Is :Larson's Truck Really the Quickest Street Car?

[38P]

Not to take anything away from what Larson and BSC have done to push the Unlimited envelope and bring the "fastest street car" bragging rights back to the USA . . . but there's a point that's worthy of some discussion. . . . And it's not the composite versus OEM body point that's so often discussed.

Converting Larson's truck into 6.19 E.T. trim isn't just a simple matter of bolting on the slicks, wheelie bars, and chutes, flipping some fuel feed valves, and changing the tune. It's a huge, time-consuming operation that involves most of the foregoing PLUS changing body parts, removing the cooling system, and installing a completely different fuel system (and probably several other things I didn't see).

The lengthy changeover apparently burned them at Noble and prevented any change of winning DW '14. The truck also takes too long between rounds to run in a typical street car hot-lap-style contest, as evidenced by Larson not making the Round 2 lane call in the Heads-up Shootout.

All of this raises the question: Do the extensive changes necessary to Larson's truck make it not really a "street" vehicle when it runs?

I mean given enough time and creativity, one could probably bolt and unbolt enough stuff onto a slightly-modified dragster and claim it's a "street car" . . . but would it be? Does the "fastest street car" business need some limits as to how far you can vary your car from its street configuration and still claim it's a street car?

Another question . . . In many other forms of record setting, the competitor has to "back up" the record run with another run that's within a certain percentage of the record. Does a vehicle which requires so much prep and prodding that it apparently cannot do a timely backup run really have a legitimate claim be being a record-holder?

What say you, Bangshifters?

[Beagle]

What do I say? oh god, not this shit again... wasn't there a ton of bitching years ago because some guy was cutting his blower belt for the "Ride and Drive" part of Drag Week?

LL probably said "Here's your f*ing Unlimited"... just to point out how screwed up that class will get in the future. It sure is "Unlimited." ... with it's "Hey, it's attached to the truck, not the trailer" external charging device and all. I'm thinking two wrongs don't make a right, but dang if that truck isn't Unlimited. Right over the top Unlimited.

I liked the old Nova. Joe Barry's ride is awesome. So is Kline's... I was secretly pulling for Kline. I like "Good Twin" but not so much for Evil Twin. It *IS* Unlimited though so if you can get it registered and have the balls to run it down the road, much less pull a trailer with what is probably 3000 hp mill, more power to you.

I'm less interested in the tagged pro mod race cars in unlimited than I am in something like either of the flying Monte Carlos, but if you're gonna stick a stinky finger in somebody like Andy Frost's eye to claim "World's Fastest", why not go "Unlimited"...

I'm waiting for a stretched sand rail with a twin turbo'd big block mounted mid engine (You know, a Dragster) and a flopper body to show up in Unlimited.

6.16? HOLY CRAP! That's what I think.

When it needs a 25.3 (whatever it is now) certification, I start to question "Streetable" anyway. Bashing your head into a funny car halo going for a six pack is not my idea of streetable, but I'm not all that hardcore. Why not just put a removable Prius drivetrain into a fueler so you can get from track to track and then blow down 5's, then get 45 mpge to the next track? It's not an engine swap... just parts removal for the race. Trunk mount a generator for the battery charge on the way.

[greenXpress]

granted, he will probably not go to Sonic in it tonight, but it made the route, laid down some un-real numbers and survived, so I would say the claim is legit. But he is not the quickest street car..............Larson drives the quickest street TRUCK.

[dieselgeek]

Allow me to save you hours of toil at your keyboard:

(1) the truck is built to the letter of the rules for Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week "Unlimited" class. Not your or my definition of "what is a street car." Read that last sentence a few times.

(2) complete changeover takes 45 minutes. Fuel and cooling systems are 5 minutes work total. What takes long is swapping rear shocks IMO.

Since the rules of Drag Week require the car has plates and other street amenities, and it's licensed/insured in it's home location, it also meets the general rules applied in the case of Andy Frost's (up til now) quickest licensed/plated vehicle on the planet. It just so happens that Larry's had to pass the 1190 mile Drag Week test on top of being quick/fast.

Hope that helps. Doubt it will.

[Ron Ward]

I think 38P does bring up some good points. Larry DID follow the rules of the Unlimited category. In fact, he took full advantage of them. But, as aksed, is the truck that raced really the same truck that made the drive from track to track?

John, thanks for the tought-provoking questions....


Anyone have popcorn?

[38P]

The fans went wild when Joe Barry put his steel car into the sixes in TUL. And certainly Doug Cline's all-sixes Drag Week in a steel-bodied (except for the hood) F-Body was an amazing comeback story (he missed DW '12 due to a testing crash, if memory serves).

But the retiring Lutz does seem to make some good points. (BTW, Lutz said the "Evil Twin" is for sale for $200,000.00)

Lutz won and set an event speed record with a mostly composite car (although it does have horrible aero and several hundred pounds of OEM chrome gingerbread) that likely took much less time and effort to convert it from race to street trim..Does that make it more of a "street" car than Larson's?

I'm relatively certain some Europeans may discount Larson's claim because the truck's race configuration is so markedly different from its street trim (which reportedly isn't so much the case with Frost's Vauxhall ( http://www.redvictor1racing.co.uk/ ) )

I'm sure that if someone had the engineering budget and financial wherewithal they could fit one of John Force's AA/FC funny cars with a removable "Auxiliary Power Unit" for the street., rig up a "suspension" that could be pulled or locked-out at the strip, and then demolish Larson's alleged"credit card" mobile**, but would that still be a "street" car?

BSC and Larson have conservatively built a car/truck under the "unilimited" rules that takes advantage of some (not nearly all) of the available technology . . . but its Achilles Heels seem to be the huge amount of modification, prep, and turnaround time it takes to make a single pass (as eye-popping as that pass may be).

Larson has taken a big shot here and will get huge accolades for it. But does it "jump the shark" with what it means to be a street car?

-----------------------------
**BSC incredibly claimed at the DW '14 awards ceremony that Larson and himself were just a couple of ordinary, average guys who "burned up their credit cards" on the build. Call me skeptical on that claim. Ordinary, average guys don't have "Property of GM" totes in their sometimes roped-off pits . . . or need at least two other vehicles (the BSC Wagon and Walt Reynolds' pickup) to haul around the necessary crew . . . or have personal, on-site assistance from a brain trust of supplier reps to help with the tuning . . . .

[38P]

Allow me to save you hours of toil at your keyboard:

(1) the truck is built to the letter of the rules for Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week "Unlimited" class. Not your or my definition of "what is a street car." Read that last sentence a few times.

(2) complete changeover takes 45 minutes. Fuel and cooling systems are 5 minutes work total. What takes long is swapping rear shocks IMO.

Since the rules of Drag Week require the car has plates and other street amenities, and it's licensed/insured in it's home location, it also meets the general rules applied in the case of Andy Frost's (up til now) quickest licensed/plated vehicle on the planet. It just so happens that Larry's had to pass the 1190 mile Drag Week test on top of being quick/fast.

Hope that helps. Doubt it will.

I didn't suggest that Larson's truck violated the skimpy "Unlimited" rules . . . although IMHO they the pushed the "assistance" / support vehicle rules to the extreme.

My questions are more philosophical and practical than hyper-technical. Will the public accept literally anything with a license plate that manages to motor down the highway at some point as a "street" car? Or does there have to be a meaningful connection between the racer's street and strip configurations? And should a street car be able to "make laps" in an ordinary street car race?

I'm also "shocked" that swapping rear shocks allegedly takes a lot of time . . . circle trackers commonly change coil-overs . . . even between heats . . .. in very abbreviated times (much simpler than the radical cooling/fuel system mods that Larson's crew performs).

I've got to say that when Larson bailed out on Round 2 of the Shoot-Out, I seriously started questioning the functionality of the truck as an actual racing vehicle. (that being said, participation in the Shoot-Out by Unlimited class competitors was disappointingly skimpy)

[RockJustRock]

I like it. If anything jumped the shark for me it was the Drag Week format. Few killer street cars are made to do more than putt to the Sonic. In N' Out, A&W or whatever the hangout of choice then putt again to an abandoned road to do their nasty business. Maybe idle and rump rump up and down the street past the burger joint. Such cars prolly roll up 1,000 miles or more during a summer SEASON, but not one week. If I was a wide-eyed teen with cash flow the first thought in my mind this moment would be how far WILL an Alky burning car capably motorvate with no cooling system whatsoever and how many barrels of the stuff would I burn in six months of Saturday nights. The thing that grossed me out was how far Drag Week had strayed from Drag Racing. People with little clue on how to cut a proper light. Car built to do nothing BUT run Drag Week. Ahokas jumped waaay up in my opine when he entered Pro Mod at SCSN last year and qualified mid pack. Larson running in Outlaw 10.5 somewhere.... (can't remember). The idea of "The Drag Week Car" is what bit Tom Bailey. Remember "Pro-Fairground" is what helped depreciate the status of Pro Street.

For me Larson's 6.16 was the culmination of what excited me most back at the Car Craft Nationals back in '79. The idea that a ride could participate there AND smoke anything with doors at an NHRA national event. There was no Pro Mod, PSCA, NMCA or anything like that around then. Camp Stanley drove an Alky Burner in. Steve Lisk drove his Ex-Mike Fons Challenger with Lenco in. The "Moody Blues" fliptop Opel GT was there. I was wishing, "Let's run this stuff off, no rules". My mind built up a checklist, "Blower, Enderle, Tubs, Lenco" for the next few events. Nobody hit that combo. Finally in Springfield I wedged my truck in under a low hanging tree for a really prime parking spot before trodding off around the fairgrounds in search of the Ultimate Pro Streeter. A buddy of mine found me in the afternoon and said "Ya gotta see what pulled in next to the truck, GET BACK THERE!". I had to wade through one of the thickest crowds ever to find the Dobbertin Nova. FAKE Enderle. Auto Trans. Built to putt the fairgrounds of the Midwest and never see a full throttle pass.

Fake Enderle my bane! Back to Camp Stanley and '79. A new Camaro with a really well executed Fake Enderle showed up, a teen and his Dad. Camp and the Dad put on an exhibition conversation of tuning mechanical fuel injection for driveability. The crowd was raptly attentive. The fake blower was THAT good. But when the Dad steered the convo to potential performance and some single digit E.T.s were thrown in I had to shout "NOT with a stock 10 bolt and L-60s!". The Dad pulled me aside, told me I misunderstood the spirit of Street Machining and to let his son have his day in the limelight.

State of the art induction, drivetrain, and rubber. Can't knock the S-10 NO HOW in my estimation.

[Orange65]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, bash. You are dealing with an opinion- everyone has one, no one wants to hear it. Drop it.

[38P]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, bash.

Just curious where you finished at DW '12, DW '13, and DW '14 . . . .


(Note: I am not one of the elitist snobs who limit commentary to DW competitors. While I do believe that being a competitor gives one some unique insights as to some questions, I don't believe that knowledgeable observers are devoid of meaningful and relevant viewpoints merely because they don't have the time, money and/or inclination to compete).

[BlueCuda340]

I don't have a problem with everything that gets done to his truck between the street and track. If indeed the turn around time gets to 45 minutes than that is not way different than most cars that run DW. I know by the time I get all my junk laid out on the ground and get my tires changed its close to that. I would be curious to put a timer on Lutz, Cline, Joe, and Lutz Jr. from when they enter the gate to when the car is indeed race ready. Like Larson Lutz Sr Runs methanol, switching fuels is nothing thats not being done already, its just a different fuel.

Leave the cooling system on it, and the stock S10 doors and you still have a sub 6.40 car/truck.

[38P]

Cline turned around his Larson-built mostly-steel Camaro in much less time with much less help at Great Bend . . . Just sayin'

Although I haven't timed it, I'm a tad skeptical to DG's 45 minute claim. . . . Of course when there's like eight or ten people thrashing on the thing, maybe it was in under an hour. If memory serves, they had ~ 45 minutes at Noble . . . and still pulled to the line without wheelie bars and who knows what else.

Lots of competitors run dual fuel systems (as I predicted over on the CC board before the first DW, to much naysaying, BTW) . . . but they mostly just flip some valves and tunes to change over . . . not remove them and replace them with different stuff out of the trailer.

[TheSilverBuick]

My guess the change over wasn't practiced before hand. Larson is no stranger to pull in, unload, run, load up and go with his Nova. I'm thinking a few wrinkles just need to be ironed out, and under the gun of Drag Week isn't the most ideal time to iron out wrinkles.

I can pull the engine and transmission out of my car in 45 minutes, I'm sure two guys can swap a bunch of stuff over in 45 minutes too.

People have been "Dual Fueling" with E-85 for a long time, not a big deal. Didn't Ahokas (sp?) last year pull the cooling system too?

[38P]

I'm sure two guys can swap a bunch of stuff over in 45 minutes too.

If there was ever only two people thrashing on Larson's truck, I must have missed it.

(Note: many of the Unlimited competitors seem to have a lot more "help" prepping their cars than most other racers, so this isn't really the main point here)

[TheSilverBuick]

Didn't say it was done, I said it "can" be done. Besides, they were supposedly in impound on rain day which should of been just the two of them.... From my computers view, I concur about an apparent fleet of folks.... Which that issue is what I think will be the undoing of DW. I think though, with the wrinkles ironed out, I don't have any doubt in my mind two folks could pull that operation off and make the morning class session and be on the road before the DD session is over.