NHRA 101: How to drive a Turbo Car with Bruno Massel

As someone who’s been around drag racing for quite some time, you can say that it’s pretty crazy how some people perceive the sport and its difficulty. If you have ever stepped into a vehicle and try to make it go faster in a quarter or eighth mile, you know that it’s a lot easier said than done.

To someone who’s trying to prove a point and really has no idea of what they’re talking about, they legitimately think that you just hop into a car, pound the accelerator, and rocket your way to record times. However, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.

Even beyond being able to get your car set up just right for the task at hand which is definitely a long haul, being able to drive your car is an entirely different skillset altogether. You don’t exactly just pull up to the line and stomp the throttle but instead, with something like a turbo car in this situation, you get to see exactly how complicated something like this might just be. In addition to worrying about what the person in the next lane over is doing, you also have to figure out how to get your car in the beams just right before launching it and trying to get your tires to catch just the right amount of traction with the surface beneath them.

If you follow along with the video below, you’ll get to take a ride along with Bruno Massel as he takes the opportunity to explain to you how exactly he launches his turbo car. We guarantee that, after watching this one, if you originally thought that something like this would be considered easy, well, you’ll probably change your insight just a little bit as you learn what it takes to get a car like this down the track consistently.