Outside of the dry lakes clique, it’s fuel roadsters and competition coupes that are the peculiar cars.
Franklin,
Yes, they are. Most LSR cars that compete are peculiar, regardless of their configuration or fuel requirements. And that's the point. I can think of nowhere else on earth other than an Elmo meet, or an ECTA meet, or the Texas Mile, or Bonneville, where I can go and see a wider variety of vehicles that have been either meticulously or shoddily put together, using hi-tech or yester-tech components, in unimaginable combinations, stretched, flattened, chopped channeled, narrowed, lowered, yet all built to a predetermined class standard, for the sole pourpose of trying to run as fast as they can within the constraints of the rules established for their class.
You're absolutely right - they ARE peculiar, and most lack the ability to enter the history books or the tech papers. While some cars are rolling documentation to the long history of LSR, many represent the cutting edge of today's automotive technology. They seldom have millions of people watching them. In fact, it is quite likely that more people will see an LSR car on a trailer being towed across Nebraska than will ever see one compete.
But there is something very visceral about each and every one of these vehicles, and each has the dreams of its builder riding on it. Some started out as a drawing and a pile of cardboard templates, some as a salvage yard wreck, some straight off of the assembly line. Some have been around for 60 years, and according to what I've read on this forum, a kid in Indiana built a lakester in five months.
There is ego represented on these boards, and much of it is based on the hard work, attention to detail, thousands of dollars of investment, and sheer pigheadedness of those of us who have made the decision to be involved in this sport.
Franklin, here's what you wrote recently -
"In the larger world, it’s jet dragsters and Funny Cars that are seen by millions of people each year. It’s jet and rocket land speed cars that get papers written about them published in engineering journals. It’s jet and rocket land speed cars that get in the history books."
If any of these well made points were critical to this sport, organized LSR would fail.
But we're not in the larger world, and most of us don't really care if anybody but our friends and family see us compete. If someone is interested in what we did to make our car a bit more competitive, it usually doesn't require a publication - a conversation will do. And to your last point, I would say that the list of record holders and the cars they drove is pretty well documented for those who want to seek them out.
This is the nature of a grass roots sport.
And Franklin, I invite you to join us. Pick a project - use one of your designs, or take cues from someone who's design you admire. Clear out your shop, make a build table, get your buddies over to help, buy a trailer to put the car on, invest your time and talents and make the decision to come racing.
