Brittany Force Loses Blower Pulley Mid Pass, Pulley Rolls The Rest Of The Way

Physics are pretty amazing, especially when you’re talking about some of the insane forces and speeds involved in propelling a car from a standing start to 330 MPH in less than 4 seconds in just 1,000 feet.

We’ve looked at slow motion footage of things like explosions and the insane tire distortion that top fuel dragsters and funny cars deal with on any given pass down the track, but at last weekend’s Reading Nationals, the Fox Sports cameras were able to capture something totally different, and thanks to their awesome skills behind the camera, we are treated to a great close-up look!

During qualifying for the race, Brittany Force’s Advance Auto Parts-sponsored dragster pitched the blower pulley clean off the car, sending it out into the air beside the car, before it was sucked back behind it by the turbulence created by the massive rear wing. According to veteran NHRA pro announcer Alan Reinhardt, the blower is 50% overdriven and, to continue with his example, that would have the pulley spinning at around 12,000 RPM, assuming the engine were to be spinning at 8,000 rev’s per minute.

Needless to say, allowing for even a large error, which I highly doubt the venerable Mr. Reinhardt would make, this thing came off spinning angrily! You can clearly see as the pulley bounces that it digs into the concrete surface, slinging a small cloud of concrete dust each time it pings off the ground. Not just once or twice, mind you, this thing bounced several times, maintaining most of its rotational speed as it skipped along behind the car.

There’s no visible indicator that anything else in the engine broke, so hopefully the only thing that needed to be replaced was the pulley itself. As far as what caused it to exit the car stage left, nothing so far has been assigned blame other than it was just time for it to go.