Zaventem, Belgium. March 2008

Here’s an interesting business objective, one that in many ways seems perversely out-of-kilter with the rest of mankind, increasingly pre-occupied with the possibility of its own self-annihilation: Build the meanest, most single-purpose vehicle you can conceive to travel the quarter of a mile from point A to point B as quickly as humanly and mechanically possible. Repeat. Indefinitely.

As business objectives go, it doesn’t appear to make much commercial sense. Firstly, it consumes money marginally less efficiently than if you took a match to a pile of bank notes. It’s been said that if you want to accrue a small fortune in motor sport then start with a large one, which is particularly true in drag racing (where the returns are the only things that move slowly).

Secondly, it risks human life to achieve what, exactly? Surely, as our moment of environmental reckoning looms, we have more important things to be doing with our time and engineering creativity? Is it possible to justify drag racing – or any motor sport, for that matter – given the environmental challenges we face as a species? Well, yes, it probably is.

Arguably, humans learn most about themselves from the games they play. Businesses of all shapes and sizes look to sports for the inspiration they need to achieve their particular goals (as I write this, in Amsterdam airport, I’m overlooked by the image of a certain well-known golfer imploring me to find my inner Tiger). Drag racing provides a model for focus, determination and guts; exactly the same qualities business owners and managers need to succeed in their own endeavours, whatever their goals may be.

Here’s another reason why engineers and technologists can draw inspiration from drag racing: Fire breathing, 3000bhp ‘funny cars.’ Similar ones, in fact, to those developed and built by Sweden’s 2006 FIA European champions Leanders Brothers Racing, whose vehicles run on renewable, sustainable Methanol. Take that, Prius drivers.

Granted, the Leanders car is hardly fuel efficient, typically using 20 litres to produce a run lasting less than 6 seconds (but that does include the burnout, where the driver warms the tyres by spinning the rear wheels until they all but ignite).

Methanol burns cleaner than gasoline as well, so it at least helps to offset some of the noxious gases produced by the gratuitous incineration of rubber. Methanol is a close relative of Ethanol, both of which have octane numbers more than 30 or so points greater than regular gasoline. What makes Methanol the fuel of choice for the likes of the Haas sponsored Leanders brothers is its suitability for high-compression ratio engines, meaning it’s ideal for 10,000rpm, V8 monsters. That, and the fact that you can use water to extinguish the fire when it ignites. Yes, when.

But let’s back-up for a minute. Two brothers working alone in a Swedish barn, FIA European champions 2006? How did that happen?

“All competition vehicles are built from NHRA or FIA-approved parts,” explains Ulf Leanders, younger brother and the team’s designated driver, “so the equipment is similar. That way, well-financed individuals can’t just enter the sport and clean up by throwing money around.”

Rich newcomers quickly realize that it’s not a sport that permits overnight success. “They get bored and leave,” says Ulf. “It’s a very even playing field.”

Velvet slippers

Unless you’re a space shuttle pilot (or a drag racer) you probably can’t imagine accelerating from 0-60mph in less than 1 second or, for that matter, 0-250mph in less than 6 seconds.

“It takes a year or two to get used to the violence of the first couple of seconds,” continues Ulf. “During that time, you’re not really driving, you’re just holding on and keeping the throttle pressed to the floor.” Which is made easier by the fact that there’s a metal stirrup over the pedal. ‘My foot slipped’ is no excuse.

Driving skills and endurance aside, the biggest challenge is getting the power down. Since electronic launch controls are banned – another way of ensuring wealthy teams can’t just walk all over those with smaller budgets – it’s down to a slipper clutch to transfer power quickly and smoothly.

“A slipper clutch partially disengages to regulate the amount of engine power delivered to the wheels,” says older Leander Jörgen, who’s responsible for all the clever engineering. “However, because the clutch uses friction to do its job, the pads are prone to serious wear, so we need to be able to quickly strip and reassemble the clutch, often between runs.”

In most racing situations, clutches are made in aluminum so they’re as small and light as possible. In F1 cars, for example, they’re designed to last just long enough to get the car to the end of the race: drivers often have to nurse the clutch if the race is restarted or if the car is stationary longer than usual. Bolted steel segments help to dissipate the heat, but they flex and bend and can quickly fail. In drag racing, the clutch has to be built to transfer a huge and violent surge of power, so the aluminum is replaced with titanium, which is tougher but heavier.

The Leanders’ clutch uses a floating-plate system in place of bolted segments, which improves heat dissipation and makes it easier to take apart and rebuild after a run.

In the corner of the Leanders’ workshop, surrounded by glass fibre vehicle body parts and semi-used balloon tyres, sits a brand new Haas EC400 horizontal machining centre, on loan to Leanders Brothers racing as part of the sponsorship deal. Bolted to the table block is the base of a half-finished clutch.

“We mill just about everything on the clutch except the bolts and some small axels that hold the fingers and the adjusting screws,” says Jörgen. “The aluminum [we use] is Alumec,” a relatively hardwearing tool-making aluminum with good machining characteristics and low-weight. “We also machine quite a lot of coated titanium, as well as tool steel for the fingers. The facings and floaters are made from regular carbon steel.”

The Leanders clutch is a new project; one that the team hopes will give them the split second advantage they need to retain their title in 2008.

Typically sanguine Jörgen is unphased by the engineering challenge of designing and making parts, as well as learning to operate a CNC machine tool. “The Haas is very easy to use,” he says. “It was making parts the day after it was installed. We currently only operate the Haas for around 100 hours a month, but if the regulating body in San Diego approves the clutch, we’ll be using it a lot more and maybe, ultimately, will even sell our product to other teams.”

Zen drag racing

Some businesses look pointless to some people, but make a great deal of sense to others. At a typical drag race meet, hundreds of enthusiasts line the quarter of a mile stretch of asphalt, many of whom are engineers. Not necessarily the high forehead types who work for NASA or IBM, but the gritty, often self-taught types who run machine shops – doing clever things with metal and machine tools.

Besides offering thunderous entertainment to a minority fan base, what can drag racing teach businesses beyond clever engineering? In his best selling book, Mastery, author George Leonard uses Zen philosophy and the sport of Aikido to illustrate how long-term success and fulfilment only comes with long-term dedication to what you do. He accuses Western business and industry of being guilty of short-termism, a trait he considers to be the enemy of mastery.

Leonard urges readers to forever practice what they do and even to ‘love the plateaus,’ embracing them as learning opportunities, instead of always seeking instant gratification. The only way to win in drag racing is, as defined by the very nature of the sport, to keep doing the same thing over and over again, obsessing about the detail until you make progress. Strange as it seems, drag racing could be considered a Zen discipline, albeit a very loud one.

Philosophers like Leonard tell us that whatever it is you do, keep doing it until you do it incredibly well. Focus. Don’t get sidetracked and do something silly like start an interior design business, when really your strength lies elsewhere. Keep doing what you do and, the Zen masters say, success will most likely follow. You may only be a small, two-man drag-racing team based in the frozen north of Scandinavia, but with the right tools, long winters and, we can only assume, very poor national TV, anything is possible.

Words by Matt Bailey

Tue 1st April 2008