How a Top Fuel Dragster Works

Have you ever been to a Top Fuel Drag Race? If you haven't - Go to at least ONE in your life time. They usually run the qualification races during the day, and the "Full on races" - with the HUGE flames and shit - in the evening / night.... The next thing up the line is like a Saturn 5 or some other HUGE rocket launch... Head Rush - To the Max.

The most powerful of them, are now passing 500 Kmh / 310 MPH within 400 meters. This is just "god unbelievably powerful"....

People think fires need oxygen (21% of the atmosphere) to burn, while the nitrogen (~80%) is just a heat suck - it does nothing... BUT if you chemically bond NITROGEN to other flammable materials, like glycerine, methanole, cellulose (cotton / wood fibre) etc., at high temperatures, and or HIGH pressures from shock waves, you either get a HIGH POWERED fuel which is mixed with the reactant - sort of like making liquid petrol and mixing it with liquid oxygen - and pouring that into an engine.... except that nitrated fuels are "sort of" chemically stable = Nitrated Methanol 35% and ethyl alcohol... Not really an unstable explosive - but a SUPER POWERFUL fuel. But other forms of nitrated compounds - are high explosives, some are set off with simple friction / contaminants / temperature and others need an explosive shockwave to create a front of high pressure through them - which initiates the reaction.