a moment to listen to some nitro cackle

the difference between running a hemi on gas, and NITRO

Price of drag racing Funny Cars? Well, only the millionaires with super wealthy sponsors can afford it, but, here's something I didn't know... the price of Nitro

 a 42 gallon barrel is about 1900. 

A funny car's season might get to the finals, and that would take about 130 gallons of nitro... about 6,000 just for fuel. 

All the other costs are much higher, of course, and total about 3 million a year. 

Jack Beckman, the 2012 Funny Car champion stepped away from racing at the end of 2020, and returned to his previous life as an elevator mechanic

https://theshopmag.com/features/a-hard-look-at-drag-racing/

Tom McEwen's 1957 Nitro Funny Car

Kenny Youngblood painted the detail work and the fake grill, but the hood rockets and bumper bullets are aftermarket 

funn

https://www.ebay.ph/itm/145205071158

Wes Allison photographed the Nitro Revival at Irwindale

see the whole gallery at https://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/nitro-revival-photos-epic-shots-from-the-most-bad-ass-nitro-celebration-ever/

the Commercial Solvents Corporation plant in Peoria, Illinois made Nitro, Penicillin, dry ice, and gun powder

 

https://www.periodpaper.com/products/1944-print-commercial-solvents-peoria-illinois-chemical-smokestack-industry-city-116343-fz7-174

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/vintage-shots-from-days-gone-by-part-2.1154030/page-1348#post-14164667

In World War I, the Allies needed a source of acetone, used to process naval gun propellants. At the time, acetone was a by-product of charcoal manufacture, which could not be easily expanded. 

In 1916, Chaim Weizmann, later to be first president of Israel, then at the University of Manchester, invented a process to make acetone by fermentation of corn. The Allies soon set about implementing the process but realizing that corn supplies too were insufficient, chose to acquire and convert a former whiskey distillery in Terre Haute, IN, in the heart of the US corn belt (and near abundant coal supplies).

The new company undertook manufacture of acetone by fermentation and the sale of the co-products including ethanol, butanol, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. Weizmann received royalties for his process for the first dozen years until an improved process using molasses fermentation was developed.

One of the first problems undertaken was a use for butanol, which had not been previously commercialized. In the early days unsaleable by-product butanol was collected in a large tank (the base of which later became a local swimming pool). Eventually derivative butyl acetate found use as a solvent for nitrocellulose lacquers in the then developing auto paint industry. Hence, a tradition evolved to research new uses for its by-products and their derivatives.

Another new product was synthetic methanol. The research was begun to find uses for co-product hydrogen. Natural gas fields in Louisiana provided synthesis gas as feed for the first synthetic methanol plant. Co-product carbon dioxide was sold as dry ice.

During the days of Prohibition, co-product ethanol was sold as laboratory grade alcohol, or was denatured and sold for solvent uses. In 1933, with the end of Prohibition, the company reentered the whiskey business. The bonded warehouses where bourbon was aged in charred oak barrels were again put to use.

Commercial Solvents was an early participant in the titanium dioxide pigment business. Titanium dioxide is now the white pigment of choice used in almost all applications including paints and plastics. It now has completely displaced white lead, which once was the preferred white pigment.

Later the company developed a process for the nitration of propane and produced nitroparaffin solvents and derivatives. During World War II, it adapted its skills in large scale fermentation to the manufacture of penicillin, but was forced out of that business when prices plummeted after the war. It invented zeranol, a semisynthetic growth promoter for beef cattle. It constructed two large ammonia plants in co-operation with International Minerals & Chemical Corporation, who acquired Commercial Solvents in 1975.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RILURJZV95H1G

It's president had a remarkable history, Theodore P. Walker, the president of the Commercial Solvents Corporation, after college had spent ten years in the Philippines with the constabulary, and while he was over in Europe during World War I he met his wife, a French Grand Opera Star.

http://indianadisasters.blogspot.com/2014/05/1940-terre-haute-explodes.html

CH3NO2

If you can find some company not out to rip you off, it's about 17 dollars a gallon when you buy it by the 55 gallon drum.

If you look on the internet and find it in 5 gallon or less containers, it's closer to 75 a gallon

on the little counter that only tracks direct hits to this blog, it just rolled over 29 million

the counter that Google used to have on the G+ (google has their own version of Twitter) which they took down a couple years ago, and tracked all hits to the blog, and the G+ account side of the same content, which google auto posted to G+, was getting about 200,000 hits a day, by my numbers that I tracked from May 2014 to Jan 2015, and was at 4698139383 on Jan 19th, 2015

Just using that same trend, I estimate that the G+ numbers would be around 688 million hits right now. That's an impressive half a billion plus.

Things like that cause me to not be surprised when I come across a photo I took 10 years ago being the image some stranger is using as his facebook avatar.

notice the barrel of Nitro in the lower left corner?

I found it at the Mendenhall Museum of Petroliana, and took this photo in 2011 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/nitromethane-nitrofuel-concentrate-for.html

And today when I saw that Keith is using it as his avatar? I was pretty pleased to have put something out there on the internet that someone could appreciate, and use for their representation on facebook

name dropping Ak Miller, Art Chrisman, Danny Eames, Chickie Hirashima, and Mario Andretti. What one thing did they all work on? This indy engined Mustang on Bonneville, nitro powered

a 255-inch Ford Indy engine and a basically stock fastback.

They were shooting for a run at 200 mph during the private Bonneville timing session scheduled by Arfons and two streamliner teams.

After successfully setting both D/Production Sedan FIA records at 136.645 (standing kilometer) and 150.134 (standing five-mile), they tipped the can for back-to-back nitromethanated blasts of 171 and 175 before a burned piston ended the outing.

From start to finish, the ambitious project spanned just 34 days in late October and early November.

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/funny-cars-can-trans-women-racers-emerge-1966-2/#031-struggles-1966-static-display-mustang-ohc-indy-engine-front-overhead

I just read a barrel of Nitro Methane is $800 dollars

So, about $14.50 a gallon when bought in bulk, and probably 20 a gallon if you get a 5 gallon can of it

tether car that hits 205 mph, powered by nitro

found on http://geekologie.com/2013/10/little-gas-powered-tether-car-doing-205m.php

Not many advertisements for Nitro out there, or 1970 Coronets race cars.. both found on Us-muscle.tumblr.com

from http://us-muscle.tumblr.com/

Cox racing fuel

 There was still about a half can left in it, and the seller wanted $50 for it.

Marc looked it up, it's 50% methanol, 30% nitromethane, 18% castor oil, and 2% Klotz oil

Escondido Nitro Night was a blast

Just a couple photos to show you how big the crowd was. This side street is a full block, and between the buildings in the below photos is an alleyway, that is to tell you how large the area is

These are just a a couple of the photos, and none of the videos... they take to long to load, and it's late already.

Get to Escondido tomorrow night if you love cacklefests, it's Nitro Night

http://cruisingrandescondido.com/

true double barreled racing, 110 gallons of Nitromethane. CH3NO2 (you ought to know I did say unprintable things in admiration)

makes my six pack of Whoop Ass whimper in shame and lack of self confidence http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/06/six-pack-of-whoop-ass.html

Nitro is 2.3 times as energetic as gasoline. Consider that a gallon of gas powers a 3000 pound car as much as 50 miles, and nitro would move would move that same car 115 miles. that means a cup would make it move about 15 miles. Try pushing a 3000 pound car that far, and you'll appreciate a cup of nitro

An ounce would move that car about a mile. At speed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitromethane

Nitromethane (nitrofuel concentrate) for top speed and power (use only as directed)

I want a can of this, just because nothing else I could ever put in the garage will beat it for coolness

Earthquake when ever and where ever you need one, just light up a top fueler on Nitro, they'll nail 3.9 on the richter scale

As those watching took in the excitement of hearing and seeing a Top Fuel dragster in person, Dr. Doug Brittsan, of Brittsan CPT, measured the movement of the earth with a mobile seismograph.

Once the dragster had been shut off, Dr. Brittsan got to work evaluating the data. End results? The movement of the earth created by the Snap-on Tools Top Fuel dragster was equivalent to an astounding 3.9 on the Richter scale.

http://www.competitionplus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3448&Itemid=6

Jay Leno talks to Don Prudhomme about the 70 Hemicuda and transporter

I'm sorry, the videos were pulled by Vimeo or whoever had hosted them

For a photo gallery of Don's hemicuda and transporter that I took at SEMA: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/11/don-prudhommes-funny-car-hauler-1967.html

I also recommend you take a look at Tere's post, Don invited her to hop inside the hauler as he showed her how it was restored: http://justacargal.blogspot.com/2009/11/sema-celebrities.html

Don Garlits wins the 1967 US Nationals, called by Pete Jackson on the ABC Wide World of Sports