Living life 300 feet at a time, flinging sand the whole way.BY JEFFREY N. ROSSFEB 11, 2014
When it comes to off-road racing, we’d generally prefer to pilot a Subaru WRX, a Ford Raptor, or whatever dirtbike we could find lying around, but after watching the antics going on at the Dome Valley Raceway, our budget for playing in the dirt has skyrocketed. Apparently, this Wellton, AZ track is one of the fastest in the country for sand drag racing, and Dennis Rieck helped prove why last year.
Rieck took an NHRA Top Fuel dragster powered by a 7000-hp, 500-cubic-inch Hemi V8 and added special paddle tires to run on sand. The video probably doesn’t come close to giving the car, known as ‘Hammerdown,’ the justice it deserves, but it took just 2.16 seconds to run the full 300 feet of the track, all while throwing up monster roostertails we’d commonly associate with hydroplane racing. According to Rieck, this time is the fastest in sand drag history.
