Racefans! Hotrodders!
The
Captain blogged a bit on drag racing and it brought to mind a conceit that I have long held regarding private versus public enterprise. Because the US government achieved such spectacular results by throwing men and money at lofty goals (e.g. fission bombs to win WWII, a man on the moon before the Soviets) many think that such is the best or only way to meet any daunting task. In fact, most government sponsored attempts to tackle tough problems are wastefully inefficient at best and killers of initiative and invention at worst. Here I except the military because that organization actually has to produce and, consequently, is filled with and led by people whose nature it is to do so. Similarly, the aforementioned Manhattan and Apollo Projects were executed by people driven to succeed. In the former the impetus was their own survival while in the latter it was the promise of the stars. Cruel irony it is then that NASA and the pork patrons who feed it are actually a barrier to achieving cheap, regular, space flight. See
Rand Simberg for lots of great stuff on that point.
Anyway, what does drag racing have to do with all this? Let me explain. Growing up on a small ranch in central Florida, I turned out to be a little of a motorhead by necessity; the trucks had to run reliably and economically. Being a teen I naturally perverted this useful knowledge to make my own cars run unreliably and uneconomically (but extremely fast when they did run). One of my heroes was
Don Garlits, whose
Museum of Drag Racing was an hour or two (depending on whether I took my car or one of the trucks) up I-75 near Ocala. I remember watching a retrospective on his career in the early nineties. It seems that when he started in the fifties it was just a bunch of good ole’ boys racing railbuggies on the beach for bragging rights. Top speeds at the end of the runs were exceptional if they were in the three digit range. By the end of his racing days some forty years later, Garlits had earned millions as he and others assailed and broke record after record. Theyused to say 200 mph at the end of the run was impossible. During his long career Garlits shattered the 250 and 300 mph barriers. Along the way he pioneered numerous safety and engineering innovations, from the rear engine (after a shattered flywheel took part of his foot) to streamlining. He even experimented with a gas turbine dragster, which, although it didn’t pan out, was cool. Meanwhile, his colleagues were also breaking records and developing innovations, some, like multiple intake and exhaust valves per cylinder, would eventually trickle down to the daily driver. So while Garlits and his cohorts accomplished much in the comparatively short and ongoing history of drag racing, there was one thing none of them ever did. No one got a penny from the government to make a faster or safer dragster.
OK, yeah I remember the poster of the Navy dragster on the carrier deck, and there is this today, but the government then and now was just a sponsor like Crane Cams or Home Depot or anyone else, with no control over design or operations. Not only did drag racing improve overall automobile performance by pushing the envelope, it did so while creating wealth by building automotive industries to support the sport. And it entertains millions. Corporate partners win because these millions see their logos on the cars they sponsor. Cars that win attract the most sponsorship money so there is constant pressure to improve. This simple recipe of reward for success has generated the constant improvement endemic to drag racing. (BTW Stock car racing severely limits engineering modification and hence that sport has become more about drivers than cars.)
Meanwhile over approximately the same span of time NASA, generously manned and funded, has not similarly transformed. Sure the shuttle is “reuseable,” but only to fit the congressional requirement and as a means to ensure jobs prepping it for the next mission. The best NASA can come up with these days is the “Faster, Better, Cheaper” program in which private sector advances are integrated into design of probes etc. Given the fact that
NASA is a government organization whose priority is continued funding and not building a better rocket, you’ll never get cheaper and probably won’t even get faster. You might get a little better since they are not reinventing so many wheels. The government should shut NASA completely down and outsource its nonmilitary orbital lift requirements. I can’t wait to see a red, white and blue, supermodified single stage to orbit shuttle sporting corporate logos and launching from a mall parking lot near you!
