The "Steam Powered Digger"
It was the late 60's at Norwalk drag way in Northern Ohio I
believe. Arfon brothers were there with a sleek looking small racer about 10 to
12 feet long. It was a very low profile design with at lay down driver seating
position. The race car was a tubular frame with a fiberglass shell around it.
It looked like a mini Indy 500 racer. The race car had a large tank at the rear
and a divergent nozzle at the back of the tank. The tank was full of water, and
there were several external torches that were visible around the tank. They
were super-heating the water. The tank was sealed so that the water could not
boil. There was a driver controlled valve between the tank and the nozzle to
let the water shoot out when the driver hit the the throttle.
When water is super-heated in a sealed container, it does not boil. However the
internal pressure goes way up. When a valve is opened, the water will shoot
out, instantly forming steam. For every action, there is an opposite reaction.
When the water shoots out, the race car is shot forward. The acceleration of
the race car would be dependent on the pressure and volume of water that was
released. The act of changing from liquid to steam would cause an enormous
velocity of water out the nozzle. As a result, an enormous amount of thrust
would occur.
A couple weeks before that the car ran over 180. The Arfons said that they super
heated the water somewhere around 125 degs. over boiling temp. (to the best of
my recollection).
This race day the water was super-heated 400 deg. over boiling.
I was at 2/3rds track. They towed the race car to the starting line. Removed
some safety pins on the throttle. The safety pins were there because the crew
believed that the thrust was enough to launch the race car air born if a mistake
was made before the race car was pointed in the right direction. They were all
nervous.
The race car was staged at the starting line of the race track by the crew. The
crew backed away. Then the driver hit the valve and a huge wall of steam shot
out behind the race car. It was like the huge wall of white water behind an
unlimited hydroplane race boot doing 200 mph.
There was no noise. The race car shot forward like a nothing I had ever seen.
I estimate it got to the eighth mile (half track) in about 2 to 3 sec. As the
race car passed me, it went out of control and flipped up-side-down, It went
through the finish line at 6.09 sec. at over 170.
At that time the fastest wheel driven dragster was probably in the mid to high
6's. This performance achievement shattered any quarter mile time that I had
heard about.
The driver was OK and I never heard about the race car again.
Bob Szabo
bob@racecarbook.com
