The Power Tool Drag Races. May 7th 2006
Ace Auto Dismantlers aka (ACE International Speedway)
2255 Mc Kinnion San Francisco, California.
 

Thor (Inertia Labs)

Oh Boy, here comes those fine folks from Inertia Labs and their new Nitrogen powered new racer. Thor

Reason Bradley and Alexander Rose built (yet another) Fast, Powerful, Pneumatic Racer.

This racer has an all aluminum frame that's welded together and very light weight for its size.
Reason told me the frame alone weighs around 35 lbs or so.

In typical Inertia Labs building style, the racer is kept simple and to the point. I've always admired the way these guys build their toys.

Simple usually means Good Engineering.

I asked their driver (Shane aka Bird) what's it like to drive a pneumatic powered machine. He mentioned it was a bit scary since the machine is fast and the track shut down area is short.
I asked if it had brakes.
He said yes but it would be nice if it stopped a little quicker.
 

Thor is a very unique machine. It uses two tanks filled with Nitrogen pressurized up to 2500 PSI. This enormous amount of stored energy is controlled by a hand actuated valve. The high pressure gas is fed from the valve to two expansion tanks were it expands and the pressure drops to about 1000 PSI.
The other end of the expansion tanks feed the two pneumatic Skill saw motors.
 

The two pneumatic skill saw motors turn chains to the rear drive axle. Keeping in mind that these motors were designed to run at 150 PSI. Pumping 1000 PSI into them is a very serious way to make lots of power and a very high gas flow rate as well.

The Pneumatic Saw motors are Vintage from the last century. I'm not sure what decade.....

The Racer ran very fast due to it's design and the fearlessness of it's driver Shane.

I was told that it had no brakes on the final run of the day. Which is why it hit the barrier at the end of the track. Like I said, Shane was fearless.

No brakes and hitting 34 mph or so in 75 feet, with only 25 feet to stop in, takes a special kind of Man.

I watched the track times closely every time it ran. It was very consistent running about 2.7 to 2.9 seconds in 75 feet. On a clean surface it will probably do better.

These darn guys beat us to win the Funny Car class this year (AGAIN).

So I recently challenged them to a grudge race sometime after the middle of June 2006.
We need to fix our brakes and the clutch and we will be ready for a High Noon Showdown somewhere's in the Bay area.

Congradulations Inertia Labs, you guys ROCK (as always)..

Well until next time, that is ;)
You folks really do know how to break wind.
But I also have a large supply of Gas as well.. :)
 

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