Word: driver
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...stands at Gainesville was a fan, Bob Post, who has lately described Big Daddy in print as a "crafty empiric." (It was empiricism when Garlits, recovering in the hospital from his transmission troubles, concluded that drag racing would be safer, and also faster, if the engine were behind the driver rather than in front--a crazy idea that is now standard.) Post edits Technology and Culture and is also a curator at the Smithsonian Institution. The fine points of dragster design have moved him to write: "I have found no human artifact that pleases me more than an earthshaking, fire...
Garlits and his competitors build and drive a class of dragster known as the top fueler--rail thin, about 20 ft. long, with big, sticky rear wheels and a high wing in back. Behind the driver, the engine throws flame from its exhaust headers and makes a noise that starts like a garbage truck under heavy gunfire and increases rapidly to an apocalyptic roar. "It'll blow your nose for you," one fan declares...
...engines put out 3,000 h.p., as much as a diesel locomotive, except that a locomotive may weigh 300,000 lbs., while a top fueler weighs under 2,000 lbs., driver and decals included. (The decals are everywhere. Mostly they advertise sponsors, but they also serve to cover holes where exploding engine parts have perforated the body metal and to announce matters of personal philosophy. A stylized fish on his windshield declares Garlits a member of RACERS FOR CHRIST...
...that power puts intense strain on the hardware. (One crew sells souvenirs: "Burnt pistons, $10.") Surviving the succession of runs needed to win a four-day event requires ingenuity on the fly. Driver and crew get as little as 75 min. between races to strip down a devastated dragster and make it run faster than it did before...
...speed anti- radiation missiles (HARM). The missiles home in on radar waves and are designed to destroy the transmitter, not the missiles or launchers themselves. "We shot out the tires," said one Pentagon official. "We didn't need to fire a pistol through the windshield to take out the driver...