Another Epic 1/4-Scale Dragster: The 10-Horse “Quarter Mortar”

Talk about impressive weight-to-horsepower ratios!

We’ve found yet another insanely awesome quarter-scale car, which is neck and neck on the cool-o-meter with the scaled-down jet dragster we found earlier in the week, and while it’s not quite on par with a Top Fuel dragster in the weight-to-horsepower department, it’s certainly impressive for what it is.

This pint-sized “Quarter Mortar” dragster was built by John Foster and belongs to (and is currently being sold by) Texas native Steven Konarik, who has quite an affection for miniature-sized race cars, as you may remember him as the owner and pilot of the Arctic Cat-powered mini dragster that we featured here on Dragzine back in September. The remote-controlled ‘digger gets its motivation from a 38cc internal combustion motor built by O’Neill Brothers known as the “Widowmaker” that produces an estimated 10 horsepower, and is controlled by a Futaba 4PLS 4-channel radio system.

As Konarik shared with us, 10 horsepower is pretty substantial for a car of this kind, and while the motor has never been fired, he and O’Neill Brothers are confident the car will run in the low two-second range over a 132-foot course at beastly 60 miomewhere in the range of 100 to 105 miles per hour.

The single-cylinder “Widowmaker” motor has a complete billet crankcase, sealed clutch housings, and a WT-990 carburetor, and peaks at roughly 9.7 horsepower at 16,000 rpm’s.

The closest thing we could use to compare to this car would be a legitimate Junior Dragster, where a higher-end motor will typically make around 35 horsepower in a car that averages about 350 lbs., for roughly 10 lbs. per horsepower. Such a car covers 330-feet in four seconds and the eighth in seven seconds. The Quarter Mortar, meanwhile, is around 30 lbs. race-ready with 10 horsepower, or 3 lbs. per horsepower. Using that math, you get a pretty good idea of just how fast this little rocketship would be.