Video: When Top Fuel Dragsters Race With Zero Track Prep

Laser-leveled and diamond-cut concrete surfaces to highly-engineered tires and traction compounds, slipper-style clutches with advanced electronically controllers, to power management systems and even traction control have made it possible for today’s drag racing vehicles — even those cranking out an estimated 10,000 horsepower — to appear to the naked eye as though they’re locked to the ground like a slot car. It’s a concept that those who helped found the sport back in the 1950’s and 60’s, using re-capped truck tires on rudimentary airstrips, couldn’t have fathomed.

httpv://youtu.be/SxVPJEQs3b8

But just imagine taking away perhaps the most vital of ingredients mentioned in that opening paragraph — the traction compound and related track prep?

What you get is a scene right out of the good old days, and you can find it in Japan, where not surprisingly given the countrys’ fascination with the automobile, nitro-burning Top Fuel Dragsters do exist. But the surprising part is that they don’t utilize any track prep on at least some of their straight-line racing facilities. None. Nada.

httpv://youtu.be/xH6mi9aA_yc

The footage you see here was captured during a racing event held on the main straightaway of the Fuji Speedway, a former stop on the Formula 1 schedule. Given the nature of the track and its primary usage as a road course, it stands to reason why absolutely zero sticky compound was laid down for drag racing purposes. What transpires when this Top Fuel Dragster (which is actually the same car with a different wrap on it at two distinctly different times) goes wide-open throttle is a scene right out of the glory days, with an epic roostertail of tire smoke and header flames as the car thunders down the quarter-mile.

httpv://youtu.be/rsOd2i0XVd0

After decades of technological growth leading us to the point we’ve arrived at, it’s fair to say we’re all a bit spoiled by the performance and consistency that today’s machines can attain by being virtually locked to the track more often than not, but there’s a certain beauty in this scene and the level of driver skill needed to make it to the other end. This is how you separate the men from the boys, and you can bet your ass that foregoing track prep would put a whole lot of excitement back into drag racing. 

We don’t care if it burns up a set of tires every pass and chucks every rod out of the block in the process. This is pure drag racing on display, and it gets the Dragzine seal of approval.