The World's Fastest Greasel
Someone once told me that setting a land speed record on a dry lakebed was like drag racing on the ocean. Even though it was an odd analogy, after a few days on the dirt, I know exactly what he means. I looked at my watch, did the math and then asked around. I was in disbelief; did we really go that fast on our final run?
You may be looking at these pictures and be thinking, humph, that's a sort-of a weird looking thing. What, is that a diesel engine? Whoa, are you telling me that the can of peanut oil right there isn't for show? What if I told you this odd looking truck was built to break 160 miles an hour on a dry lakebed in the middle of the barren Southern California desert on a cold day in the middle of November? You may be asking: "Are they dreaming?"
Well, sort-of. When we began this project to build the Lipid Lightning, the World's Fastest Greasel, we timed it to the launch of our new Yahoo! Autos Green Center. People were thinking, that's an odd thing to do -- besides, what does an Internet site about green and alternative fuel vehicles have to do with land speed racing? That’s precisely our point. Why not combine the two and make something not only fast but clean burning as well. Why not expose the world to the possibilities of what these types of alternative fuels can do?
So we partnered with Lin and Steven Austin of Orange County Rod and Custom in Placentia, California, built the truck and hoped our little Greasel would break the land speed record. The build, done over a few weeks time, took a derelict 1987 Chevrolet pickup truck, stretched the chassis, dropped in a Detroit Diesel engine, added two turbochargers and then converted the whole thing to run on peanut oil. Peanut Oil!
The end result is a truck with more than 3,000 horsepower and about 4,000 lb-ft of torque. In fact, it has so much power; they had to mount 747 airplane tires on the rig. To say it was a monumental undertaking would be an understatement. If you stopped by the shop over those few weeks, you would have noticed that Steve and Lin looked more and more exhausted as the days and weeks went on. Was it worth it? I would have to say, yes.
Which brings us to the truck and the race. There is a new subculture out there brewing in the masses and it's called Bio-Diesel. But first, a history lesson. In 1892, a man by the name of Rudolph Diesel invented an engine that ran differently than a gasoline internal combustion engine. The "Diesel" as it became known, is a compression ignition engine, where exposure to high temperatures and compressed gas pressure ignites the fuel -- in a gasoline engine, a spark plug is the source of ignition. The Diesel engine was designed to run on a variety of fuel sources and, at the Paris World's Fair in 1900, Diesel ran an engine on peanut oil. That's cool, and then we thought, if you can make a diesel go over super fast, let's see how fast we can make a vehicle go on hotter burning peanut oil. Let's build a racecar.
People said we were nuts. Well, at least the polite ones were saying that, some other people weren't as cordial. Our idea was to set an actual land speed record in the Unlimited Diesel Truck category of the Southern California Timing Association’s - that’s the governing body of Land Speed Racing - rulebook. UDT, without getting too complicated, is basically one of the toughest classes to run in. We, being the Green Center and all, decided to use pure peanut oil to run our Diesel engine, hence, The Greasel. So, it was off to the races for us.
I am standing in the middle of a crowd of people at the starting line of the El Mirage Lake Bed waiting for the man from the SCTA to give the thumbs-up to our driver, Tommy Hodges. The crowd at the starting line is getting a little restless waiting for # 692, our Greasel, to go shooting-off. The goal during this cold mid-November weekend at El Mirage, where some of the fastest vehicles come to compete in speed trials down a prehistoric lakebed smack at the edge of Mojave, is to set a new record of hopefully, 160 miles and hour. If we're lucky.
A noise as loud as a million thunderstorms rattles the desert and the Greasel, the one we spent so much time on, is off, speeding across the brown expanse of earth - nothing but a fleck of purple kicking up a rooster tail of dirt and motorized mayhem a mile long. The vast acreage of the lakebed goes on forever and from my vantage point, it's almost otherworldly, like some barren dirt planet from an old Sci-Fi movie.
Lakebed racing is a true homegrown American sport, something born out of people's garages and their own engineering know-how, akin to the early days of when computer companies were built out of garages, not boardrooms. Here on the lake, it's the land of the makeshift. But you may be thinking, a Ferrari or Lamborghini can go 200 miles an hour, which is true. But going 200 miles an hour in stressful weather in a straight line on a bed of slippery dirt for about one and two-thirds miles plus with enough safety gear to satisfy a team of inspectors isn't as easy as it looks. To set a record here it's, to paraphrase what Willie Stargell said about hitting Sandy Koufax's fastball, like trying to drink coffee with a fork.
At this year's El Mirage finals over five hundred people showed up, some to work in the pits, some to drive and others just to watch. Be warned, land speed trials aren't really a spectator sport. Watching cars zoom by at speeds up to two hundred and fifty miles an hour is a lot like watching a tennis match in really, really slow motion. First you look to your right, then real slow, you turn your head to the left. Each vehicle goes speeding on by. Repeat, ad infinitum. But, it's an awesome sight to see. You'll be talking to a group of guys and then everyone will get all quiet and watch as someone goes screaming by at way above speeds that should not be known to man. Which brings me back to the Greasel.
Our speed on our first run ever – a shakedown run - due to bad weather and some serious mechanical problems was 81.559. Not bad for a first run in a hand built car running on peanut oil. The speed on our second run was 98.158. Pretty darn good.
Did we achieve the speed of 160? Well, no. In racing, like life, there are sometimes unforeseen problems. Things happened, but still, we’re the World's Fastest Greasel.
Are we going to come back and try again next year? You bet and we think we can go over 160 then, all the while spreading the word on alternative fuels. Take that Gasoline-powered Internal Combustion Engine. The future is here and it looks a lot like the past.
