SD chutes: While I was shooting photos of the Demon's ongoing engine swap (big V8 out, 4-banger in) I passed on the thanks to Ron Main for allowing us access to the pit area and letting us shoot...most everything that goes on there. He said something like, "well maybe other people can learn from our mistakes" and went on to tell me about the parachutes. He said that they found it necessary to use a washed and fully dried chute for each run. It seems that even if a chute is brushed off, cleaned and repacked during a turnaround, it takes it a full additional second to open. I didn't have my stopwatch with me so I couldn't do any timing...wouldn't have done much good in the pits, anyway.
Ron went on to explain that they run 2 different chutes (3 is the number I got from the guy packing 'em), basically a 10 foot diameter chute that allows George to slow down and coast the 5.5 miles to the pits and only use the brakes in the last 1/4 mile or so. Then they have a 27 foot (or 24, depending on who I talked to) "OS" ("Oh Studebaker!") chute that is supposed to bring the car from 500 mph to a near stop in 2 miles. I can imagine the shock that might be felt thru the harness when that deployed.
After talking to Ron, I went to get a shot of one of the chutes and ended up there just as they were packing it. I asked if they replaced the lines as well as the chute with washed and dried ones and, yes, they do. Then I saw that the pilot chute and some of the other components looked like they had salt on 'em. Turns out that they sprinkle 'em with talcum powder before the packing process is finished. Once everything is nice and slippery, it's stuffed into the tube, ready to slow the car on the next run.
For those who know all this stuff...well...I didn't and I learned something while checking it out.
