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By
George The High Cost of Drag Racing By George Klass
And then there is the
cost of the fuel (gasoline or diesel). This morning I filled up
the gas tank on my Taurus (15 gallons of 87-octane).
At $2.89 a gallon (this is California you know), it came to $43.35.
My first car (a ’29 Ford Model-A roadster with a 59AB flathead)
didn’t cost $43 to buy. “$43.”
I’m going to write it out (Forty Three Dollars) just because it’s
so unbelievable. My Taurus (even with the
extra spiffy 24-valve double throw down, triple whammy motor, gets great
mileage. 24 or 25 MPG in
town and coming home from Lake Tahoe last weekend, driving 75 mph down
I-80 to Sacramento and then I-5 south to Bakersfield (413 miles between
Tahoe City and the bottom of the Grape Vine), with the A/C cranked up
high (it was 109 degrees in Bakersfield) and Bob Dylan’s “Oh Mercy” turned
up loud, it only took 14 gallons to fill her back up to the brim.
That’s 29.5 MPG. I don’t think that the mileage in your F-350 dually pulling
your 48-foot goose neck will
be quite that good. Like I said, I don’t
know how you guys do it. Let me tell you about my
Taurus (2004). Of course,
since it’s mine, I don’t drive it the same as when I was going to the
FFW events and renting these things from Hertz.
For instance, at no time since I’ve owned my car have I tried entering
it in a motorcross event. My Taurus rentals did OK in motorcross.
I never won one but I finished in the top 10 a couple of times.
I can assure that the bikers in front of me were VERY cautious
to NOT fall off their bikes when they knew I was right behind them. But, I digress. In all the years I rented
a Taurus, I never once looked under the hood.
I never saw a Taurus engine before buying my car, which I have
come to find out is a V-6 with 4-valves per cylinder (it says so on the
front fenders). When the
dealer (Leonard Woods, owner of Chino Hills Ford – yes, that Leonard Woods,
from the Stone, Woods & Cook Willys Gasser fame) first showed me the
engine, I thought there was something drastically wrong.
It had 3 exhaust ports facing the radiator and 3 more facing the
firewall. Leonard then went
on to explain that the engine was installed sideways in the chassis.
Most peculiar. Leonard
is an old man like me and we both just stared at the damn thing and shook
our heads. I told Leonard to just
close the hood and to continue putting “the deal” together, which he
was most happy to do. My
Taurus was “loaded” as they say (and so was I apparently).
The price on the sticker was $28,750. After
the Paramedics came to revive me, I shared with Leonard that my first
house was not much more than that (in
1970), and I didn’t feel that I wanted to have to live in a Taurus for
the remainder of my life. Leonard was understanding
(he’s an ex-drag racer, obviously) and asked me if $18,000 would be a
fair number, to which I responded, “let’s do it”. $18,000 still seems a
little steep to me, but maybe not, especially when you compare the price
of the Taurus to the price of a gallon of gas. But, as I say, I love
this car. I regularly go up against BMW’s (the ultimate driving
machine?) and blow them away, and I suspect that a 2004 BMW (Broke My
Wallet) probably costs more
than $18,000. So, my advice is this.
Go get yourself an F-350 crew cab dually and your 48-foot fifth-wheel
trailer, and spend oodles of money on your race car, but for regular driving,
get yourself a Taurus with 24-valves (don’t worry about the sideways motor),
leather interior with wood grained fake stuff on the dash and the steering
wheel, a moon roof and all of the other super trick paraphernalia, and
keep your eyes peeled for any BMW’s in your neighborhood. BMW owners hate it when
they get stomped by a Taurus, and that alone is worth the $18 K. |
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I
just wanted you to know, drag racing is expensive.
© Competitionplus 2005
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