So wait is Evernham using TT's? Where easily talkin 2k HP from each motor it would have to be turbos.
--RS
If that is the car Evernham is associated with, Doug Herbert is the driver.
From what has been said about the car, no V10's will be in it.
Edit:
Looks like it will be Twin Viper V10 powered.
Could U.R. be involved at all?
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Herbert chasing speed record
Posted: 01/29/2009
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Doug Herbert runs a program called BRAKES. That's about as ironic as it gets. Almost nothing slows Herbert down.
The second man to ever top the 300-mph mark in a Top Fuel dragster now has his sights set on going much faster – more than 500 mph.
Herbert, whose performance parts business and drag racing team are based in Lincolnton, is planning the adventure of a racing lifetime.
If all goes well late this summer, Herbert will pilot a wheel-driven car powered by internal combustion engines across the famed Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in search of land-speed records.
“I've already been over 300 mph a thousand times,” Herbert said matter of factly. “This is just going to be like a 5-mile drag race.”
Herbert has never been the kind to shirk a challenge, and this past year has presented him with some of the biggest ones anyone could ever face.
On Jan. 26, 2008, Herbert was in Phoenix preparing for another National Hot Rod Association season when he learned that his two sons, Jon and James, had been killed in automobile crash near their home in Cornelius.
While he still thinks about his boys every day, he also has converted some of his grief into starting a driving safety initiative aimed at teenagers. At the suggestion of his sons' classmates, Herbert named it Be Responsible and Keep Everyone Safe, a program honored this week with the North Carolina Motorsports Association's safety innovation award.
On the racing front, Herbert's long-time NHRA sponsor decided not to support his team in 2009, and unless a new sponsor appears in the next few days, Herbert won't go to the NHRA's season-opening race in Pomona, Calif. He plans to run events closer to home, including the second Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway@ Concord in September.
But in typical Herbert fashion, he's dealing with the possibility of not racing a full NHRA season by running headlong into the challenge of breaking land-speed records. Aside from the sheer rush that would come with going faster than 500 mph, the project also gives Herbert the chance to work with his father, Chet.
Chet Herbert had a legendary career building and developing drag racing cars, motorcycles and pretty much anything that goes fast. But most of that came before Doug was old enough to share that with his dad, and Doug wanted to change that.
“I asked him about drag racing and he said he'd already done that,” Doug said. “So I thought about it and said, ‘What about breaking the land-speed record?' And he said, ‘Now that I would be interested in.”
Chet immediately began drawing a car design, which has since been refined and enhanced with the help of some of Doug's friends.
For example, there is Ray Evernham, the sure-fire NASCAR hall of fame crew chief and team owner. Evernham is elbows deep with the Herberts on the land-speed car. Evernham, in turn, enlisted the help of Dr. Eric Warren, who worked with Evernham's team in Sprint Cup, to work on the aerodynamics and other science involved in such an undertaking.
The car they're building will be 410 inches long but only about 3 feet wide. Each tire costs $1,000 and Herbert could only get 20. The car will be propelled by two Dodge Viper engines – one powering the front wheels and the other powering the rear.
The absolute land speed record is 763.035 mph set in 1997 in a jet-propelled car. The two records Herbert and friends are shooting for are 409.28 mph for internal combustion engine cars, set by Bob Summers in 1965, and 458.443 mph for a “wheel-driven” car – where power is delivered to the wheels – set by Don Vesco in 2001.
Conditions during the weeklong speed meet at Bonneville vary, so the full course used for trials can vary from about 9 miles to about 11 miles. Whatever the full distance, the mile used to determine a record begins a half-mile before the midpoint and ends a half-mile beyond that midpoint.
Warren said if Herbert manages to average 500 mph for that mile, he could be going 520 or more at the end of it since the car will be accelerating continuously. That will all be happening with the ride height mechanically held to about one inch off the surface. “When you're driving a Top Fuel car all you think about when you cross the line is getting it stopped,” he said. “You don't get much time to sort of look around and think, ‘Hey, this is cool!' With this deal, I'll get to enjoy it.”
