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Taboo
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Exploring the cheating heart methods of nitrous oxide |
By Bobby Bennett, Jr. |
We’ve all seen the “Dukes of Hazzard” where Bo and Luke Duke needed to escape the police pursuit and push the special button to get that extra boost of horsepower. That secret button as portrayed in Hollywood has always been alive and well in drag racing, and not limited to the classes in which it was made legal in after the 1980s. It often migrated into other not-so-legal arenas, ranging from the sportsman class racing ranks to the nitro divisions and often made a stop in the Pro Stock class. Mike Thermos helped to cultivate the nitrous community and bring a great deal of respect and legitimacy to the product along the way. Several years ago, Thermos sold off his product line to Holley Performance Products and entered a life of retirement. However, his days yielded many memories of his involvement. Nothing stirs his memories more than the days when he was perceived as peddling a product designed for Outlaw applications.
There’s no doubt that in the days before the American Hot Rod Association the use of nitrous oxide as a power adder in drag racing applications was considered taboo. So “hush-hush” was nitrous oxide that Thermos and his Nitrous Oxide Systems company adopted the early slogan “Let’s Cheat.” Thermos always felt that nitrous oxide was misunderstood, much like nitromethane. The largest detractor is that it was something that just wasn’t talked about and essentially was given a bad rep before it had a chance to be developed in the motorsports industry, whether it was circle-track or drag racing applications. “In those days, Smokey Yunick even used nitrous in some applications,” confided Thermos. “I couldn’t say whether or not it was used in NASCAR. But there was testimony in some books about how he’d come out of turn three or four and crank the bottle on and squirt nitrous oxide in. I think that was in the Supercar though.” Nitrous became such an impressive force in the old days of AHRA Pro Stock that it migrated into the legal categories (Pro Stock, Class Racing, Nitro Classes) and while it may have been considered going against the spirit of the rulebook, it wasn’t always stated as illegal. Thermos was quick to point out that it had always been around, even before the AHRA days. “We had just started NOS,” recalled Thermos. “It wasn’t really described as being illegal. Many just kept it hush-hush because they didn’t want their competitors to know about it. There wasn’t that much discussion of it and everyone knew in standard applications that if you squirted it in the motor that it would run fast for about several hundred yards and burn the motor up. We learned as we went along that it needed more fuel to gain more power. Thermos was one of several parties responsible for lobbying the AHRA to make nitrous legal in drag racing applications. Without a lot of scrutiny in searching for nitrous, drag racers didn’t have to be as creative in masking their usage, as they would have to today.
“I like that term ‘creative’,” added Thermos. “There was some usage in Top Fuel and we even used it in our Funny Car. Raymond Beadle had some of the first nitrous in his Funny Car. A few other guys like Dale Emery; we helped them to put their nitrous systems in. What you have to understand is that it was only there to help the fuel burn better. There was nothing illegal about it.” Other racing entities such as Billy Meyer and Austin Coil used it, according to Thermos. One racer that was alleged to have used nitrous in his nitro Funny Car was Don Prudhomme. Thermos pointed out that never to his knowledge did Prudhomme use his product in his Funny Car, even though his 5.63 at Indy in the early-Eighties seemed too good to be true. The rumor started when crewchief Bob Brandt appeared to turn on a bottle of nitrous prior to the run. Thermos points out that Brandt’s actions were a deception and he never turned on a bottle. “Bob Brandt was a friend of mine and he had a car on the street that had nitrous on it,” recalled Thermos. “He lived up in Van Nuys, Ca., and was always coming around. He showed up at Indy and had one of the bottles on the side of the trailer with his equipment. The pressure regulator was coming out of the bottle and into the fuel pump.
“I went over and looked.” Thermos continued. “He wouldn’t ever admit to what it was, but said it was top secret. I watched the crewmember before the car stage, fake turning the bottle. I saw it. I kept that to myself. The car went out there and ran strong to the half-track. It ran like a scalded dog, but it also let the pistons go too. He ran .2 quicker than the field. Nitrous was credited, but it also got a bad rap because he blew the motor up. I think he was doing a lot of other stuff with bigger fuel pumps and a shorter cam. “One thing we need to remember is that Indy was the premiere track then and people just naturally ran quicker there.” In the Seventies, Thermos recalled some Super Stock racers that used nitrous, although he would not call any names. He says there were some “creative” engine designs. One such racer had a piece of PCV valve and there was a piece of tubing and had the bottle mounted on the body and following the run, he’d remove the line. Thermos recalled that the racer would use it off of the line just enough to get the nose out ahead of the competition. The speed wouldn’t change, but the elapsed time would improve.
The sportsman ranks played host to a lot of the infractions, which often consisted of nitrous being routed through heater lines and stuff like that. As Thermos pointed out, “There were a lot of parts sold, but how they were used, I couldn’t tell ya.” Thermos would never admit that any Pro Stock teams purchased nitrous with intent to defraud the class. However, he did say that some purchased the product for use on their street vehicles. The veteran nitrous magnate did go on to say that one would be amazed at what a .030 shot of nitrous could do for an entry.
Thermos has heard it all over the years. He once heard of someone hiding their nitrous in a fire bottle. The traditional fire bottle is rated between 150 to 200 psi while nitrous bottles often go 1800 and up. Common sense dictates that when nitrous is put in a bottle it has the tendency to expand. Such was the case and the resulting explosion was not pretty.
Another good hiding spot has been in the oil sump and once again the end results were not pretty. The moral of that story is that sumps heat up and they are not designed for extreme amounts of pressure either. Nitrous bottles also have a tendency to become dangerous when accidents happen, as Thermos recalled an incident when a bottle broke a valve during the filling process in chassis builder Jerry Bickel’s shop and launched like a rocket. Of course there’s the urban legend of one Pro Stock team that exploded a nitrous bottle and it came down in the pit area of a team that many had suspected of using the illegal substance. One team reportedly, a little under a decade ago, plumbed nitrous into their own Pro Stocker and slipped through tech. The team then picked up a tenth in performance and when it was all said and done, turned themselves in to prove a point. Drag racing is not the only hot bed of illegal nitrous usage, as Thermos received a call from Indy car officials letting him know that he better warn any offenders that they will be policing heavy. Reluctantly, Thermos admitted that NASCAR teams had contacted him during his days at NOS about his product. He refused to elaborate.
Thermos gets a chuckle at the notion of being a tech official, but contends that he would be a good one. He doesn’t offer a first place to look, as infractions can be anywhere. Naturally, the first point of inspection would be any lines leading into the carburetor or anything touching the motor, for that matter. He would also check the bellhousing, the cam and in fact the hood scoop would be a prime location. Thermos is quick to point out that it doesn’t have to be directly connected to the motor, but just has to be in the region.
“I remember one guy had something in the hood scoop,” Thermos said with a chuckle. “This guy was racing sprint cars and when his fellow racers protested him, he obliged the teardown and even removed the hood himself. They never found a thing. The nitrous was in the hood scoop. The electrical conductors were the hood pins.” Thermos laughs and even suggests nitrous “Ice Cubes.” Thermos has said that the potential to use nitrous on a supercharged Pro Modified is there, but nitromethane is a more likely way to slip by the tech inspectors. There are telltale signs to suggest someone is not on the up and up. The most obvious is a driver that greatly distances himself from a tightly bunched field and that is usually policed by the racers themselves. Secondly, a driver without a reputation of going fast steps up and becomes a player on an inconsistent basis. The incremental times are a good lie detector as well. An excessively rich mixture can be a sign as well. Many have gotten smart enough to not use it at the finish line.
Sometimes there are those that need a little more common sense before traveling this life of fraud. “There was this one guy out here when they ran the track at Riverside and he was well behind everyone in practice,” recalled Thermos. “Well the guy ended up hitting a hay bale in practice. After practice, he hooked up his nitrous and there was some hay that had gotten into the line and become lodged. This guy didn’t know it. He went out there and outqualified Richard Petty and when he came in his car was hissing. As tech officials walked up, the realized the car was leaking nitrous. It wasn’t like he could hide it, everything was frozen on the upper side of the motor.”
Thermos feels that there’s a lot of integrity in Pro Stock and the class has become so competitive that it is almost impossible to cheat. Some might say that nitrous is a way of the past to get past the rules, but where there’s a will there’s a way. With the advent of electronics, there have become more ingenious ways to act above the law of the land. He thinks racers should get credit for being creative. His assessment is, “If they get past tech with it, they should be allowed to keep it. I think on the drag strip is where nitrous belongs. It’s a product that is designed for the ultimate acceleration and it is ridiculous for it not to be accepted.” When it was all said and done, Thermos best summed up our article by borrowing a line from Bob Dylan, “To live outside the law one must be honest.”
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