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High Speed Stuff Wrap-up: Tether Car Racing and Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
August 28, 2009
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As I find myself saying nearly every Friday now, let’s get straight to it. Here’s what Ben and I have been up to on our High Speed Stuff podcast over the past week…
On Tuesday, Ben and I covered a form of racing that’s more than 70 years old, yet was unknown to both of us until very recently — tether car racing. Model race cars that can reach speeds well over 200 miles per hour! The first time you see (and hear) a tether car in motion, I guarantee you that you simply won’t believe your eyes. (Check out the “Seaford, 2008″ video clip for a quick six-minute lowdown on the hobby, by the way.) Now, I’m going to guess that there were a high percentage of High Speed Stuff listeners out there who had no idea that this type of racing even existed until they heard about it from us. And that’s not bragging either. I’m just making an assumption based on the current (and unfortunate) trend in the sport’s membership numbers. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, tether car racing was wildly popular at a certain point in history. Listen in on this episode to find out just how enthusiastic the tether car racing crowd was at one point in history and to find out where you can still go to catch a live tether car race. Who knows? You just might even decide to join the American Miniature Racing Car Association.
On Thursday, we stayed with the racing theme but gained a little altitude. Actually, we gained about 14,110 feet of altitude, to be exact. Of course, I’m talking about the always thrilling Pikes Peak International Hill Climb competition. This year’s event was run about a month ago, and if you recall, I wrote a couple of blogs posts about it, too. There was one post prior to the race and another one just after the race that told the tale of Rhys Millen’s record-breaking race to the summit. In fact, you can watch a couple of really cool videos featuring Rhys Millen if you follow the links near the bottom of that second post. Anyway, Ben and I had a really good time discussing the Pikes Peak race. There are just so many factors that make this race unique and exceptionally demanding on both man and machine. I really think you’re going to like this one.
So there it is. That’s what’s happening on the High Speed Stuff podcast this week. And I think now might be a good time for you to head over to iTunes and give it a listen — it won’t cost you anything. Just don’t forget while you’re there to take the opportunity to browse through some of our older episodes and give us a little feedback. You can also let us know what you think in the comment section below, or if you’d rather send us an e-mail, you can do that, too. Ben always reads the address at the end of each podcast.
Podcast-related stuff:
HowStuffWorks – Motorsports Library
What will race cars look like in 2025?
HowStuffWorks Videos – “Rocketships: Tether to the Moon”
Pikes Peak
How Altitude Sickness Works
Comments
4 Responses to “High Speed Stuff Wrap-up: Tether Car Racing and Pikes Peak International Hill Climb”
tyre changers says: I researched some history of tether car racing and here’s what i found out.
Tether car racing began in the late 1930’s when some people decided to put a model airplane engine on a board with four wheels. Within a year there was racing of beautifully built cars that resembled the oval track cars of the period.
Engines especially designed for cars soon pushed the speeds to over 100 miles per hour. By the early 1950’s they were going over 150 mph using the legendary Dooling 61 engine in a car that had ceased to look like anything on a big car track. Today they are going over 200 mph with Italian made engines in cars that look more like a bullet with the wheels inside the slim body. International competition is held with cars in four different classes depending upon engine size. The classes are 1.5cc (.09 cu in), 2.5cc (.15 cu in), 5cc (.29 cu in), and 10cc (.61 cu in). Running on an alcohol-oil fuel and using tuned exhaust pipes the engines peak out at over 44,000 rpm in the smallest class.
The cars run on a special circular track held to the center post by a wire tether. The person running the car stays on the outside of the track and the helper in the center assists the car off the line and stabilizes it until it reaches about 80 mph and then steps onto a small platform on the center pole until the car is shut off at the end of the run.
Hey, Just listened to the pod cast about tether racing and I have something to add. I grew up in New Orleans and used to play in the city park in the middle of the city. As you do when your that age we would slip under the fence to get into the parts of the park that were fenced off from the public and I always remembered we found these two odd concrete circles back there. I later thought they may have been for control line flight (the model airplane version of tether racers) but having heard your description it sounds like they were more likely for cars. check it out in g-maps at these cords- 30.004642,-90.092955 Its all still fenced off and it looks like Katrina removed all the trees, but they are still there. Perhaps these are a couple of those tracks that have shut down thru the years. I discovered them back in the early 90’s and they were out of use then.
Anyway, thought I would let you know where one of them is.
Scott C. Benjamin says: I think you’re right, Blaize. I looked at the map and those odd concrete circles DO look exactly like forgotten tether car tracks! And since we know that by the late 1940s there were 440 of these tracks in the U.S. (only three remain active), I don’t see any reason to doubt that you’ve found one. Glad we could help solve a bit of a mystery for you!
Also, when I was very young I had a model airplane like the ones you’re describing above…the airplane version of a tether car. There were plenty of unsuccessful weekends trying to get that plane into the air. Finally, we got it to fly…straight up…and then straight down. I probably still have the engine in a shoebox somewhere in storage. I still remember the fantastic smell of that Cox-brand fuel…
Isn’t Pikes Peak the same spot where they hold the notoriously grueling marathon? I think that mountain is working out a lot of machines and men (and women).