Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Thanks for the update! I hope Rod allows it to run Nitrous this year, so it cna be competitve.
Last time it WAS competitive, they ran Nitrous. They'd never conform it, but the Nitrous truck always stopped by the pits shortly after the plane landed while Lyle owned and raced it. The exhaust also turned dirty brown in the last 2 - 3 laps ... so I have a STRONG suspicion they ran Nitrous Oxide.
It will need more than just No2 to be competitive with today's dominant Mustangs....even the fastest Rare Bear version ever wouldn't be able to run with the likes of Strega, Voodoo, Precious Metal, and Dago Red (when it was still in racing form)....team Rare Bear will need a miracle...
Looking at the past results, Strega is the only P-51 to regularly beat Rare Bear.
Maybe regularly, but in recent years Rare Bear hasn't even been competitive, while the Mustangs just keep getting faster. Dago Red and Strega have both run over 500 MPH laps, with Dago holding the record at 507...something Rare Bear has never done. Voodoo and PM are also getting faster, I expect to see Voodoo running close to, or over 500 MPH this year as well....team Rare Bear is going to have to pull off some kind of miracle to run with these Mustangs...
Dago Red runs a boost of 75 psig or 150 inches of mercury. This is three times the Merlins authorised war time boost on 150PN. There is probably enough jet thrusting there to fly the aircraft quite fast without the propeller. I reckon there is at least 900lbs there.
The Bearcat was not designed for the R-3350 and Rare Bear is te only Bearcat to be so converted.
I was there when Stevo Hinton ran a lap at 512+ mph, so 507 cannot be the lap record unless the course was changed from previous years before he ran that speed. Don't think so. I believe they changed it after the Jimmy Leeward crash in 2011 and Stevo's fast laps had been run on it.