Proper Parachute Mounting
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drag racing

01 Jan Proper Parachute Mounting

Posted at 21:50h in Technical Ph.D by

Proper Parachute Mounting: Because crashing sucks.

By Brian Gillespie

One of the requirements for fast land speed and drag racing cars is having a drag parachute. It’s used to safely slow the vehicle down from the high speeds on the race course. The key word being “SAFELY.”

When a chute is deployed it can exert more than as 2Gs of force on the car in deceleration. On a typical 2000 lb FWD drag car, that can means 4000 lbs of force jerking on the back end of the car. If the connection point isn’t in the correct place, that can upset the car in a big way, even causing a loss of control.

Prayoonto Racing’s Tial Civic has a moment when the car is lifted in the rear during an HDAY event in 2015. The car then swerved into the other lane colliding with another competitor. Luckily both escaped without serious injury.

Hondata’s Doug Macmillan and his team have done a lot of testing, having made dozens of runs in various Hondas from 150-240MPH in land speed and drag racing. It turns out, it isn’t just a matter of connecting it to something solid on the rear of the car. There’s a little math involved.

Had you’d stayed awake in trigonometry class in high school you’d known this already.

In this video Professor MacMillan explains the forces involved and shows us how to determine the correct placement for the parachute tow line attachment point on your race car.

For more on the crash of the Tial Civic visit The Sauce Spot’s YouTube page to see the crazy sequence of photos of the resulting crash.

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