Check Out That Glow! The Brakes Get Hot When A 3,300 Pound Nova Lost It’s Chutes On A 200 MPH Pass

Sometimes bad things happen, no matter how prepared you are. Limited Drag Radial record holder Justin Martin learned that lesson last fall at No Mercy 8, and the guys at Motion Raceworks just happened to have a camera under the car to show what happens when you have the best components on your car in case of disaster.

Martin lost the chutes on his car after laying down a pass in the 4.teen range at over 185 MPH. While there is quite a bit of shutdown at South Georgia Motorsports Park, when you’re behind the wheel of a 3,300 pound car traveling at nearly 190 MPH, things get hairy pretty quickly. Martin jumped all over the brake pedal, expecting the brakes to slow the car, then fade and leave him with little in the way of stopping power.

Thankfully, he installed brakes from TBM, which just happen to have a “state of the art design that allows thermal efficiency and the incredible clamping force of the TBM calipers created no brake fade and allowed this car to race another day” according to the caption on this video, posted to the Motion Raceworks Facebook page.

“On a traditional round steel plate rotor, the heat differential from top to bottom on the rotor face under braking causes them to bevel over and/or warp,” the caption continues. “The shape of TBM’s revolution rotor is designed to have a consistent thermal cross section as you can see in this video (there are no hot spots), equalizing the temperature as the rotors heat up. This is what allows their rotors to stay flat (not taper or curl) and live longer than a tradition round plate rotor.”

What all this means is, despite the tremendous strain put on the brakes by the loss of the chutes, Martin was able to get the car stopped safely and come back to continue his run through eliminations. That, my friends, is some cool science!

 

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