a secret, however.
With some creativity, Edelbrock came up with an additive called “Orange Peel.” By adding this to the fuel, its distinct smell was disguised as well as the bright blue flames that it created.
Thanks to Edelbrock’s go-getter instinct and performance-oriented mind, nitro-methane has stuck around and became the standard for top fuel vehicles. Had Edelbrock not perfected the fuel mixture, making it safer and capable of harnessing substantial power, who knows if drag racing would be the same as it is today.
