The World's Most INSANE Dragster

The Jade Warrior was created by a guy called Angus MacPhail, an engineer who had worked on projects like the GT40. Yeah you heard that right, he was part of the design team behind (probably) the most iconic GT car ever.

And he worked with Mike Hand, an extremely skilled machinist.

McFail fitted the bike with a huge supercharger and a torque converter to drive the rear wheel. This is something that you would find in a traditional road car, automatic gearbox, not like the other race clutches that other top fuel dragsters were using at the time.

It meant that Ag could keep the weight down, and also only use a single gear. But it came with it’s compromises.

The way it works is that you have two discs, within an oil. One is attached to the engine and one to the drivetrain. So the engine could idle, with the driven disc spinning and the wheels stationary. But when the revs pick up, the driven disc actually spins the oil so much that it begins to sprin the driven disc - giving you torque to the rear wheels.

And at high revs, the discs actually become effectively locked together!

This was a simple and light solution - but one that had it’s drawbacks.

The Jade Warrior took part in the 'Top Fuel' category, competing with bikes that looked like this.

They were able to hit 155mph by the end of the strip and often used two engines, with one in front of the other!

They produced between 400 and 500 horsepower and were fitted to specially modified, and much longer, bike chassis'.

Now, drag bikes look like this with Larry McBride setting the record of 5.83 seconds over an eighth-mile and hitting 232mph before deploying the parachutes!

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[ClaireSeverino-tnty]

So very proud of this man, an inspiration to so many, forever in my heart and always in my thoughts Rest in Peace DAD.
I love seeing these clips from the early 80's and have many fond memories of watching Dad race at Santa Pod.

[k_]

truly worthy of the label "insane". incredible ingenuity of engineering and solid adamantium balls driving that sled of hell

[AwesomePhysio]

My Uncle Ag.

He and my Dad, Nick MacPhail, worked together on Jade Warrior (my dad went on to race his mini powered by nitro methane).

Ag sadly died at the beginning of the pandemic, and my dad died last year from heart problems.

If you'd like to see more, I have some videos and photos of both of them, I'm sure I can send some your way.

[ateague]

Rest in peace to the mad genius Angus MacPhail

[Duvstep]

super cool piece of kit. Also you never really see how wide F1 tires are until they are on anything but an F1 car lol

[Boyso]

Can you imagine what it must look like at 200 mph only a couple inches off the ground. That’s insane.

[davestagner]

This makes me think of one of my favorite engineering moments, when I was a kid. I grew up around motorcycle drag racing in the 1970s. Back then, top fuel bikes were two or three engine fuel injected monsters. Then some team came up with a bike running a single Honda 750 engine, with a tiny supercharger from a European sports car. People laughed at them. They were always the slowest bike, by multiple seconds - if it ran at all. Then one day, in Bowling Green Kentucky, there was a huge rainstorm. I remember holding up dad’s bike in the lane to race, with water running past my ankles. There were thunderstorms all night. By the next morning, temps had dropped 30 degrees, from scorching heat to cool humidity. And that little Honda went out and SHATTERED the record. And then shattered it again. I think the speed record jumped like 0.3 seconds that day - an astonishing feat. It was the meteor landing on the dinosaurs. Within three or four years, multi-engine bikes were totally obsolete, and single-engine supercharged machines ruled.

[olivertoeknuckleiii]

F1 and IndyCar used to allow ‘outside the box’ thinking and engineering. While the racing was not always exciting, the engineering was totally insane! Only the geeks amongst us could appreciate and understand the concepts that were presented. I wish there were still racing platforms that allowed this kind of eccentricity to exist.

[mrblablablabla]

How exactly did they manage to overcome the massive inertia of the giant-sized testicles required to drive this terror machine?

[catastrophic]

That's incredible you got the interview before he passed away. The story has now been immortalized for all time <3

[mattjohnson]

Wow what a Legend Angus A of a kind. Could do anything. Those types are very rare.

[mikedrop]

Can you imagine building something like that and then saying yeah, I'd ride that.

[bodanerius]

Thanks for redoing the video with updated info and interview. It was an awesome machine and I would love to see more innovations like this in motorsport. Its sorely missing.

❤❤❤

[TrevorDennis]

It puts me in mind of Kiwi John Britten with his V1000 racing motorcycle. I never saw it race, but every time I go to Te Papa — New Zealand's most important and largest museum where the V1000 now resides — I spend some time looking closely at the bike.

[Tminus]

Interesting piece of machinery, I always like unique, far out projects like this. Other crazy stories are quite welcome :)

[Anonnymouse]

I didn't go until until the very late 90's, hell maybe it was even the early 2000's. But the old heads still talked about that bike like it was tearing up the strip yesterday.
Without meaning to do it any kind of injustice (since those guys were obviously very, very talented), there's something to the "blokes in a shed with indominable will" vibe that just can't be replicated today. Though I know it was way more than fellas in a shed.
It's crazy to think how much they achieved with an idea, determination, perseverance & hard work.
The fact we're even still talking about it now says enough, even though progress never stops.

[radders]

I've been to santa pod & fast jet airshows many times and the drag bikes have been not only the loudest, but also the most bone shaking moments of joy!

What a legend.

[Bambihunter]

Glad you were able to get the interview recorded for history.

[deltavee]

Never heard of it but now that I've seen it I'll never forget it, nor Angus. Thanks for the treat!

[MrRexquando]

The collector does not work by creating a vacuum and the venturi effect. There is NO throat in the collector it opens to a larger diameter pipe. It works by fluid momentum with the exhaust high pressure charges gaining fluid momentum and pulling the charge behind it in the collector.