Drag Boat Racing! - Hot Rod Unlimited Episode 22 - video Dailymotion

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On this episode of Hot Rod Unlimited

Transcript

00:00 This is the craziest sport you will ever see on the water.

00:04 [SOUND]

00:08 Most of these boats don't have seat belts, roll cages, and forget about a windshield.

00:13 [SOUND]

00:18 These are drag boat racers.

00:20 These are guys who have decided that it's a great idea to bolt a thousand or

00:23 more horsepower to a piece of wooden fiberglass.

00:26 And then try to go as fast as they can down a liquid racetrack that is

00:30 constantly moving.

00:32 [SOUND]

00:33 This is drag boat racing.

00:35 [MUSIC]

00:43 Most of you know me working on cars and filming road kill videos, but for

00:46 the last ten years, I've been drag racing boats on water.

00:50 My buddy Jeff Conrad won a championship in the ten second bracket in 2011.

00:54 And when he wanted to step up in class, he bought my boat and

00:57 jumped right into the nine second bracket.

00:59 This season I've been acting as Jeff's crew chief,

01:01 because his new boat goes about 20 miles an hour faster than his old boat.

01:05 And that's a big jump in speed on the water.

01:08 After running one race in June just to get his feet wet in the new boat,

01:11 we headed to Firebird International Raceway in Chandler, Arizona,

01:14 to see how he stacked up against the best drivers in the world.

01:17 [SOUND]

01:27 Jeff's boat is powered by a 582 cubic inch Chevy engine that I built back in 2007.

01:38 It's got an aluminum block, aluminum 12 degree profiler cylinder heads,

01:42 a tunnel ram, and twin 1150 Holley Dominator carburetors.

01:46 It makes about 1160 horsepower without nitrous or any kind of power adder.

01:50 It's actually more power than Jeff needs to run nine seconds, but

01:53 that gives us an advantage in tuning for different tracks and

01:56 different weather conditions.

01:57 We're gonna go lay down a run right now that's hopefully like a 901 to start with,

02:02 I hope, so time to go racing.

02:05 The world finals are the Super Bowl of drag boat racing.

02:10 And it's unique in that you've got a full day of test and tune to practice, and

02:14 then you've got two days of qualifying.

02:17 And on Sunday, the gloves come off and you're racing for the title.

02:20 Jeff is racing in the top eliminator class,

02:22 which is a fancy way of saying the nine second bracket.

02:25 Bracket racing is harder than heads up racing because you're tuning to

02:28 a thousandth of a second.

02:30 You're trying to run it exactly on the edge of breaking out.

02:34 My job as crew chief is to account for the weather and how that affects the boat.

02:38 And then I tune the engine and

02:39 the jet pump to make sure the boat runs as close to 9000 as possible.

02:44 >> Get this leg all the way out.

02:46 Get it, dude, have fun.

02:47 >> All right, bud.

02:49 >> Just like the car drags, our race boat is towed to the track.

02:52 And once it reaches the water, it's towed to the starting line by a jet ski.

02:56 The starting line is actually a rope stretched across the lake.

02:59 And you'll have 20 or 30 boats holding onto this rope.

03:02 You hit the gas pedal in anticipation of the tree going green.

03:06 Now, unlike a car race,

03:07 the boats are stationed about 125 feet away from those beams.

03:11 And the reason for that is when you hit the gas pedal in a boat,

03:14 it doesn't just go forward, it goes up.

03:16 So these boats tend to leap out of the water and then land.

03:19 So they give you that 125 feet to make sure that both boats jump out of the water,

03:24 land back in the water, and then break the beams and start the race.

03:28 [MUSIC]

03:30 Qualifying for us was a little bit sketchy because we'd never run Jeff's boat in

03:34 this configuration at this track before.

03:36 [SOUND] >> We have Jeff Conrad on a coast to coast.

03:43 >> All right, come on baby.

03:45 Low nine right now.

03:47 [SOUND]

03:57 >> Yeah, whoo!

04:04 >> [BLEEP] yeah.

04:06 >> We ran a 9005.

04:09 Number two qualifier.

04:10 I will take it.

04:11 I will totally take that.

04:12 >> Take it?

04:13 >> That was awesome.

04:14 >> Feels good.

04:15 I'm not even driving and I'm happy.

04:16 It feels good.

04:17 >> Good first pass.

04:18 >> When it came off the trailer and ran a 9005, I was ready to throw a party because

04:22 that was a shot in the dark right there.

04:24 And it gave us a killer baseline for tuning for our other passes.

04:28 >> I get to keep my job as crew chief for a little while longer.

04:32 We can quit now and that's a really good qualifying number.

04:34 I think we're second.

04:35 But we're gonna keep making laps so

04:37 that as the weather changes we can see how it affects the boat come race day.

04:41 Hopefully we have a tune up for this thing where in any weather condition,

04:44 it's gonna run the number we need.

04:46 Boats in gear, batteries on, cutter plugs are out, air is on.

04:53 Looks sexy, you're good.

04:55 Go get them.

04:55 [SOUND]

05:05 We were hoping for an 01, it ran a 905.

05:18 And the air is just, elevation's going way up really fast.

05:21 We're at almost 3,600 feet now.

05:23 So when we were in the pit it was at 33, and

05:27 by the time you actually made a pass it had gone to 35.

05:29 >> 35? >> So yeah.

05:30 We're gonna have to get a little more aggressive then.

05:33 There are two factors that affect a boat race, the weather and the water.

05:39 Whatever happens out on the water in terms of is it rough or is it smooth?

05:44 That's mother nature, you're not fixing it.

05:46 And the weather's the same way.

05:47 All you can do is predict what the weather's gonna do and

05:49 how that's gonna affect the boat's performance.

05:52 >> Jeff's boat has an Edelbrock's quick data, data acquisition system.

05:55 And it's tied into the engine and the jet pump of the boat.

05:58 So every time he makes a pass, the computer will tell me the engine RPM,

06:03 how much water is coming out of the jet pump in terms of pressure.

06:06 Just everything you wanna know about it, it knows.

06:08 And that takes the driver out of the equation.

06:10 I don't have to rely on Jeff telling me how things went.

06:12 The computer's gonna tell me how things went.

06:14 We'll look at the weather station, and

06:16 the number we look at is the corrected density altitude.

06:19 Every time it gets hotter here or more humid, that number goes up.

06:22 And when that number goes up, the boat goes slower.

06:24 We tweak here on the engine and the jet pump to account for it and

06:27 try to keep the thing running as close to a nine as we can.

06:30 At the end of day one, we felt great.

06:32 We had two killer passes that gave us a great tune up for

06:35 going into day two of qualifying.

06:36 [MUSIC]

06:46 The mornings are a little rough at drag boat races cuz you're hung over.

06:53 And if you're not up by 5.30 or 6 in the morning,

06:56 you're being woken up by a cackling set of headers outside your trailer.

06:59 My mornings are spent plugging in the oil heater and just getting everything ready

07:03 so that when the driver's up and ready to go, his equipment's ready to go.

07:07 Day two of qualifying here at Firebird Raceway.

07:12 Day one couldn't have gone any better.

07:14 Kind of had the luxury of getting after it and

07:16 trying to get even closer to a 9000.

07:18 It's real interesting ever since Jeff made that pass,

07:21 when we go to the staging lanes, we got 26 other guys in our class.

07:25 And they're all looking at him and his boat now because most of these guys are

07:29 racing for a championship.

07:30 It's the last race of the year.

07:32 He just came out of nowhere and is striking fear into these guys cuz they want

07:36 those precious qualifying points they get for qualifying number one or two.

07:40 And right now he's taking some of them away.

07:44 We put a tune up in the boat over an hour ago.

07:47 It's much hotter.

07:48 The engine's gonna make much less horsepower.

07:50 So, honestly don't know what it's gonna do right now.

07:53 This will be interesting.

07:53 [MUSIC]

08:00 Come on, Jeff.

08:00 [MUSIC]

08:10 [SOUND] 901, whoo.

08:18 He's run a 9005.

08:20 He just backed it up with a 901.

08:22 Anybody that races him is gonna have to charge it or

08:24 they're gonna get their asses beat.

08:26 Nice.

08:28 Helicopter, dude.

08:30 >> What do you mean?

08:30 >> Helicopter was right over there.

08:32 I went through, blew the valve, and the boat just scrambled down and

08:35 started doing this.

08:36 [SOUND]

08:38 I came through his prop wash, his downforce prop wash at about 117,

08:43 118 miles an hour, and it basically slammed my boat forward,

08:47 which caused it to bow steer.

08:49 I lost control of it for a split second.

08:53 Scared the crap out of me.

08:55 It's the rush, you know?

08:56 Whack the throttle and it puts you back in the seat.

08:59 It's just pure adrenaline.

09:01 There's nothing like it.

09:01 Last run of the day.

09:05 We're hoping for some double O action right here.

09:08 If it doesn't happen, whatever, we already had a double O earlier.

09:10 So we're qualified good, we're in awesome shape for racing tomorrow.

09:14 Another double O would just scare the poop out of everybody here,

09:16 which that's what I'm hoping for.

09:18 [SOUND]

09:28 The boat ended up running a 901 in the morning, a 905 in the afternoon, and

09:34 then a 903 on our very last qualifying pass.

09:36 We were actually pretty cocky going into race day because the boat had run so

09:41 good and so consistent during qualifying.

09:43 And Jeff had driven so great that we thought we couldn't lose.

09:47 When I woke up on Sunday, I was kind of relaxed.

09:51 The night before, we actually drank beers with the person we were supposed to race

09:55 in round one, and they told us they weren't gonna race.

09:57 They had some handling issues with their boat, and

09:59 they weren't gonna take a chance and put it in the water on Sunday.

10:03 Our first pass on Sunday was a freebie.

10:05 We had nobody to race, so we couldn't lose, which was good because we were racing

10:09 earlier in the day than we had all week, and I didn't know how the boat was gonna run.

10:12 [MUSIC]

10:22 >> Come on, buddy.

10:26 >> Yes.

10:29 >> Holy crap, 93?

10:31 That was not supposed to happen.

10:33 Thank God nobody was racing him.

10:34 >> Back to the drawing board.

10:37 That freebie pass spooked me more than any pass we made the whole weekend,

10:42 because Jeff cut a great reaction time, but the boat broke out by a lot.

10:47 It ran an 8.93 pass, which it hadn't done all week, and

10:51 I didn't have a reason for it.

10:53 >> He cuts a mediocre light and goes 9.10 or 9.20,

10:55 he'll be behind you the whole time.

10:57 So you're out on him.

10:58 If he's nowhere near you, when you hit 1,000 feet and you get into that 11.88

11:03 trap, just valve it, it'll run a 9.10, you still win.

11:06 He's gonna hit this thing called a pop-off valve, and it's mounted to the jet pump,

11:10 and it vents water up into the air, and it slows the boat down.

11:13 It's basically a safety device.

11:14 We're gonna use it to slow the boat down just a few hundredths of a second at

11:16 the end of the race to guarantee that the boat doesn't break out and run too quick.

11:20 Cuz if he runs too quick and goes 8.99, we lose.

11:23 [MUSIC]

11:25 >> Start looking at half track, not there.

11:28 Right before 1,000 feet, you look over, and if he's not catching up, valve it.

11:32 If he's catching up, you look and

11:33 you just make sure your seat is a little bit ahead of his.

11:36 Easy.

11:37 You've done it before.

11:37 Good luck, man.

11:39 Be safe and have fun.

11:40 Switches up, dude.

11:44 He's good to go.

11:44 Let's go to round three.

11:46 Have fun.

11:46 [MUSIC]

11:57 [SOUND]

12:03 >> I'm about to puke right now.

12:05 [SOUND]

12:09 >> Come on, come on, Greg.

12:10 Green light.

12:11 Green light.

12:12 [SOUND]

12:22 >> My God.

12:23 >> Eight, nine, nine, seven, eight.

12:25 >> I'm gonna go throw some tools now.

12:30 Shit.

12:32 It ran an 8.998 second pass.

12:36 That's ridiculous.

12:39 I had a long walk of shame back to the pits after that scoreboard lit up.

12:44 During qualifying, there were a lot of boats running down the race track,

12:47 churning up the water, which slows it down.

12:50 On race day, we raced really early in the morning.

12:53 There weren't a lot of boats out, so the water was faster.

12:55 That's why we broke out.

12:57 In the afternoon in round two, we still didn't have very many boats that ran

13:01 ahead of us, so the track was still faster.

13:04 And that's what bit us in the ass, was the water.

13:05 Jeff took it really hard.

13:08 He didn't blame me, but he took it really hard.

13:11 The only upshot of this is by the time we packed up the pit and

13:15 commiserated about what happened, he realized he has a badass boat now

13:20 that will run the number, and he's a hell of a driver.

13:24 And in 2013, that class is in a lot of trouble,

13:27 because he's coming back, and he's coming back pissed off.

13:31 [SOUND]

13:41 [MUSIC]

13:52 [SOUND] Yeah, whoo!

Drag Boat Racing! - Hot Rod Unlimited Episode 22

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