''Wynns Stormer'' is a
streamliner
A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating wikt:streamline, streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor "High-speed rail, bullet trai ...
dragster.
Built in 1972 by
Woody Gilmore Woody Gilmore is a dragster and funny car chassis builder in the 1960s and 1970s.
Gilmore built the chassis for the top fuel streamliner '' Hustler VI'' in 1965.
In 1968, Doug Thorley bought a rear-engined Javelin funny car from Gilmore, pow ...
(who also produced
Don Prudhomme
Don Prudhomme (born April 6, 1941 in San Fernando, California), nicknamed "The Snake", is an American drag racer.
He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1991.
Racing career
Prudhomme crewed for "TV Tommy" Ivo on Ivo's ...
's wedge
digger), on a Woody
chassis
A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...
, the car had bicycle front wheels and dropped front axle, a very pointed nose, and an engine cover with broad, wedge-like fairings over the exhaust pipes, ahead of the rear tires; the fairings sloped steeply from track level to the top of the tires.
In theory, the wedge body offered an aerodynamic advantage, decreasing turbulent airflow over the rear wheels, as well as increasing
downforce
Downforce is a downwards lift force created by the aerodynamic features of a vehicle. If the vehicle is a car, the purpose of downforce is to allow the car to travel faster by increasing the vertical force on the tires, thus creating more grip. ...
; in practise, the extra weight exceeded any advantage.
Driven by Kenney Goodell (nicknamed "Action Man"), the car turned in routine 6.67 second e.t.s, no better than Goodell's contemporary
funny car
Funny Car is a type of drag racing vehicle and a specific racing class in organized drag racing. Funny cars are characterized by having tilt-up fiberglass or carbon fiber automotive bodies over a custom-fabricated chassis, giving them an appea ...
(and so much higher than competing T/F dragsters).
[Taylor, p.38.]
Notes
Sources
*Taylor, Thom. "Beauty Beyond the Twilight Zone" in ''Hot Rod'', April 2017, pp. 30–43.
Individual cars
1970s cars
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
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